Reeky Mountaif:s. 55 



an opportunity of observing its manners, it is without doubt, 

 the most daring and truly formidable animal, that exists in 

 the United States. He frequently pursues and attacks hun- 

 ters, and no animal whose swiftness or art is not superior to 

 his own, can evade him. He kills the bison, and drags the 

 ponderous carcase to a distance, to devour it at leisure, as 

 the calls of hunger may influence him. 



The grizzly bear is not exclusively carnivorous, as has by 

 some persons been imagined, but also, and perhaps in a still 

 greater degree, derives nourishment from vegetables, both 

 fruits and roots; the latter he digs up by means of his long 

 fore claws. 



That they formerly inhabited the Atlantic states, and that 

 they were then equally formidable to the Indians, we have 

 some foundation for belief, in the tradition of the Delaware 

 Indians, respecting the Big Naked bear, the last one of which 

 they believe formerly existed east of the Hudson river, and 

 which Mr. Heckewelder assures us, is often arrayed by the 

 Indians, before the minds of their crying children, to frighten 

 them to quietness. 



Governor Clinton in the notes appended to his learned 

 Introductory Discourse^* says, " Dixon, the Indian trader, 

 told a friend of mine, that this animal had been seen fourteen 

 feet long; that notwithstanding its ferocity, it has been some- 

 times domesticated, and that an Indian belonging to a tribe 

 on the head waters of the Mississippi, had one in a reclaim- 

 ed state, which he sportively directed to go into a canoe be- 

 longing to another tribe of Indians, then about returning from 

 a visit: the bear obeyed, and was struck by an Indian; being 

 considered one of the family, this was deemed an insult, was 

 resented accordingly, and produced a war between these 

 nations." 



A half grown specimen was kept chained in the yard of 

 the Missouri Fur Company, near Engineer Cantonment, last 



* V. Trans, of the New York Literary and Philos. Society. 



