In Oregon the cinnamon bear is a phase of
the small black bear; in Montana it is the plains variety of the large
mountain silver-tip. I have myself seen the skins of two bears killed
on the upper waters of Tongue River; one was that of a male, one of
a female, and they had evidently just mated; yet one was distinctly a
"silver-tip" and the other a "cinnamon." The skin of one very big bear
which I killed in the Bighorn has proved a standing puzzle to almost
all the old hunters to whom I have showed it; rarely do any two of
them agree as to whether it is a grisly, a silver-tip, a cinnamon, or
a "smut-face." Any bear with unusually long hair on the spine and
shoulders, especially if killed in the spring, when the fur is shaggy,
is forthwith dubbed a "roach-back." The average sporting writer moreover
joins with the more imaginative members of the "old hunter" variety in
ascribing wildly various traits to these different bears. One comments
on the superior prowess of the roach-back; the explanation being that a
bear in early spring is apt to be ravenous from hunger.
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