The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.Bennett, Edward Turner
History
The Tower Menagerie : $b comprising the natural history of the animals contained in that establishment; with anecdotes of their characters and history.
A native also of the northern division of America, and more particularly
of that extensive tract of country which constitutes the newly erected
State of Missouri, the Grizzly Bear differs in many striking points, both
of character and habits, from the subject of the preceding article, as
well as from every other animal of the very natural group of which he
forms part. By his elongated, narrowed, and flattened muzzle, added to
the slight elevation of his forehead, he is closely connected with the
Black Bear of America, and as remarkably distinguished from the common
Brown Bear of Europe, and from the White Bear of the polar regions, which
last, in size and general form, offers perhaps the nearest approximation
to the present species. But his enormous magnitude, which may be stated
as averaging twice the bulk of the Black Bear; the greatly increased
size and power of his canine teeth; and, above all, the excessive length
of his talons, on the fore feet especially, afford characteristic
differences so obvious and so essential, that it is difficult to conceive
how they could have been so long overlooked by naturalists as well as
travellers, who have all, until within little more than twenty years of
the present time, passed him over without even a casual hint that he
presented any claims to be considered as distinct from the common species
of his country.
His hair, generally speaking, is longer, finer, and more abundant than
that of the Black Bear, and varies in colour to an almost indefinite
extent, passing through all the intermediate shades between a light gray
and a black brown. The brown tinge is, however, the most common; and it
is always more or less grizzled either by the intermixture of grayish
hairs, or by the brown hairs being tipped with gray. The hair of the legs
and feet is darker and coarser, and diminishes in length as it descends;
on the muzzle it becomes remarkably pale, and is so much shortened as to
give to the animal an appearance of baldness. His eyes are very small
and hardly at all prominent; and the line of the profile is consequently
nearly straight. His tail is scarcely visible, being almost entirely
concealed by the long hairs which surround it. Of the great size of
his feet and talons, some judgment may be formed from the measurements
given by Captains Lewis and Clarke, the first travellers by whom the
Grizzly Bear was accurately described. These gentlemen inform us that
the breadth of the fore foot in one of the individuals observed by them
exceeded nine inches, while the length of his hind foot, exclusive of
the talons, was eleven inches and three quarters, and its breadth seven
inches. The claws of the fore feet of another specimen measured more
than six inches. The latter are considerably longer and less curved than
those of the hind feet, and do not narrow in a lateral direction as they
approach their extremity, but diminish only from beneath: the point
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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