A full grown grisly will usually weigh from five to seven hundred
pounds; but exceptional individuals undoubtedly reach more than twelve
hundredweight. The California bears are said to be much the largest.
This I think is so, but I cannot say it with certainty--at any rate I
have examined several skins of full-grown California bears which were
no larger than many I have seen from the northern Rockies. The Alaskan
bears, particularly those of the peninsula, are even bigger beasts;
the skin of one which I saw in the possession of Mr. Webster, the
taxidermist, was a good deal larger than the average polar bear skin;
and the animal when alive, if in good condition, could hardly have
weighed less than 1,400 pounds.[*] Bears vary wonderfully in weight,
even to the extent of becoming half as heavy again, according as they
are fat or lean; in this respect they are more like hogs than like any
other animals.

[*] Both this huge Alaskan bear and the entirely distinct
bear of the barren grounds differ widely from the true
grisly, at least in their extreme forms.

The grisly is now chiefly a beast of the high hills and heavy timber;
but this is merely because he has learned that he must rely on cover to
guard him from man, and has forsaken the open ground accordingly. In old
days, and in one or two very out-of-the-way places almost to the present
time, he wandered at will over the plains. It is only the wariness born
of fear which nowadays causes him to cling to the thick brush of the
large river-bottoms throughout the plains country. When there were no
rifle-bearing hunters in the land, to harass him and make him afraid,
he roved thither and thither at will, in burly self-confidence. Then
he cared little for cover, unless as a weather-break, or because it
happened to contain food he liked. If the humor seized him he would