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102 THE GRIZZLY BEAR

I will call them by that name for convenience—is very
light, shading from brown to orangy yellow and occasion-
ally even approaching whiteness. Their claws are com-
paratively small, and have more of a curve and are not
so white as are those of most interior grizzlies. In size
they are the smallest of all the species.

Ursus horribilis of eastern British Columbia is of medium
size, and has the dark, often almost black, undercolour and
light-tipped hair from which the name grizzly originated.
They usually have a light yellowish-coloured strip of hair
behind the fore-shoulder. They are locally called “‘ silver-
tips.” These silver-tips are essentially mountain bears,
and seldom visit valleys of low altitude unless they happen
to be trekking from one mountain to another. Their
regular habitat is high up near timber line, where they
wander from one slide to another digging up roots, looking
for goats that have met an untimely end, but above all
in quest of ground squirrels and other marmots. All
grizzly relish ground squirrels, but the “‘ silver-tip ’? seems
to be a glutton for them, and in the spring cannot wait
until the snow is gone but digs through deep snow banks
after them. I once came across a tunnel in the snow
eight or ten feet long which had been dug by a grizzly,
simply to find a squirrel that had evidently betrayed his
whereabouts by digging his way out before the snow
melted. The tunnel the bear had dug was high enough
for me to walk in, by stooping, until towards the end ;
then it narrowed up until at the very last it was evident
that the bear had just used one paw to scoop a hole with,
as it was not more than a foot in diameter.

Owing to the great amount of digging these ‘“ silver-
tips’? do, they have developed enormous claws that are
very light-coloured for their whole length.

Of all the game on this continent there is no species of
game whose hunting is so uncertain as that of the grizzly,
and yet there are numbers of them. If you travelled over
any part of the coast, Cascade, Selkirk, Purcell, or Rocky
Mountain ranges, you would frequently be in close proximity
to grizzlies. Whether you would lay eyes on one, to say