146 University of California Publications in Zoology. [Vol. 7 



The one killed on Dall Island contained steel-head trout and grass. 

 By the time we reached the Taku River, in September, the run 

 of salmon in the smaller streams was over, and the bear had 

 scattered over the country. 



According to the Indians, the island black bear are much 

 more savage and ferocious than those on the mainland, a state- 

 ment that is borne out to some extent by the summer's observa- 

 tions. They told us that the island bear would not hesitate to 

 attack a man when wounded, and that they generally rushed 

 right in and seized him, not rearing up on their hind legs in the 

 usual manner of the brown bear. The old male that Hasselborg 

 secured on Dall Island rushed for him at the first shot, very much 

 to his surprise, as he had frequently expressed his contempt of 

 the fighting ability of the black bear. It would have been easier 

 for this animal to have made his escape in almost any other 

 direction, for he had to go around a fallen tree and cross a 

 running stream some two feet deep in order to reach his assailant, 

 but he doggedly kept on in spite of several bullets, finally drop- 

 ping dead on the sandbar, within thirty feet of the hunter. This 

 bear had had his lower jaw fractured, a triangular piece of 

 bone containing the left canine which is also broken square 

 across, hanging loose, attached only by the skin and muscles. 

 This injury had been received apparently not more than two 

 weeks before, and it had very possibly been done in a fight with 

 another bear, for there were numerous partly healed wounds 

 on his neck and body. , 



Another individual, also an old male, killed on Mitkof Island 

 (no. 8326), had undergone a still more frightful injury, the lower 

 jaw on the left side being fractured squarely across, immediately 

 before the last molar, which had dropped out. The only external 

 indication of this injury was a running sore on the jaw. From 

 the appearance of the bone this wound must have been received 

 months before. 



In connection with the present study of the Alaska black 

 bears I took occasion to carefully examine the series of Ursus 

 emmonsi contained in the Museum collection. These are seven 

 in number, consisting of the following specimens : three skins 

 with skulls, one skin with the complete skeleton, two skins with- 

 out skulls, and one slmll without the skin. The theory has 



