Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 6.djvu/305

Rh This bear seldom attacks man if unmolested. The pregnant females hibernate, but the males and other females do not. The first scrapes a hole into the snow, where, buried as it were, she passes the winter, bringing forth her babies, generally two in number, during that time. The mother will always die before leaving her cubs in danger, and, if they be killed first, she is said to make a most affecting display of grief. The flesh of the polar bear is highly esteemed by the arctic voyagers as an article of food.



Scattered throughout Europe are the remains of extinct bears, usually found in caves, from which fact they are said to belong to the cave-bear. They have been divided into two species, Ursus spelæus and Ursus priscus. The former is larger than any living species. In a recent number of the Popular Science Review, Mr. A. Leith Adams, M.B., F.R.S., makes an interesting attempt to establish the identity of the grizzly and the Ursus spelæus. He thinks that the former was at one time common to Europe, and that the latter were only larger individuals of the same species. He was led to this conclusion from observations on the brown bear of the Himalayas, in which species he found that certain males occasionally grow much larger than the average, and that such are peculiarly addicted to living in caves, from which they seldom wander except for a few hours daily. It seems, also, that certain slight modifications of the skeleton occur in the overgrown individuals. Reasoning from analogy, he concludes that, when means of subsistence were abundant in Europe, it is likely that a similar peculiarity of excessive growth in certain individuals also characterized the grizzly species. This hypothesis, he thinks, sufficiently accounts for the difference in size, while the cave-loving habits of the larger individuals would explain the preservation of their remains. The Ursus priscus he regards as identical with the brown bear (Ursus arctos).

Regarding the distribution of bears, we have found the grizzly