the terms used by the different tribes to signify hoary or light coloured, by the
general epithet of blanc. Lewis and Clark, in their ably-executed Journey to
the Shores of the Pacific, had numerous opportunities of observing its manners,
and by their ample descriptions, first enabled naturalists to class it as a distinct
species. It is true that Forster, long before, in his translation of Bossu’s Travels,
had intimated that the “ White Bear of Louisiana S must be distinct from the
Polar Bear, which it resembled in size, but the remark was suffered to pass
unheeded. De Witt Clinton, in his discourse at the Institution of the New York
Literary and Philosophical Society, is the first naturalist who, judging from Lewis
pnd Clark’s account, clearly asserted that this animal was specifically different
from either the Polar or common American Bears, Since that time the various
synonymes prefixed to this article, in the order of their publication, have been
assigned to it. The English name of Grisly has been adopted in this work as
being less liable to objection than one founded on colour alone ; and the Latin
translation of it, ferox, which, as far as I have been able to ascertain, first occurs
in Desmarest, and seems preferable to dnereus, is used for the specific appellation.
Mr. Say, in the account of Major Long’s Expedition, gives a description of the
Grisly Bear, drawn up from male and female specimens, preserved in the Philadelphia
Museum, and which, having been brought up in a state of confinement,
were , killed before they arrived at maturity. Figures of these specimens have
been published in the American edition of Long’s Expedition, and in Godman’s
■Natural History. A young cub, caught on the Rocky Mountains, being brought
to England by the Hudson’s' Bay Company about eight years ago, has been kept
in the Tower ever since, and there is a spirited engraving of it by Landseer, in
Griffith’s Animal Kingdom, The etching, forming plate first of this work, is by
the same able artist, the head being from that of an adult male, brought home by
Mr. Drummond, and the form of the body and attitudes from the individual in the
Tower, I was present at the death of a young Grisly Bear, killed at Carlton-
house on the Saskatchewan. It was a male, in its second year, which being pursued
by mounted hunters, was overtaken after an hour’s chase, through snow one
foot deep, The hunters approached boldly, trusting in the fleetness of their
horses; although, from the size of its foot-prints, they were fully aware that it was
a Grisly Bear, even before they saw it *. The skin and scull of this individual are
now preserved in the Museum of the Edinburgh University, and a figure of it is
given in the sixth number of the very excellent Illustrations of Zoology by Wilson.
* Mackenzie mentions the foot-marks of a, Grisly Bear as being nine inches long and proportionably wide. The
foot-marks of the young one mentioned in the text were of equal dimensions.