That the Brown Bear was at one time common in the British Islands there can be no doubt. The Caledonian bears (another name for British with the Romans) were imported to make sport for the Roman people, to whom the excitement of witnessing the suffering of man and beast in its most distressing shape seems to have been but too welcome. From the well-known lines of Martial, descriptive of the dreadful punishment of the malefactor Laureolus, it appears that they were sometimes used as instruments of torture : Nude Caledonio sic pectora priebuit urso, Non falsa pendens in crime Laureolus.* Ray quotes authority for the Brown Bear having been one of the • We are quite aware that some commentators arc of opinion that Martial is here speaking of a mimic woe, and that the verses which follow those above Welsh beasts of chase, and Pennant adduces the places which retained the name of Pennarth, or the Bear's /load, as evidence that it existed in that principality. lu the History of the °onions ' it is stated that one of that family, so late as the year 1057, was directed by the king to carry three 'vane heads on his banner, as a reward for his valour in slaying a fierce bear in Scotland.
For many years it has been swept away from our islands so com pletely that we find it imported for baiting, a sport in which our nobility, as well as the commonalty, of the olden time—nay, even royalty itself—delighted. A bear-bait was one of the recreations offered to Elizabeth at Kenilworth, and in the Earl of Northumber land's ' Household Book' we read of 20s. for his bear-ward :—" Item. My lonle usith and accustotnyth to gyre yerly when his lordshippe is at home to his bar-ward, when ho comyth to my horde in Criatmaa with his lordshippo's berets, for makynge of his lordshippe pastime, the said xij days, xxa." In Southwark there was a regular bear garden, that disputed popularity with the Globe and the Swan theatres on the same side of the water. Now however, so much do tastes alter (in this instance certainly for the better), such barbarous sports are banished from the metropolis. (Stat. 3 Wm. IV. cap. 19, sec. 29.) The firm support afforded by the well-developed sole of the foot enables the Bears to rear themselves with comparative facility on their hind feet, and this has been taken advantage of to teach the animal to dance in an erect position. The discipline put in force to produce this accomplishment is said to be so severe that it is never forgotten.
Baron'Cuvier, in his ' Ossemens Fossiles,' distinguished the Black Bear of Europe under the title of Ursas niger Euroineus, observing that the frontal bone was flattened, and that the well-marked depres sions and ridges of the skull, for the reception of the strong muscles of the lower jaw, were evidence of its being more decidedly carnivorous than the Brown Bear; but in the last edition of his Repo Animal' he confesses his doubts about the data on which ho had come to this eonclusion, and it is probably a variety only. The usual size of the
Brown Bear is about 4 feet in length by about 2,1 feet in height The claws are 2 incites long, very much curved and nearly equal.
F. Cuvier luta figured the bear of the Pyrenees and of the Asturias, whose fur in its youth in of a yellowish white colour. The hair of the feet is an intense black. This is most probably only a variety, though perhaps a distinct one, of Urals Arctos. The Barren-Ground Bear of America Sir John Itichardeou is inclined to believe now is a variety of this, and net of the next species, as he at one time was inclined to think.
Rears.
U. Americana', American Black Bear, or Mwsputw.—Thdlas first described this species (the Sass of the Chippewayan Indians and the Musquaw of the Cream), whose general proportions are smaller than those of U. A rctos. The head of the American Black Bear is narrower, the ears more distant, and the muzzle more prominent, and it wants the depression above the eyes. The fur is composed of soft smooth hairs, which are of a glossy black for the greater part of their length, instead of possessing the shaggy and woolly character of the compa ratively grizzled fur of the Brown Maw, except on the muzzle, which in clothed with abort, thickset hairs, brown on the upper part and paler on the side. The tail is apparently more prominent, and the sharper and mere curved claws are nearly hidden in the hair.
quoted are not genuine ; but the expression 'non LIM cries' is pretty strong ; sod If the rest of the verses are allowed to be Manias, there Is no doubt that he here describes a real spectacle. Whichever be the truth, the horrible use to which these bears were occasionally put In the are= Is but too evident.
The Black Bear inhabits every woods' district of the American continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Carolina to the shores of the Arctic Sea. It still occurs, though not very often, in the Blue Ridge, in Virginia. Its southern boundary is placed at the Isthmus of Panama. Man has however gradually driven it front its haunts to make way for his works, and has compelled it to take refuge in the mountains and the immense inland forests. In Canada it is still abundant, and it is tolerably numerous on the western coast am far as California.