160 University of California Publications in Zoology VVou 24 



Ursus americanus americanus Pallas. Black Bear 



Black bears occur in some abundance throughout the whole of the 

 region we traversed. They are frequently seen from the river boat 

 in its travels up and down the Stikine. On June 5 one was seen not 

 far from our camp at the Junction, rooting about under some rotten 

 logs near the trail. Fresh tracks or other sign of the recent presence 

 of black bears were seen practically everywhere we went except on 

 Sergief Island. 



Five black bear skulls were purchased from Mr. A. M. Vickery, 

 of Telegraph Creek, the animals having been killed by him while he 

 was patrolling the telegraph line to the southward of that place. One 

 of these (no. 31017) is an old male, killed 122 miles south of Telegraph 

 Creek, on May 25, 1919. The others are an old female and three small 

 cubs (nos. 31018-31021) killed on June 17, 1919, 31 miles south of 

 Telegraph Creek. 



The two adult skulls from the Telegraph Creek region present 

 certain evident points of difference from those of the black bear ( U. a. 

 pugnax) from the islands of southeastern Alaska. In the former the 

 frontal region is relatively high and rounded, in the latter it is notice- 

 ably low and flat. In pugnax the whole skull is more angular in ap- 

 pearance. In pugnax, too, the teeth are large, as compared with those 

 of bears from the interior, especially the last upper molar. This last 

 character is one that persists in black bears from all the islands off 

 the coast of southern Alaska and British Columbia. It is conspicuous 

 in pugnax of the southern islands of the Alexander Archipelago, which 

 has a large, squarely built, low browed skull. It is one of the char- 

 acters of carlottae, from the QueSn Charlotte Islands (cf . Osgood, 1901, 

 p. 30), which has an elongate skull. It appears again in the black 

 bear of Vancouver Island, which, judging from the several specimens 

 at hand, is a smaller animal than carlottae or pugnax, with a rather 

 high, rounded skull, and with the teeth of large size, especially the last 

 upper molar. 



There is very little material at hand from the mainland coast of 

 southeastern Alaska. One rather young male from Bradfield Canal 

 (a short distance south of the Stikine River) has the enlarged last 

 upper molar of pugnax, and is apparently to be referred to that form. 

 Thus it may be that pugnax occupies a narrow strip of coast on the 

 mainland of southeastern Alaska as well as the islands, and that the 

 type of black bear found in the Telegraph Creek region is confined to 

 the territory east of the coastal range of mountains. 



