VARIETIES OF THE BLACK BEAR 101 



The Black Bears 



The Black Beak^ is the best-known bear in North 

 America. It is found in nearly all the mountains and great 

 tracts of forest between Florida and Alaska, and from Nova 

 Scotia to the Pacific coast. During the past twenty years 

 it has been seen or killed in forty states of the United States, 

 in Mexico, Alaska, and in eleven of the British provinces. Its 

 farthest south is the mountains of Costa Rica. 



Its standard color is jet black, all over, except the nose, 

 which is dirty white or light brown. A very confusing fact 

 about the Black Bear is the frequency with which it runs 

 into brown or cinnamon colors. Sometimes black and brown 

 cubs have been found in the same litter. Very curiously, 

 however, bears of this color are found only in the Rocky 

 Mountains, and farther west. In its brown phase, this animal 

 is called the Cinnamon Bear, and in the Rocky Mountain 

 regions and Alaska, brown specimens are almost as numerous 

 as black ones. Sometimes it is difficult to believe that both 

 kinds belong to the same species, but this seems to be a fact. 



Some grizzlies are very dark brown, but they are never 

 inky black, like the true Black Bear. The latter differs in 

 form from the grizzly in being highest in the middle of the 

 back, very round on the hind quarters, low at the shoulders, 

 and also by the fact that in walking it usually carries its 

 head low. It is a smaller animal, and its claws are short 

 and well adapted to tree-climbing. It conceals itself from 

 its enemies much more successfully than the grizzly, and 



1 Ur'sus a-mer-i-can'us. 



