AND AMERICAN RURAL SPORTS. 
125 
size is far superior to any Bear that has ever been seen in 
Europe, and his ferocity in spite of the length of time dur- 
ing which he has been a prisoner, and the attempts that 
have been made to conciliate him, still continues undimi- 
nished. He does not offer the slightest encouragement to 
familiarity on the part of his keepers, but treats them with 
as much distance as the most perfect strangers ; and although 
he will sometimes appear playful and good tempered, yet 
they know him too well to trust themselves within his 
grasp.* 
The Grisly Bear has long been known to the Indian 
traders as differing from the Black Bear in the inferiority of 
its fur, its greater strength and carnivorous habits. Every 
traveller through the region it frequents has also men- 
tioned it, thus the early French writers call it Ours-blanc. 
But Lewis and Clark were the first who described in so ac- 
curate a manner as to enable naturalists to ascertain that it 
was a distinct species ;J;his was pointed out by Dewitt Clin- 
ton from the description of these gentlemen in 1815. Mr. 
Ord, also, from* the same materials, described it under the 
name of horribilis in the introduction to Morse’s geographjr 
in , this name having been adopted by Mr. Say, who 
was, as we have stated, the first naturalist that accurately 
described it from the actual inspection, we have followed 
him in assuming Mr. Ord’s designation of it. Since this it 
has received the various specific names given in the list of 
synonomy at the commencement of this article. The Eng- 
lish name of Grisly has also been adopted as having been 
bestowed on it by Mackenzie as early as 1801, and as less 
liable to objection than that of grizzly which is founded on 
a colour that is common to other species. Those of our 
readers who wish for further information respecting this 
animal, will find ample details in Lewis and Clark’s Tra- 
vels, Long’s Expedition, Godman’s Natural History, and 
Richardson’s Fauna Americana Boreali, of which, as well as 
of a short sketch in that admirable work, the Tower Mena- 
gerie, we have freely availed ourselves in the foregoing 
account. 
THE GRIFFON VULTURE. 
Vultur Fulvus. Briss. 
There are few prejudices more deeply rooted in our 
nature, than that which delights in investing the animal 
creation with the feelings and the passions of mankind. 
We speak of the generosity of the Lion and the meekness 
of the Lamb, the magnanimity of the Eagle and the simpli- 
* Tower Menagerie, 128. 
I i 
city of the Dove, as if the peculiar instincts manifested by 
each of these animals were the result of an impulse similar 
to that which actuates. the. human mind. But the truth is, 
that the qualities thus designated, in so far as they actually 
exist, are nothing more than the natural and necessary con- 
sequences of the animals’ organization, specially fitted in 
each particular case for the performance of a special office, 
and concurring in the mass to the maintenance of that due 
equilibrium in the system of the universe on which its con- 
tinued existence mainly depends. 
The Vultures and the Eagles furnish a striking instance 
of the extent to which this prejudice has been carried. The 
latter, eminently qualified by their organization for seizing 
and carrying off a living prey, serve a useful purpose of 
nature by setting bounds to the multiplication of the smaller 
species both of quadrupeds and birds, which might other- 
wise become too numerous for the earth to support: while 
the former, disqualified by certain modifications in their 
structure for the performance of a similar task, are no less 
usefully employed in removing the putrefying carrion 
which but for them would infect the atmosphere with its 
unwholesome exhalations. Thus both are of equal impor- 
tance in the economy of nature; and both are stimulated to 
the performance of the particular service for which they 
were created, by the impulse of that instinct which is the 
immediate result of their organic structure. Instead, how- 
ever, of regarding them as alike the ministers of nature in 
the maintenance of her laws, man has chosen to fix upon the 
one a character for bravery and generosity, and to brand 
the other with the epithets of base, cowardly, and obscene. 
The Vultures, which are perhaps the most useful and cer- 
tainly the most inoffensive, have thus been consigned to 
perpetual infamy; while the Eagles, in the true cant of that 
military romance which has ever borne so great a sway 
over the passions of mankind, have been exalted, in com- 
mon with the warrior that desolates the world, into objects 
of admiration, and selected as the types and emblems of 
martial glory. 
From these fanciful associations we turn to the realities of 
nature, and proceed to indicate the characters by which the 
family of Vultures are distinguished from all other Birds of 
Prey. They consist in the entire or partial denudation of 
the head and neck, the latter of which is much elongated; 
the lateral position of the nostrils in a generally broad and 
powerful bill, curved only at its point, and clothed at its 
base by an extended cere; the nakedness of the tarsi, which 
are covered only with small reticulated scales; and the strong 
thick talons, somewhat blunted at the points, but little 
curved, and scarcely, if at all, retractile. Of these charac- 
ters the most obvious is the absence of feathers to a greater 
or less extent on the head and neck, a mark of distinction 
