26 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
Pye 
DESCRIPTION. - A 
The Grisly Bear has been well compared by Mr. Say with the Norwegian variety of the 
Ursus Arctos, to which it has a great resemblance in its general appearance. Its fur is long, 
and mostly of a dark brown colour, with paler tips, that on the flanks being generally lighter 
coloured in the summer season, and there is frequently a considerable admixture of gray = 
hairs on the head. The whole muzzle is pale, without the dark central stripe which the _ 
Black Bear has. It is distinguished from the Brown and Black Bears, by shorter and more hs 
conical ears, placed further apart, and white, arched, and very long claws, compressed like the : 
", 
incisors of a squirrel, carrying their breadth on their upper surface, nearly to the tips, but 
chamfered away as it were beneath. They project far beyond the hair of the foot, and cut 
like a chisel when the animal strikes a blow with them. The forehead is broad, flattish, and 
continued nearly in a line with the nose, but there is in the older animals a distinct projection 
of the superciliary ridges of the frontal bone. The soles of its feet are longer and its heel is 
broader than those of the Brown Bear of Europe. Its tail is very small, so as to be hidden 
by the hair of the buttocks, and it is a standing joke among the Indian hunters, when they 
have killed a Grisly Bear, to desire any one unacquainted with the animal to take hold of its 
tail. The tail of the Black Bear is conspicuous enough, and that of the Barren-ground Bear 5 
is still longer *. 
The strength and ferocity of the Grisly Bear are so great that the Indian 
hunters use much precaution in attacking them. They are reported to attain a 
weight exceeding eight hundred pounds, and Lewis and Clark mention one that 
measured nine feet from the nose to the tail, and say that they had’ seen a still 
larger one, but do not give its dimensions. This is far above the usual size of 
other Land Bears, and equals the larger specimens of the Polar Bear. Governor 
Clinton received an account of one fourteen feet long, from an Indian Trader, but 
even admitting that there was no inaccuracy in the measurement, it is probable 
that it was taken from the skin after it was removed from the body, when it is known 
to be capable of stretching several feet. The strength of this Bear may be estimated 
from its having been known to drag toa considerable distance the carcass of a 
* “ Two men visited. the Indian village (on one of the upper branches of the Columbia) where they purchased a 
dressed bear skin, of an uniform pale reddish-brown colour, which the Indians called yackah, in contradistinction to 
hohhost, or the White Bear. This remark induced us to inquire more particularly into their opinions as to the several 
species of hears, and we therefore produced all the skins of that animal which we had killed at this place, and also one 
very nearly white, which we had purchased. The natives immediately classed the white, the deep and the pale grizzly- 
red, the grizzly dark-brown, in short, all those with the extremities of the hair of a white or frosty colour, without - 
regard to the colour of the ground of the fur, under the name of hohhost. They assured us that they were all of the ~ 
same species with the White Bear ; that they associated together, had longer nails than the others, and never climbed 
trees. On the other hand, the b/ack skins, those which were b/ack with a number of entire white hairs intermixed, or 
with a white breast, the uniform bay, the brown, and light reddish-brown, were ranged under the class yackah, and 
were said to resemble each other in being smaller, and having shorter nails than the White Bear, in climbing trees, 
and being so little vicious, that they could be pursued with safety.”—Lewis anp Cxark, vol. iii. p. 215. 
