Black Bruin: The Biography of a Bear

He had stolen the belt of Wampum From the neck of Mishe-mokwa, From the Great Bear of the mountains, From the terror of the nations, As he lay asleep and cumbrous, On the summit of the mountains, Like a rock with mosses on it, Spotted brown and gray with mosses. —LONGFELLOW.

With the possible exception of the deer family, the bear is the most widely disseminated big game, known to hunters.
He makes his home within the Arctic Circle, often living upon the great ice-floe, or dwells within a tropical jungle, and both climates are agreeable to him, while longitudinally he has girdled the world.
Of course bruin varies much, according to the climate in which he lives, and the conditions of his life, but all the way from the poles to the tropics he retains certain characteristics that always proclaim him a bear.
He is a plantigrade, walking like a man upon the soles of his feet. There is more truth than poetry in Kipling's poem, The Man Who Walks Like a Bear, for some men do walk like a bear.
Bruin's four-footed gait is a shuffle and a shamble, rather clumsy and ludicrous, but it takes him over the ground at a surprising pace. Queer, also, is the fact that the bear combines great dexterity with his seeming clumsiness, as many a hunter has found to his cost. His tree-climbing accomplishments are likewise remarkable, when we consider his great size and weight. The grizzlies, and some other large varieties, do not do tree-climbing, except when they are young. A grizzly cub can climb a tree, but his wrists soon become too stiff to permit of their bending about the trunk.
Bruin's disposition also varies with the climate he inhabits. This in turn is because his diet varies in differing latitudes. The farther south he ranges, the more of a vegetarian he becomes. Consequently, he is not so ferocious. The great white polar bear is largely carnivorous, so he is a creature not to be trifled with; while on the other hand, the little African sun bear is a rollicking, social, good-natured little chap, weighing many times less than his fierce cousin.