The king of the game beasts of temperate North America,because the most dangerous to the hunter,is the grisly bear;known to the few remaining old-time trappers of the Rockies and the Great Plains,sometimes as "Old Ephraim"and sometimes as "Moccasin Joe"--the last in allusion to his queer,half-human footprints,which look as if made by some mishapen giant,walking in moccasins.
Bear vary greatly in size and color,no less than in temper and habits.Old hunters speak much of them in their endless talks over the camp fires and in the snow-bound winter huts.They insist on many species;not merely the black and the grisly but the brown,the cinnamon,the gray,the silver-tip,and others with names known only in certain localities,such as the range bear,the roach-back,and the smut-face.But,in spite of popular opinion to the contrary,most old hunters are very untrustworthy in dealing with points of natural history.They usually know only so much about any given animal as will enable them to kill it.They study its habits solely with this end in view;and once slain they only examine it to see about its condition and fur.With rare exceptions they are quite incapable of passing judgment upon questions of specific identity or difference.When questioned,they not only advance perfectly impossible theories and facts in support of their views,but they rarely even agree as to the views themselves.One hunter will assert that the true grisly is only found in California,heedless of the fact that the name was first used by Lewis and Clarke as one of the titles they applied to the large bears of the plains country round the Upper Missouri,a quarter of a century before the California grisly was known to fame.Another hunter will call any big brindled bear a grisly no matter where it is found;and he and his companions will dispute by the hour as to whether a bear of large,but not extreme,size is a grisly or a silver-tip.In Oregon the cinnamon bear is a phase of the small black bear;in Montana it is the plains variety of the large mountain silver-tip.Ihave myself seen the skins of two bears killed on the upper waters of Tongue River;one was that of a male,one of a female,and they had evidently just mated;yet one was distinctly a "silver-tip"and the other a "cinnamon."The skin of one very big bear which I killed in the Bighorn has proved a standing puzzle to almost all the old hunters to whom I have showed it;rarely do any two of them agree as to whether it is a grisly,a silver-tip,a cinnamon,or a "smut-face."Any bear with unusually long hair on the spine and shoulders,especially if killed in the spring,when the fur is shaggy,is forthwith dubbed a "roach-back."The average sporting writer moreover joins with the more imaginative members of the "old hunter"variety in ascribing wildly various traits to these different bears.One comments on the superior prowess of the roach-back;the explanation being that a bear in early spring is apt to be ravenous from hunger.The next insists that the California grisly is the only really dangerous bear;while another stoutly maintains that it does not compare in ferocity with what he calls the "smaller"silver-tip or cinnamon.And so on,and so on,without end.All of which is mere nonsense.
Nevertheless it is no easy task to determine how many species or varieties of bear actually do exist in the United States,and I cannot even say without doubt that a very large set of skins and skulls would not show a nearly complete intergradation between the most widely separated individuals.However,there are certainly two very distinct types,which differ almost as widely from each other as a wapiti does from a mule deer,and which exist in the same localities in most heavily timbered portions of the Rockies.One is the small black bear,a bear which will average about two hundred pounds weight,with fine,glossy,black fur,and the fore-claws but little longer than the hinder ones;in fact the hairs of the fore-paw often reach to their tips.This bear is a tree climber.It is the only kind found east of the great plains,and it is also plentiful in the forest-clad portions of the Rockies,being common in most heavily timbered tracts throughout the United States.The other is the grisly,which weighs three or four times as much as the black,and has a pelt of coarse hair,which is in color gray,grizzled,or brown of various shades.It is not a tree climber,and the fore-claws are very long,much longer than the hinder ones.It is found from the great plains west of the Mississippi to the Pacific coast.This bear inhabits indifferently lowland and mountain;the deep woods,and the barren plains where the only cover is the stunted growth fringing the streams.These two types are very distinct in every way,and their differences are not at all dependent upon mere geographical considerations;for they are often found in the same district.Thus I found them both in the Bighorn Mountains,each type being in extreme form,while the specimens I shot showed no trace of intergradation.The huge grizzled,long-clawed beast,and its little glossy-coated,short-clawed,tree-climbing brother roamed over exactly the same country in those mountains;but they were as distinct in habits,and mixed as little together as moose and caribou.
