THE BROWN BEAR. 
103 
India. From this enumeration it appears that instead 
of the solitary species known to Linnaeus, there are 
now recognised no less than eight, while five others 
may be regarded as in abeyance, waiting the decision 
of those naturalists who may have the opportunity of 
further investigation. Every one of the eight allowed 
species has been living within the last five or six years 
in London. Five are at the present moment exhibited 
in the Society's Menagerie, two others form part of its 
Museum, and the eighth, the Grisly Bear of America, 
has been represented for nearly twenty years by a noble 
specimen in the Menagerie of the Tower. Such are 
the advances which this department of zoology has 
made since the days of Linnaeus. 
The Brown Bear was formerly an inhabitant of the 
whole of Europe, as far south as the Alps and the 
Pyrenees ; but he has in modern times been completely 
extirpated from the British Islands, and the interior of 
France, Holland, and Germany. In the Alps he is still 
common, as well as in the mountain forests of Bohemia, 
Poland, and Russia. But his limits are not bounded 
by the geographical divisions of the continents : he is 
also found in great numbers in Siberia, and even as far 
eastwards as Kamtschatka and Japan ; and is spread 
more sparingly over a considerable portion of the north- 
ern regions of America. In this vast extent of country 
it would be surprising indeed if we did not meet with 
some variations resulting from local circumstances ; but 
these are generally speaking of too trivial a nature to 
be regarded as affording sufficient grounds for specific 
distinctions. Among the most remarkable we may 
mention a white variety, totally distinct from the Polar 
Bear, which is sometimes met with in high northern 
latitudes. The Cinnamon Bear, as it is called, appears 
