The bears of the Upper Missouri
basin--which were so light in color that the early explorers often
alluded to them as gray or even as "white"--were particularly given
to this life in the open. To this day that close kinsman of the grisly
known as the bear of the barren grounds continues to lead this same kind
of life, in the far north. My friend Mr. Rockhill, of Maryland, who
was the first white man to explore eastern Tibet, describes the large,
grisly-like bear of those desolate uplands as having similar habits.
However, the grisly is a shrewd beast and shows the usual bear-like
capacity for adapting himself to changed conditions. He has in most
places become a cover-haunting animal, sly in his ways, wary to a degree
and clinging to the shelter of the deepest forests in the mountains and
of the most tangled thickets in the plains. Hence he has held his own
far better than such game as the bison and elk. He is much less common
than formerly, but he is still to be found throughout most of his former
range; save of course in the immediate neighborhood of the large towns.
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