206 BIG- GAME OF NORTH AMERICA. 



little colonies on the upper hill-sides. Where the nut-pine 

 is plenty, you may also expect to find Bears. 



If I attempt to speak of the size of the Grizzly, I presume 

 I shall quickly find myself on difficult ground. Personally, 

 I believe there is a great deal of exaggeration as to his size. 

 There are one or two authentic instances of Bears of enor- 

 mous size and weight being exhibited; but these took kindly 

 to civilization, and became fat as prize-pigs. In the wild 

 state, I should say that a Bear weighing nine hundred 

 pounds was a very large one indeed. The largest I ever 

 killed measured from nose to heel, as the skin was pegged 

 out, not unduly stretched, nine feet three inches, and I 

 should say that Bear would have weighed between eight and 

 nine hundred pounds. I saw, in California, the skin of 

 a Bear that had become quite= famous for his size and cun- 

 ning, in that region of the Sierras where he had made his 

 home, and this skin measured over ten feet. The Bear 

 himself, I should think, must have weighed a thousand 

 pounds. One other skin I recollect to have seen measured 

 nearly eleven feet, though this skin seemed to me to have 

 been a good deal stretched; that was the largest I ever saw. 

 But if we are to be guided to our conclusions by hunters' 

 talk, you must believe that thousand-pound Bears are com- 

 mon, and every man who pretends to be a hunter claims to 

 have seen several Bears that weighed a great deal more 

 than that. I can only claim to have killed eighteen; but, as 

 I said, I would not put the weight of my largest at more 

 than eight hundred and fifty pounds; nor does my guide 

 think that, of the much larger number he has killed, any 

 weighed over nine hundred. 



Some good authorities have held that the Range Bear of 

 the Rocky Mountains, as the Grizzly constantly is called, is 

 much smaller on the main chain and its spurs than the Bear 

 found in California. I think this is at least doubtful. 

 There are certainly a. great many small Bears in California, 

 and very large Bears are as scarce there as anywhere else. 

 I do not doubt that occasionally the milder climate and 

 the more plentiful food of one of those California valleys 



