Those on the right and left are Himalayan black bears. The white collar is plainly seen.
Every one will have noticed the deliberate flat-footed walk of the bears. This is due partly to the formation of the feet themselves. The whole sole is set flat upon the ground, and the impressions in a bear's track are not unlike those of a man's footsteps. The claws are not capable of being retracted, like those of the Cats; consequently they are worn at the tips where the curve brings them in contact with the ground. Yet it is surprising what wounds these blunt but hard weapons will inflict on man—wounds resembling what might be caused by the use of a very large garden-rake. Against other animals protected by hair bears' claws are of little use. Dogs would never attack them so readily as they do were they armed with the talons of a leopard or tiger. The flesh-teeth in both jaws of the bear are unlike those of other carnivora. The teeth generally show that bears have a mixed diet. Bears appear to have descended from some dog-like ancestor, but to have been much modified.
Photo by Ottomar Anschütz] [Berlin.
EUROPEAN BROWN BEAR.
The specimen of the brown bear of Europe from which this picture was taken was an unusually light and active bear. Its flanks are almost flat.
Except the ice-bear, all the species are short and very bulky. It is said that a polar bear has been killed which weighed 1,000 lbs. It is far the largest, and most formidable in some respects, of all the Carnivora. The claws of the grizzly bear are sometimes 5 inches long over the outer curve. All bears can sit upright on their hams, and stand upright against a support like a tree. Some can stand upright with no aid at all. Except the grizzly bear, they can all climb, many of them very well. In the winter, if it be cold, they hibernate. In the spring, when the shoots of the early plants come up, they emerge, hungry and thin, to seek their food. Bears were formerly common in Britain, and were exported for the Roman amphitheatres. The prehistoric cave-bears were very large. Their remains have been found in Devon, Derbyshire, and other counties. The species inhabiting Britain during the Roman period was the common brown bear of Europe.
The Common Brown Bear.
Only one species of bear is found in Europe south of the ice-line, though above it the white ice-bear inhabits Spitzbergen and the islands off the White Sea. This is the Brown Bear, the emblem of Russia in all European caricature, and the hero of innumerable fragments of folklore and fable, from the tents of the Lapps to the nurseries of English children. Except the ice-bear, it is far the largest of European carnivora, but varies much in size. Russia is the main home of the brown bear, but it is found in Sweden and Norway, and right across Northern Asia. It is also common in the Carpathian Mountains, in the Caucasus, and in Mount Pindus in Greece. In the south it is found in Spain and the Pyrenees, and a few are left in the Alps. The dancing-bears commonly brought to England are caught in the Pyrenees. The "Queen's bear," so called because its owner was allowed to exhibit it at Windsor, was one of these. But lately dancing-bears from Servia and Wallachia have also been seen about our roads and streets. In Russia the bear grows to a great size. Some have been killed of 800 lbs. in weight. The fur is magnificent in winter, and in great demand for rich Russians' sledge-rugs. The finest bear-skins of all are bought for the caps of our own Grenadier and Coldstream Guards. In the Alps the bears occasionally visit a cow-shed in winter and kill a cow; but as a rule the only damage done by those in Europe is to the sheep on the hills in the far north of Norway. Tame brown bears are amusing creatures, but should never be trusted. They are always liable to turn savage, and the bite is almost as severe as that of a tiger. Men have had their heads completely crushed in by the bite of one of these animals. In Russia bears are shot in the following manner. When the snow falls, the bears retire into the densest thickets, and there make a half-hut, half-burrow in the most tangled part to hibernate in. The bear is tracked, and then a ring made round the cover by beaters and peasants. The shooters follow the track and rouse the bear, which often charges them, and is forthwith shot. If it escapes, it is driven in by the beaters outside. High fees are paid to peasants who send information that a bear is harboured in this way. Sportsmen in St. Petersburg will go 300 or 400 miles to shoot one on receipt of a telegram.
The brown bear, like the reindeer and red deer, is found very little modified all across Northern Asia, and again in the forests of North America. There, however, it undergoes a change. Just as the red deer is found represented by a much larger creature, the wapiti, so the brown bear is found exaggerated into the great bear of Alaska. The species attains its largest, possibly, in Kamchatka, on the Asiatic side of Bering Sea; but the Alaskan bear has the credit with sportsmen of being the largest. A skin of one of the former, brought to the sale-rooms of Sir Charles Lampson & Co., needed two men to carry it. Last spring, in the sale-rooms of the same great firm, some persons present measured the skin of an Alaskan bear which was 9 feet across the shoulders from paw to paw.