AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



121 



GRISLY BEAR. 

 URSUS HORRIBILIS. 



[Plate XL] 



Grisly Bear. Mackenzie, voyages, fyc. 160. — Grisly, 

 brown, white, and variegated Bear. Lewis & Clark 

 — Grizzly Bear. Warden's United States. Godman 

 Nat. Hist. i. p. 131. — TJrsus Horrihilis. Ord. Say. 

 Expedit. to the Rocky Mountains, ii. p. 52. — Ursus 

 Cinereus. Desm. Mammal. — TJrsus Ferox. Lewis & 

 Clark. Richarbson. Faun. Am. bar. 24. — Ursus 

 Candescens. Hamilton Smith. Griffith's and King. 

 ii. p. 229. & 5. No. 320. — Peale's Museum. 



The Grisly Bear belongs to a division of the carnivora, 

 which, although far less sanguinary than the other groups 

 of his formidable order, and endowed with a faculty of 

 wholly subsisting on vegetable food, nevertheless contains 

 some of the largest and most powerful of the destructive 

 mammalia. This division, which comprehends several 

 very closely allied genera, is termed Plantigrade, the indi- 

 viduals comprising it treading on the whole sole of the foot, 

 thus enabling them to raise and maintain themselves on 

 their hinder legs with great facility. They have five toes 

 on each foot, and are generally sluggish in their gait. 



The genus Ursus, or the Bears, is characterised by their 

 complete plantigrade walk, from their claws, which are five 

 in number, incurved, large, and powerful, from the short- 

 ness of their tail, and from the peculiarities of their dental 

 system. They are extremely powerful, but clumsy, slug- 

 gish, and uncouth, generally feed on vegetable substances, 

 being in fact but semi-carnivorous. They will, how- 

 ever, sometimes destroy the smaller animals, and, in case 

 of necessity, will subsist on fish. They are also very fond 

 of honey, and notwithstanding the clumsiness of their con- 

 formation, exhibit no slight degree of agility in mounting 

 trees in search of it. The}' never attack man except in 

 self-defence, or under the influence of severe hunger; and it 

 is reported, that in the latter state they will associate toge- 

 ther in search of animal food. Both sexes retire in the win- 

 ter, and the period of parturition with the female is in the 

 spring, afteragestation of seven months, when she produces 

 from one to five at a birth. 



Great confusion has existed in the determination and clas- 

 sificationof thedifferentspecies; all thediscussionsthathave 

 been entered into, in the hopes of elucidating this question, 

 have ended in an acknowledgment of the difficulty of the 

 undertaking. This is particularly the case with the Bears 

 with brown fur, approaching more or less to black on the 

 H h 



one side, and on the other to the lighter tints. Thus Cu- 

 vier, in his last edition, says, that he is by no means convin- 

 ced that any specific difference exists between the subject 

 of our present illustration, and the Brown Bear of Europe. 



The only mode in which questions of this nature can be 

 satisfactorily settled, is accurately to describe and represent 

 such specimens as occur in different countries, so that in 

 time an approximation and comparison of them, in all the 

 details of their organization, can be properly made. 



The Grisly Bear is indubitably the most formidable and 

 powerful of all the quadrupeds which inhabit the northern 

 regions of the American continent; and it is not to be won- 

 dered at, that a victory over an animal of such strength and 

 ferocity, shouldbe considered of suchimportanceamongthe 

 native tribes inhabiting the inhospitable regions where it is 

 now found. 



Mr. Say, who was the first naturalist that describes this 

 species, gives the following account of it: "^aiVlong, short 

 on the front, very short between and anterior to the ej"es, 

 blacker and coarser on the legs and feet, longer on the 

 shoulders, throat, behind the thighs, and beneath the belly, 

 paler on the snout; ear* short, rounded ;yronif arcuated, the 

 line of the profile continued upon the snout, without any in- 

 dentation between the eyes; eyes very small, destitute of 

 any remarkable supplemental lid; iris of a burnt sienna or 

 light reddish brown colour, muffle of the nostrils black, the 

 sinus very distinct and profound; lips, particularly the 

 superior, anteriorly extensive, with a few rigid hairs or 

 bristles, tail very short, concealed by the hair. The hair 

 gradually diminishes in length upon the leg, but the upper 

 part of the foot is more amply furnished. Teeth, incisors 

 six, the lateral one with a tubercle on the exterior side, 

 canines large, robust, prominent, a single false molar be- 

 hind the canine, remaining molars four, of which the 

 anterior one is very small, that of the upper particularly, 

 that of the lower jaw resembling the second false molar of 

 the dog. 



" Anterior feet, claws elongated, slenderfingers with five 

 sub-oval naked tubercles, separated from the palm, from 

 each other, and from the base of the claws by dense hair, 

 palm on its anterior half naked, transversely oval, base of 

 the palm with a rounded naked tubercle, surrounded by 

 hair. Posterior feet with the sole naked, the nails mode- 

 rate, more arcuated and shorter than those of the anterior. 

 The^nails do not diminish in the least in width at tip, but 

 they become smaller towards thatpart, by diminishingfrom 

 beneath. The Grisly Bears vary exceedinglj^ in colour, 

 and pass through the intermediate gradations, from a dark 

 brown to a pale fulvous or greyish."* 



* Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Vol. II. p. J2. 



