1912] Swarth : Birds and Mammals from Vancouver Island 107 



was at noon, in the hot sunshine, and it was the third we had 

 seen in three days feeding in the middle of the day. 



The three secured here all had their stomachs filled with 

 grass. The vegetation was just coming up at this altitude, where 

 the spring growth was much later than in the lowlands, and there 

 were quantities of rank, green grass everywhere. 



These bears are in remarkably fine pelage, considering the 

 season, being almost like winter skins. The outer hair is from 

 four to five inches long, over the entire animal, and there is 

 fairly thick under fur. Despard informed me that the lowland 

 animals were at this season thin-haired and of shabby appear- 

 ance, and that their skins had no commercial value. The differ- 

 ences in environment seem to be the cause of the variation, for 

 though the weather was exceedingly hot in the lowlands at this 

 season, at the altitude where these bears were collected the snow 

 still lay deep on the ground, and much of it would probably 

 remain throughout the year. 



On August 17 I saw one on the shore of Great Central Lake ; 

 on the following day another was observed near the head of the 

 lake. 



The skins obtained, and others seen, were all black, and I was 

 told that the brown phase was unknown on the island. 



Although I have provisionally referred these bears to Ursus 

 americanus amcricaiuts, which they seem to resemble more nearly 

 than they do the various western subspecies, judging from pub- 

 lished descriptions, it is possible that comparison with material 

 from eastern North America would show that they are a distinct 

 form; especially so as an apparently well-marked race occurs in 

 the intervening area on the adjacent mainland. The Vancouver 

 Island bear is not at all like U. a. altifrontalis (Elliot, 1903, p. 

 234) from Washington, which it might be expected to resemble. 

 The skulls at hand have not the tall, rounded forehead of that 

 form, but in their superior outline closely resemble specimens 

 from the Alaskan mainland (Yakutat Bay and Kenai Peninsula). 

 They differ from these constantly in greater proportional width 

 (zygomatic width) and in larger size of the teeth. In the latter 

 characters they approach the southeastern Alaska island form 

 pugnax, differing from that again in the same degree as they 

 resemble the Yakutat Bay and Kenai Peninsula specimens. 



