BEAR. Many species of bear contribute in various ways to the arts and to domestic economy. In the Arctic countries the brown bear is hunted and taken in pitfalls and traps of various kinds ; and in some countries, as Lapland and Kamtchatka, there is no part of the animal which is not turned to some useful Purpose. The fur of the brown bear in youth is of a yellowish colour, excepting on the feet, where it is of a deep black. The black bear inhabits every wooded district of the American continent, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from Carolina to the shores of the Arctic Sea. Every where however its numbers have been greatly thinned, partly owing to thevalue of the animal's skin in commerce, and partly to the tide of European colonization. It must not, however, be imagined that ' bear's skin ' gloves or other articles of dress are necessarily made from the skin of the animal whose name they assume. No part is useless to the American bear-hunter : the flesh, the fat, and the skin are peculiarly esteemed ; and a feast of bear's flesh is conducted with many observances. Of the 'Syrian bear, the gall is
in great esteem; the skins are sold, and so is the dung, which is used as medicine for dis eases of the eye in Syria and Egypt. The fur is woolly beneath, with long straight or but slightly curled hair externally. Many other species of bear are occasionally captured for the sake of their furs. The bear-skins imported into this country in 1818 amounted in number to 9712, of which about two-thirds were from the Hudson's Bay Company's territories.
It is perhaps scarcely necessary to inform any reader of average intelligence, that the bear's grease so profusely advertised has, for the most part, had little indeed to do with the life or the death of bears. More is used every year in England than could be procured from the carcases of all the obtainable bears in all countries. Large quantities of the so called bear's grease are made of hog's lard, palm oil, and flowers of benzoin.