From their great quantity of fat, bears are excellent swimmers. In Louisiana, Dumont says, they cross that great river with perfect ease; they are very fond of the fruit of the _guiacana_, the trees of which they climb, and sit astride upon the branches to eat it; they are also partial to potatoes and yams. In autumn they are so fat that they can hardly walk, at least they cannot run as fast as a man; it is sometimes ten inches thick on their sides and thighs. The under part of their paws is large and swelled, and when cut there issues out a white milky juice. This part seems composed of glands resembling small nipples, and this is the reason why they continually suck their paws when confined to their dens during winter. The bear enjoys the sense of seeing, hearing, and feeling, in great perfection, although compared with his size, his eye is small, his ears short, and his skin coarse and covered with a quantity of hair. His smell, is, perhaps, more exquisite than that of any other animal; the internal surface of his nose being very extensive and excellently calculated to receive impressions from odoriferous bodies. Their legs and arms are fleshy, like those of man, and they strike with their paws in the same manner as he does with his fists; they have also a short heel bone, which makes part of the sole of the foot; in their kind of hands the thumb is not separated, and the largest finger is on the outside; but whatever rude resemblance they may have to the human species, they only render them the more deformed without giving them the smallest superiority over other animals. SUPPLEMENT.