AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
121 
GRISLY BEAR. 
URSUS HORRIBILIS. . 
[Plate XL] 
Grisly Bear. Mackenzie, voyages fyc. 160. — Grisly, 
brown, white and variegated Bear. Lewis & Clark. 
— Grizzly Bear. Warden’s United States. Godman 
Nat. Hist. i. p. 131. — Ursus 0 Horribilis. Ord. Say. 
Expedit. to the Rocky Mountains, ii. p. 52. — Ursus 
Cinereus. Desm. Mammal. — Ursus Ferox. Lewis & 
Clark. Richardson. Faun. Am. bor. 24. — Ursus 
Candescens. Hamilton Smith. Griffith’s and King. 
ii. p. 229. & 5. No. 320. — Pe ale’s Museum. 
The Grisly Bear belongs to a division of the carnivora, 
which, although far less sanguinary than the other groups 
of his formidable order, and endowed with a faculty of 
wholly subsisting on vegetable food, nevertheless contains 
some of the largest and most powerful of the destructive 
mammalia. This division, which comprehends several 
very closely allied genera, is termed Plantigrade, the indi- 
viduals comprising it treading on the whole sole of the foot, 
thus enabling them to raise and maintain themselves on 
their hinder legs with great facility. They have five toes 
on each foot, and are generally sluggish in their gait. 
The genus Ursus, or the Bears, is characterised by their 
complete plantigrade walk, from their claws, which are five 
in number, incurved, ^arge, and powerful, from the short- 
ness of their tail, and from the peculiarities of their dental 
system. They are extremely powerful, but clumsy, slug- 
gish, and uncouth, generally feed on vegetable substances 
being in fact but semi-carnivorous. They will, how- 
ever, sometimes destroy the ^mailer animals, and, in case 
of necessity, will subsist on fish. They are also very fond 
of honey, and notwithstanding the clumsiness of their con- 
formation, exhibit no slight degree of agility in mounting 
trees in search of it. They never attack man except in 
self-defence, or under the influence of severe hunger ; and it 
is reported, that in the latter state they will associate toge- 
ther in search of animal food. Both sexes retire in the win- 
ter, and the period of parturition with the female is in the 
spring, after a gestation of seven months, when she produces 
from one to five at a birth. 
Great confusion has existed in the determination and clas- 
sification of the different species ; all the discussions that have 
been entered into, in the hopes of elucidating this question, 
have ended in an acknowledgment of the difficulty of the 
undertaking. This is particularly the case with the Bears 
with brown fur, approaching more or less to black on the 
one side, and on the other to the lighter tints. Thus Cu- 
vier, in his last edition, says, that he is by no means convin- 
ced that any specific difference exists between the subject 
of our present illustration, and the Brown Bear of Europe. 
The only mode in which questions of this nature can be 
satisfactorily settled, is accurately to describe and represent 
such specimens as occur in different countries, so that in 
time an approximation and comparison of them, in all the 
details of their organization, can be properly made. 
The Grisly Bear is indubitably the most formidable and 
powerful of all the quadrupeds which inhabit the northern 
regions of the American continent ;*and it is not to be won- 
dered at, that a victory over an animal of such strength and 
ferocity, should be considered of such importance among the 
native tribes inhabiting the inhospitable regions where it is 
now found. 
Mr. Say, who was the first naturalist that describes this 
species, gives the following account of it: “Hair long, short 
on the front, very short between and anterior to the eyes, 
blacker and coarser on the legs and feet, longer on the 
shoulders, throat, behind the thighs, and beneath the belly, 
paler on the snout; ears short, rounded •, front arcuated, $he 
line of the profile continued upon the snout, without any in- 
dentation between the eyes ; eyes very small, destitute of 
any remarkable supplemental lid ; iris of a burnt sienna or 
light reddish brown colour, muffle of the nostrils black, the 
sinus very distinct and profound ; lips, particularly the 
superior, anteriorly extensive, with a few rigid hairs or 
bristles, tail very short, concealed by the hair. The hair 
gradually diminishes in length upon the leg, but the .upper 
part of the foot is more amply furnished. Teeth, ifiicisors 
six, the'lateral one with a tubercle on the exterior side, 
canines large, robust, prominent, a single false molar be- 
hind the canine, remaining molars four, of which the 
anterior one is very small, that of the upper particularly, 
that of the lower jaw resembling the second false molar of 
the dog. 
“ Anterior feet , claws elongated, slender fingeVs with five 
sub-oval naked tubercles, separated from the palm, from 
each other, and from the base of the claws by dense hair, 
palm on its anterior half naked, transversely oval, base of 
the palm with a rounded naked tubercle, surrounded by 
hair. Posterior feet with the sole naked, the nails mode- 
rate, more arcuated and shorter than those of the anterior. 
The nails do not diminish in the least in Wjidth at tip, but 
they become smaller towards that part, by diminishing from 
beneath. The Grisly Bears vary exceedingly in colour, 
and pass through the intermediate gradations, from a dark 
brown to a pale fulvous or greyish.”* 
* Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Vol. II. p. 52. 
