AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 



125 



size is far superior to any Bear that has ever been seen in 

 Europe, and his ferocity, in spite of the length of time dur- 

 ing which he has been a prisoner, and the attempts that 

 have been made to conciliate him, still continues undimi- 

 nished. He does not offer the slightest encouragement to 

 familiarity on the part of his keepers, but treats them with 

 as much distance as the most perfect strangers; and although 

 he will sometimes appear playful and good tempered, yet 

 they know him too well to trust themselves within his 

 grasp.* 



The G-risly Bear has long been known to the Indian 

 traders as differing from the Black Bear in the inferiority of 

 its fur, its greater strength and carnivorous habits. Every 

 traveller through the region it frequents has also men- 

 tioned it, thus the early French writers call it Ours-blanc. 

 But Lewis and Clark were the first who described in so ac- 

 curate a manner as to enable naturalists to ascertain that it 

 was a distinct species; this was pointed out by Dewitt Clin- 

 ton from the description of these gentlemen in 1S15. Mr. 

 Ord, also, from the same materials, described it under the 

 name of hoj-ribilis in the introduction to More's geography 



in , this name having been adopted by Mr. Say, who 



was, as we have stated, the first naturalist that accurately 

 described it from the actual inspection, we have followed 

 him in assuming Mr. Ord's designation of it. Since this it 

 has received the various specific names given in the list of 

 synonomy at the commencement of this article. The Eng- 

 lish name of Grisly has also been adopted as having been 

 bestowed on it by Mackenzie as early as 1801, and as less 

 liable to objection than that of grizzly which is founded on 

 a colour that is common to other species. Those of our 

 readers who wish for further information respecting this 

 animal, will find ample details in Lewis and Clark's Tra- 

 vels, Long's Expedition, Godman's Natural History, and 

 Richardson's Fauna Americana Boreali, of which, as well as 

 of a short sketch in that admirable work, the Tower Mena- 

 gerie, we have freely availed ourselves in the foregoing 

 account. 



THE GRIFFON VULTURE. 



Vultur Fulvus. Briss. 



There are few prejudices more deeply rooted in our 

 nature, than that which delights in investing the animal 

 creation with the feelings and the passions of mankind. 

 We speak of the generosity of the Lion and the meekness 

 of the Lamb, the magnanimity of the Eagle and the simpli- 



11 



* Tower Menagerie, 128. 



city of the Dove, as if the peculiar instincts manifested by 

 each of these animals were the result of an impulse similar 

 to that which actuates the human mind. But the truth is, 

 that the qualities thus designated, in so far as they actually 

 exist, are nothing more than the natural and necessary con- 

 sequences of the animals' organization, specially fitted in 

 each particular case for the performance of a special office, 

 and concurring in the mass to the maintenance of that due 

 equilibrium in the system of the universe on which its con- 

 tinued existence mainly depends. 



The Vultures and the Eagles furnish a striking instance 

 of the extent to which this prejudice has been carried. The 

 latter, eminently qualified by their organization for seizing 

 and carrying off a living prey, serve a useful purpose of 

 nature by setting bounds to the multiplication of the smaller 

 species both of quadrupeds and birds, which might other- 

 wise become too numerous for the earth to support: while 

 the former, disqualified by certain modifications in their 

 structure for the performance of a similar task, are no less 

 usefully employed in removing the putrefying carrion 

 which but for them would infect the atmosphere with its 

 unwholesome exhalations. Thus both are of equal impor- 

 tance in the economy of nature; and both are stimulated to 

 the performance of the particular service for which they 

 were created, by the impulse of that instinct which is the 

 immediate result of their organic structure. Instead, how- 

 ever, of regarding them as alike the ministers of nature in 

 the maintenance of her laws, man has chosen to fix upon the 

 one a character for bravery and generosity, and to brand 

 the other with the epithets of base, cowardly, and obscene. 

 The Vultures, which are perhaps the most useful, and cer- 

 tainly the most inoffensive, have thus been consigned to 

 perpetual infamy; while the Eagles, in the true cant of that 

 military romance which has ever born so great a sway 

 over the passions of mankind, have been exalted, in com- 

 mon with the warrior that desolates the world, into objects 

 of admiration, and selected as the types and emblems of 

 martial glory. 



From these fanciful associations we turn to the realities of 

 nature, and proceed to indicate the characters by which the 

 family of Vultures are distinguished from all other Birds of 

 Prey. They consist in the entire or partial denudation of 

 the head and neck, the latter of which is much elongated; 

 the lateral position of the nostrils in a generally broad and 

 powerful bill, curved only at its point, and clothed at its 

 base by an extended cere; the nakedness of the tarsi, which 

 are covered only with small reticulated scales ; and the strong 

 thick talons, somewhat blunted at the points, but little 

 curved, and scarcely, if at all, retractile. Of these charac- 

 ters the most obvious is the absence of feathers to a greater 

 or less extent on the head and neck, a mark of distinction 



