CARNIVORA. 
THE COMMON BEAR. L^OURS* 
Ursus Arctos, L. 
The forehead of this animal is convex ; the fur is 
brown, and more or less woolly; there are some 
almost yellow ; and in others the fur is so sleek and 
reflecting as to look silvery. They vary much in 
height, without reference to the age or sex of in- 
dividuals. When young, they have a whitish collar 
round the neck. They are found on the mountains, 
and in the great forests of Europe ; and over a con- 
siderable part of Asia, and probably in America*. 
Its flesh is good when young, and the paw is always 
esteemed a bonne louche. It was the opinion of an- 
tiquity, that the cubs of bears were born without 
shape or form. Virgil -I" calls them informes vrsi, 
Pliny t says, they are shapeless (informis caro), 
white, but little larger than mice, without eyes, with- 
out hair, and with the nails scarcely observable : 
* Mr. Pennant says, the brown bear is found in North America. 
Dr. Shaw, in his Zoology, says so, with an on dit ; but Cuvier states 
their residence to be only in Europe and Asia. The American 
brown bear is observed to emigrate towards the South in winter ; 
but its European congener is not known to quit its native mountain 
or forest ; whence, apparently, their principal difference, 
t Georgic iii. 246. 
i Nat. Hist. lib. 8. c. 36. 
