TllP] BTiACK liKAR. 



593 



Description. — Body coTored with a coat of long, loose hair, 

 which varies in color from cinnamon brown to dark chestnut and 

 coal black. The forward Y>da't of the face is generally brownish. 

 The ears are rather short, densly furred and rounded. The body 

 is highest just in front of the hips, rounding off in the one direction 

 to the mere rudiment of a tail, and in the other sloping to the rather 

 low shoulders and still lower head. The legs seem to be unusually 

 loose from the body and give one the impression of props, hinged to 

 the dorsal part of the body, instead of a component part of it, as 

 they appear in most mammals. The low-carried head, which can 

 be raised to the level of the top of the back only when the animal 

 rears itself on its hind legs, is also peculiar. Add to this the shuf- 

 fling, swinging gait and you have an animal so grotesque that it is 

 not difficult to see why it is so often caricatured by comic supple- 

 ments and "Teddy Bears." 



Measurements. —I have no definite measurements of the species ; 

 the total length is about five feet. 



Skull and teeth. — No other mammal in this region has a skull 

 so powerful and compact, although those of the elk and bison ex- 

 ceed it in length. The skull varies considerably and the older ani- 

 mals have a sagittal crest which is not found in the young adults. 

 The males have larger skulls than the females. Baird gives the 

 length of a New York skull as 10.7 inches; greatest width, 7.6. 



The molar teeth have broad, flattened crowns, with folds and 

 tubercles of enamel, and present a very compact appearance, mark- 

 edly different from that of the ungulates. The canines are thick 

 and powerful but not long. 



Range. — The black bear formerly inhabited all of the region 

 from INIexico and the gulf states to the limit of trees in Canada. 

 At one time the black bear was fairly common in all parts of Indi- 

 ana, although the species was never as abundant as wolves, deer 

 and most of the smaller animals. It survived some decades after 

 the elk, beaver and bison had disappeared. 



The Prince of Wied states that bears were already becoming 

 scarce along the Wabash near New Harmony in 1832-33. One was 

 killed that winter near Mount Vernon on the Ohio. Robert S. White 

 writes me that the last bear was killed in Warrick County in 1842. 

 Mr. Chansler says of the region near Vincennes : ' ' Bears were 

 quite common in the early days. " Dates given are 1830, 1834, 1845 ; 

 one in Washington County in 1839 ; one killed near Bee Hunter 

 Marsh, Knox County^ in 1860 by Mr. Walker; in Black Creek 

 Marsh, Greene County, one was killed in 1870, and another in 1875. 

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