882 
THE BEAR. 
will enter into a little explanation of it in 
this place. Plantigrade animals are those 
which use the entire foot in walking,—such 
as man, the monkeys, and the hears. The 
digitigrade, on the contrary, use only the 
toes,—as the cats and dogs, the deer and 
many ruminants. The plantigrade animals, 
take them as a class, do not compare with 
the digitigrade for speed,—though some of 
them are excellent climbers. 
“ The bear is very generally distributed 
over the globe, from the North Pole to the 
Tropic of Capricorn. Wherever found, he 
is an object of more or less veneration to 
the native inhabitants, both from his great 
usefulness and from the superstitions that 
attach themselves to him. This is more espe¬ 
cially the case in the Northern regions, 
where the bear is almost the only large 
land-animal. In the case of the Lap¬ 
landers, the skin of the bear forms their 
beds and their coverlets, bonnets for their 
heads, gloves for their hands and collars 
for their dogs, while an over-all made of it 
and drawn over their boots prevents them 
from slipping upon the ice. The flesh and 
fat are their dainties; of the intestines they 
