CARNIVORA. 
Md 
in it a certain tendency to whiteness, subject to 
which determinate character individuals are found of 
various tints and colours, as mentioned by Lewis and 
Clark 
On one occasion Captain Lewis, who was on shore 
with a hunter, met two white bears. He says, “ Of 
the strength and ferocity of this animal the Indians 
had given us dreadful accounts : they never attack 
him but in parties of six or eight persons, and even 
then are often defeated, with the loss of one or more 
of their number. Having no weapons but bows and 
arrows, and the bad guns with which the traders 
supply them, they are obliged to approach very near 
to the bear; and as no wound, except through the 
head or heart, is mortal, they frequently fall a sacri- 
fice if they miss their aim. He rather attacks than 
avoids a man ; and such is the terror which he has 
inspired, that the Indians, who go in quest of him, 
paint themselves, and perform all the superstitious 
rites customary when they make war on a neigh- 
bouring nation t. Hitherto those we had seen did 
not appear desirous of encountering us ; but, al- 
though to a skilful rifleman the danger is much di- 
* They mention a female bear, black, with a considerable mixture 
of white hairs, which was killed, together with two cubs, one of a 
black, and the other of a light reddish brown colour. 
t Pennant gives an account of the ceremonies practised by the 
Indians previously to a bear-hunting expedition. It was doubtless 
the adventurous chase of the ursus ferox here described, and not 
that of the common species, which was entered upon with such 
superstitious and barbarous ceremonials. 
