36 
ORDERS OF MAMMALS— FLESH-EATERS 
In 1874, when Mr. Henry W. Elliott and Lieu- 
tenant Maynard visited St. Matthew Island, a 
lonely bit of treeless land in the northern portion 
of Bering Sea, they found upon it between 250 
and 300 Polar Bears ! The animals were basking 
in the warm sunshine, shedding their winter 
coats, and growing fat on the roots of the plants 
and mosses that grew there. On one occasion 
twenty bears were in sight simultaneously. The 
bears literally overran the island, grazing and 
E. R. Sanborn, Photo, N. Y. Zoological Park. 
POLAR BEAR. 
rooting about like hogs on a common. They 
showed no disposition to fight, but always ran 
when approached. 
The Polar Bear is a tall animal, with long legs, 
flat sides, and paws that are very wide and flat. 
The largest specimen in the New York Zoological 
Park is 504 inches in height, 7 feet 2 inches in 
length, and weighs about 800 pounds. When 
standing erect on his hind legs, the end of his 
nose is 8 feet 8 inches from the ground. If prop- 
erly and comfortably caged, and provided with 
a swimming pool five feet deep, Polar Bears in the 
temperate zone do not suffer from the heat of 
summer, and can endure hot weather fully as 
well as our black bears. Of course they require 
shade in summer; but it is not necessary to put 
ice in their pool to cool the water. 
The power of this active, warm-blooded animal 
to resist cold is one of the wonders of Nature. 
With the temperature many degrees below zero, 
the Polar Bear cheerfully leaps into the Arctic 
Ocean, amid the broken ice, and swims for hours. 
Of all bears, it is the best swimmer, and it dives 
with great ease. Thanks to the limitations im- 
posed by the Frost King on hunting in the arctic 
regions, it is not very probable that the Polar 
Bear ever will be exterminated by man. 
The Big Brown Bears. 
In 1896 the specimens collected by the United 
States Biological Survey, at Washington, re- 
vealed to Dr. C. Hart Merriam the presence in 
Alaska of two or three species and subspecies 
of huge brown bears, totally different in char- 
acter from all the American bears previously 
known. These bears range from Sitka around 
to the extremity of the Alaskan Peninsula, 
Kadiak Island, and inland for unknown dis- 
tances. They are marked by their light brown 
color, high shoulders, massive heads of great 
breadth, short, thick claws, and shaggy pelage. 
In their high shoulders, they resemble the griz- 
zly bear, but otherwise differ from them in many 
ways. Of these bears, Dr. Merriam has pub- 
lished preliminary descriptions of four new spe- 
cies and one subspecies, but additional collec- 
tions and information may possibly result in the 
consolidation of some of these. 
It is sufficient for our purpose to-set forth only 
the species which seems most sharply defined, 
and which may lie considered representative of 
the whole group. 
The Kodiak Bear , 1 of Kodiak Island, and 
probably also of the Alaskan Peninsula and the 
mainland for some distance eastward, is not only 
the largest of all living bears, but also the largest 
carnivorous animal in the world. Several skins 
of immense size, and skulls 19 inches in length, 
have been collected. The largest specimen ever 
killed and measured by a naturalist was a female 
killed at Chinitna Bay, by Mr. James H. Kid- 
der, which had a shoulder height of 51 inches. 
A very large flat skin measured at Kodiak by 
Mr. J. A. Loring, was 9^ feet long by 104 feet 
wide across the fore legs. 
Immediately after shedding, the new coat of 
the Kodiak Bear is dark-brown, like that of a 
grizzly, but it soon changes to a beautiful golden- 
brown tint. In March and April, the old coat 
is of a golden-yellow color, and really very beauti- 
ful. The full coat is long, thick and shaggy, and 
1 Ur'sus mid, 1 den-dor f-fi. 
