116 NOTES AND ILLUSTRATIONS. 



forbids this hypothesis. (American Philosophical Transactions, vol. 4.) It was a long 

 time supposed, that this animal was the ursus arctos of Linnaeus, and he is so characterized 

 in the 6th volume of the Philosophical Transactions before referred to. I am sorry 

 to say, that such is the low state of natural knowledge among us, that Dr. Belknap, the 

 inestimable historian of New Hampshire, has even represented our common bear as the 

 ursus arctos. (Vol. 3.) Bossu, in his travels in Louisiana, says, they have " while bears, 

 whose skin is very fine and soft." (Vol. 1.) Forster, the learned translator, says, in a 

 note, " This cannot be the great polar bear, as this latter is only to be met with in the 

 most frigid parts of our globe, and the soft hair, here mentioned, will not admit to think of 

 the polar bear, whose hair is like bristles." Notwithstanding this significant intimation* 

 they have been generally confounded together. Whether this animal is a native of Eu- 

 rope and Asia, I cannot distinctly say ; but from the descriptions of Pennant, (Arctic 

 Zoology, vol. 3.) I should suppose that it is. He says, that there are land bears in the 

 north of Tartary, entirely white, and of a very great size, and that the grizzly bears 

 (which are called by the Germans silber bar, or the silver bear, from the mixture of white 

 hairs) are found in Europe, and in the northern parts of North America, as high as latitude 

 seventy, where a hill is called after them, Grizzly Bear Hill. 



Upon the whole, we may, with propriety, say, that the bear proper consists of four 

 distinct species: 



1. The polar bear. 



2. The grizzly bear. 



3. The common bear of Europe. 



4. The common bear of America, which is also said to be of two kinds, or, in all pro- 

 bability, mere varieties. 



I lay no great stress upon the surmise that the grizzly bear and Mr. Jefferson's great 

 claw, are the same animal. They agree pretty well in the dimensions and character of 

 the claw, and in the general size; but the correctness of the hypothesis must be deter- 

 mined by a comparison of the bones. 



NOTE P. 



Although Buffon seems to have, at one time, adopted this opinion, yet he afterwards 

 retracted it. In one place (vol. 3. p. 456.) he says, "the domestic ox, which ought not 

 to be confounded with the urus, the buffalo, or the bison, seerns to be a native of our 



