The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)Wood, Theodore
General
The Animal World, A Book of Natural History: Young Folks' Treasury (Volume V)
Wood, Theodore
Animals -- Juvenile literature
The brown bear of North America lives largely on the fruits and berries
of the northern plants, on dead deer, and on putrid fish, of which
quantities are left on the banks of the northern rivers. Whether the
large brown bear of the Rocky Mountains is always a grizzly, or often
this less dangerous race, is doubtful. The following is Sir Samuel
Baker's account of these bears. He says: "When I was in California,
experienced informants told me that no true grizzly bear was to be found
east of the Pacific slope. There are numerous bears of three if not four
kinds in the Rocky Mountains. These are frequently termed grizzlies; but
it is a misnomer. The true grizzly is far superior in size, but of
similar habits." There are certainly three Rocky Mountain bears--the
grizzly, the brown, and the small black bear. There is probably also
another--a cross between the black and the brown. It is a mistake to say
that the brown bears which come to eat the refuse on the dust-heaps of
the hotels of the Yellowstone Park, and let ladies photograph them, are
savage grizzly bears.
THE GRIZZLY BEAR
The famous grizzly bear, which lives in North America, is much bigger
and stronger and more savage than the brown bears, so that it is really
a very formidable animal. When fully grown, this huge creature is
sometimes as much as nine feet long from the tip of the snout to the
root of the tail, while it weighs at least 800 or 900 pounds.
The grizzly is a very distinct race of brown bear. It has a flat
profile, like the polar bear. This enormous creature is barely able to
climb trees, and has the largest claws of any--they have been known to
measure five inches along the curve. The true grizzly, which used to be
found as far north as 61º latitude and south as far as Mexico, is a rare
animal now. Its turn for cattle-killing made the ranchmen poison it, and
rendered the task an easy one. It is now only found in the northern
Rocky Mountains and parts of northern California and Nevada. Formerly
encounters with "Old Ephraim," as the trappers called this bear, were
numerous and deadly. It attacked men if attacked by them, and often
without provocation. The horse, perhaps more than its rider, was the
object of the bear.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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