34 BOOK OF A HUNDRED BEARS 



in fact, toward the last, he became more and more 

 of a bear. Bears do that as they grow older. 

 Poor Mose died of tooth trouble. He bit his 

 master and was killed. He had bitten a number 

 of other people, which did not particularly matter. 

 They were there handy, and Mose had to bite 

 something ; but, when he bit the old man, something 

 happened. Mose also was typical, in that he was 

 a black bear, the commonest and most numerous 

 of the bear family, and found more or less every- 

 where except within the Arctic Circle. 



Sometimes their coloring shades off to brown, 

 or tawny, and the uninformed call them^ cinna- 

 mons. But President Roosevelt, who ought to 

 know, says that they belong to the same family, 

 a mere aberrance from type. Some nature fakirs 

 dispute this, but I stay by the President because 

 I voted for him. A man who knows the octopus, 

 however disguised, and who has killed more 

 octopi (I am a little doubtful of that plural) than 

 any other man, living or dead, is good enough 

 authority for me. 



