These barbarities continued until a comparatively recent period, but are now, it is to be hoped, exploded forever. Instead of ministering to the worst passions of mankind, the animal creation now contribute, in no inconsiderable degree, to the expansion of the mind and the development of the nobler feelings. Zoological collections have taken the place of the Southwark Gardens and other brutal haunts of vice, and we are glad to say, often prove a stronger focus of attraction than the skittle ground and, its debasing society. By them, laudable curiosity is awakened, and the impression, especially on the fervent and plastic minds of young people, is deep and lasting. The immense number of persons[7] of the lower orders, who visited the London Gardens during the past season, prove the interest excited. The love of natural history is inherent in the human mind, and now for the first time the humbler classes are enabled to see to advantage, and to appreciate the beauties of animals of whose existence they were in utter ignorance, or if known, so tinctured with the marvelous, as to cause them to be regarded mainly as objects of wonder and of dread. California is hardly less remarkable for its bears than for its gold. The Grizzly Bear, expressively named _Ursus Ferox_ and _U. Horribilis_, reigns despotic throughout those vast wilds which comprise the Rocky Mountains and the plains east of them, to latitude 61°. In size it is gigantic, often weighing 800 pounds; and we ourselves have measured a skin eight feet and a half in length. Governor Clinton received an account of one fourteen feet long, but there might have been some stretching of this skin. The claws are of great length, and cut like a chisel when the animal strikes a blow with them. The tail is so small as not to be visible; and it is a standing joke with the Indians (who with all their gravity are great wags), to desire one unacquainted with the grizzly bear to take hold of its tail. The strength of this animal may be estimated from its having been known to drag easily to a considerable distance, the carcase of a bison, weighing upward of a thousand pounds. Mr. Dougherty, an experienced hunter, had killed a very large bison, and having marked the spot, left the carcase for the purpose of obtaining assistance to skin and cut it up. On his return, the bison had disappeared! What had become of it he could not divine; but at length, after much search, discovered it in a deep pit which had been dug for it at some distance by a grizzly bear, who had carried it off and buried it during Mr. Dougherty's absence. The following incident is related by Sir John Richardson: "A party of voyagers, who had been employed all day in tracking a canoe up the Saskatchewan, had seated themselves in the twilight by a fire, and were busy preparing their supper, when a large grizzly bear sprang over their canoe that was tilted behind them, and seizing one of the party by the shoulder, carried him off. The rest fled