18 CARNIVORES. 
has incautiously fired at them from below instead of from above. The same writer 
also considers that at the present day Winchester repeaters and other rifles have 
established in the grizzly a wholesome dread of man, and that it is now altogether 
a more cautious and timid animal than formerly. 
The American Black Bear ( Ursus americanus). 
The American black bear is a well-marked species, differing from the brown 
bear much more decidedly than does the grizzly. It is a smaller animal than the 
brown bear, from which it differs by the proportionately smaller head, the sharper 
AALERICAX BLACK BEAR (A liat. SlZtjJ. 
muzzle, and more regularly convex profile of the face, as well as by the much 
shorter hind-foot. In length this bear seldom exceeds 5 feet. The fur is less 
shaggy, and altogether smoother and more glossy than that of either the brown or 
grizzly bear; being typically of a uniformly black colour, except on the muzzle, 
where it becomes tawny yellow. Occasionally, however, specimens are found with 
white margins to the lips and white streaks on the chest. The smaller size of the 
hind-feet of this species renders its trail distinguishable at a glance from that of 
the grizzly bear. As already mentioned, the so-called cinnamon bear may be a 
pale-coloured variety, either of the black bear or of the grizzly. 
The black bear formerly had a wider distribution than the grizzly, extending 
from Labiador and Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the east to the west 
coasts of the continent. Colonel D. G. Alexander states that it frequented “ all 
