VARIATIONS IN SIZE 101

the ground squirrel escaped. I made a point of examining
the bear’s stomach to satisfy my curiosity. In addition,
the skin proved to be one of the very best that it has
ever been my lot to find on a bear killed at that time
of year.

From this story you will see how simple it is for a person
to think he is being charged and how so many escape
from these attacks without injury. If that grizzly had
come at us with the intention of doing us a mischief,
one or the other would have been hurt, as I had no rifle
with me, and the Major could not have shot again in
time. As it was, he had all the thrills and excitement
of facing what he thought to be a desperately savage beast.
Perhaps it is a pity I undeceived him.

Grizzlies differ in size according to the locality you find
them in, and this is due partly to their food supply and the
length of their hibernation. They vary also in colour
of fur and claws. On the coast, where the mildness of
the climate enables them to stay out very late in the fall
and be about again early in the spring, and where also they
fatten up on huge quantities of salmon for their long
winter fast, they grow to larger size. Moreover, the farther
north you go you will find the coast grizzlies averaging
bigger and more and more approaching the type of the
Alaskan brown. bears, both in colour of hair and in colour
and shape of claws. It is therefore evident that, while
these northern bears may now differ sufficiently to warrant
their being divided into different species, they all originated
from the same ancestor, as have so many other species
of game.

In some parts of the northern interior there is an aston-
ishing change in the grizzlies, and this change occasionally
occurs within the space of a few miles. For instance, take
all the country round Atlin Lake, which in a direct line
is not very far distant from salt water, such a thing as
a big grizzly is a rarity ; if you do come across one of
any weight it is one that has strayed in over the coast
range. The colour of these Atlin grizzlies—they have
not yet been classified or named as a separate species, SO