222 The Mammals of Colorado 
Locally they are often called Civet Cats, which is not a good 
name, as it is not a civet at all, and to add to the confusion, 
the American fur dealers call the spotted skunks civets. 
Family URSID^ 
Large heavy animals with very short tails and plantigrade 
feet, each with five toes provided with long, compressed, 
moderately curved, and non-retractile claws; skull with a 
depressed flattened bulla, not inflated or divided; inferior lip 
of the long auditory meatus considerably prolonged; paroc- 
cipital process of the exoccipital standing free from, and not 
applied to, the bulla; the condyloid and glenoid foramina 
distinct; alisphenoid canal present; no caecum; dentition 
with molars f, with broad flat tuberculated crowns; the three 
anterior premolars of both jaws rudimentary and often 
deciduous; the fourth upper premolar (carnassial) with no 
inner tubercle and root. 
Genus URSUS (Lat., a bear) 
Ursus Linnaeus, Syst. Nat., loth ed., i., p. 57 (1758). Type 
Ursus arctos Linnaeus. 
Revision, Merriam, Proc. Biol. Soc. Wash., x., pp. 65-83 (1896). 
Size large, body heavy and bulky; feet broad with naked palms 
and soles; tail very short; ears short and erect; dentition: i. -f; c. {; 
pm. I; m. I X 2 = 42 ; fourth premolar larger than the three pre- 
ceding; the upper, three-rooted; the lower one, two- ; none of the 
molars or premolars is sectorial in form, but rather tuberculate. 
The Bears are widely spread over the world, but are not 
found in Africa or Australasia, and only one species is found 
in South America. In North and Middle America 16 
species and 7 subspecies are found, according to Efliot's 
Check-list. Of these two have been met with in Colorado. 
Bears are omnivorous animals living on both animal and 
vegetable food, and in the former class nothing seems to 
come amiss from grubs and ants up to cattle, and they 
