108 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
and pointed. The general proportions of the body and 
limbs are also smaller; and the whole are covered 
with soft smooth straight hairs of a deep glossy black 
throughout the greater part of their length, having 
none of the shagginess or woolliness which charac- 
terizes the fur of the Brown Bear, and without any 
intermixture of the lighter-coloured hairs by which the 
coat of the latter is always more or less grizzled. The 
muzzle alone is covered with short close-set hairs of a 
deep brown above and somewhat lighter on the sides. 
The tail is more distinctly visible in consequence of the 
greater smoothness and regularity of the fur ; the feet 
are smaller in all their dimensions ; and the claws have 
a somewhat greater curve, appear to terminate in 
sharper points, and are almost buried in the hair. 
The American Bear advances far into the north, and 
is so abundant in Canada and the neighbouring coun- 
tries as to constitute a considerable branch of the fur 
trade which is there carried on. In the year 1783 no 
fewer than ten thousand five hundred bear-skins were 
imported into England from the northern parts of Ame- 
rica, and the number gradually increased until 1803, 
when it had reached twenty-five thousand, the average 
value of each skin being estimated at forty shillings. 
The supply appears subsequently to have been greatly 
diminished, partly perhaps in consequence of the whole- 
sale manner in which the destruction of the animal had 
been carried on, and partly in consequence of the pre- 
ference given to the finer kinds of fur. From Canada 
these Bears extend southwards through most of the 
uncultivated or thinly peopled districts as far as the 
Isthmus of Panama. They were formerly common in 
New York, Louisiana, Carolina, and even Florida ; but 
the progress of civilization has nearly extirpated them 
from the immediate vicinity of man, and driven them to 
