NATURAL HISTORY AND DISTRIBUTION OF BEARS. 
251 
close, but not sufficiently intimate to lead naturalists to con- 
sider them one and the same species. In size of course the 
latter is superior, but now and then individuals of the brown 
species are met with in Asia, if anything, only slightly less 
bulky. These, however, are exceptions, whereas the remains of 
the great extinct cave bear (27. spelceus) show that the average 
dimensions of the animal exceeded considerably that of any 
recent species. Now to return to the geographical range of 
the brown bear ( U . arctos). In Asia it is spread over Siberia 
and the Himalaya. On the latter chains, probably from a long- 
sojourn in the snowy regions, its fur has become more fulvous ; 
hence the appellation of Isabella* and white bears bestowed on 
the denizens of the Cashmere and more eastern ranges. This 
aberrant form of a well-known animal, the fur of which 
generally varies from a dark brown to even black, such as 
obtains in the bears of Northern Europe and Asia, is intensely 
instructive to naturalists, who, for lack of better information, 
are often compelled to bestow specific names on slender founda- 
tions. A still lighter coloured variety (27. syriacus) is met 
with on the mountains of Eastern Turkey and the Caucasus. 
In America, in the Aleutian Islands, there are “ brown and red 
bears, ”f which, unfortunately for our wants, are not yet described 
with greater accuracy; it is, however, recorded by Sir John 
Eichardson, that “ the barren lands lying to the northward 
and eastward of Great Slave Lake, and extending to the Arctic 
Sea, are frequented by a species of bear which differs from the 
American black bear in its greater size, profile, physiognomy, 
longer soles and tail, and from the grizzly bear also in colour, 
and the comparative smallness of its claws. Its greater affinity 
is with the brown bear of Norway, but its identity with that 
species has not been established by actual comparison. It 
frequents the sea coast in the autumn in considerable numbers 
for the purpose of feeding on fish.” f 
* This shows how cautious naturalists should be in giving specific names 
to objects from imperfect materials. Dr. Horsefield, in the “Linnaean 
Transactions/’ vol. xv., p. 334, from a mutilated Nepaul specimen sent to the 
Museum of the India House, enumerates, among other characters, that this 
so-called U. Isabellinus has its “ claws small and straight.” Now I have 
shot or examined, I may confidently state, upwards of one hundred speci- 
mens, and can assert that the claws on the fore feet are fully curved, and on 
the hind feet that they are small but curved. The question contemplated by 
this distinguished traveller and naturalist at the time was, whether or not 
the above bear was a tree-climber. Now, although it does not often ascend 
trees, the curved claws are of great utility in preserving its footing on 
glaciers and soft or yielding soil, and on rocky declivities. 
t Langsdorff’s “Voyages and Travels,” vol. ii., p. 74. 
% “Fauna Boreali Americana,” p. 21. 
