THE BEAR, whether black or grizzly, is a great American citizen. Think
of how many children have been put to sleep with bear stories! Facts
about the animal are fascinating; the effect he has had on the minds of
human beings associated with him transcends naturalistic facts. The tree
on which Daniel Boone carved the naked fact that here he "Killed A. Bar
In the YEAR 1760" will never die. Davy Crockett killed 105 bars in one
season, and his reputation as a bar hunter, plus ability to tell about
his exploits, sent him to Congress. He had no other reason for going.
The grizzly was the hero of western tribes of Indians from Alaska
on down into the Sierra Madre. Among western white men who met him,
occasionally in death, the grizzly inspired a mighty saga, the cantos of
which lie dispersed in homely chronicles and unrecorded memories as well
as in certain vivid narratives by Ernest Thompson Seton, Hittell's John
Capen Adams, John G. Neihardt, and others.
For all that, neither the black bear nor the grizzly has been amply
conceived of as an American character. The conception must include a
vast amount of folklore. In a chapter on "Bars and Bar Hunters" in _On
the Open Range_ and in "Juan Oso" and "Under the Sign of Ursa Major,"
chapters of _Tongues of the Monte_, I have indicated the nature of this
dispersed epic in folk tales.
In many of the books listed under "Nature; Wild Life; Naturalists" and
"Mountain Men" the bear "walks like a man."
ALTER, J. CECIL. _James Bridger_, Salt Lake City, 1922 reprinted by
Long's College Book Co., Columbus, Ohio. Contains several versions of
the famous Hugh Glass bear story.
HITTELL, THEODORE H. _The Adventures of John Capen Adams_, 1860;
reprinted 1911, New York. OP. Perhaps no man has lived who knew
grizzlies better than Adams. A rare personal narrative.
MILLER, JOAQUIN. _True Bear Stories_, Chicago, 1900. OP. Truth
questionable in places; interest guaranteed.
MILLER, LEWIS B. _Saddles and Lariats_, Boston, 1909. OP. The chapter
"In a Grizzly's Jaws" is a wonderful bear story.
MILLS, ENOS A. _The Grizzly, Our Greatest Wild Animal_, Houghton
Mifflin, Boston, 1919. Some naturalists have accused Mills of having too
much imagination. He saw much and wrote vividly.
NEIHARDT, JOHN G. _The Song of Hugh Glass_, New York, 1915. An epic
in vigorous verse of the West's most famous man-and-bear story. This
imagination-rousing story has been told over and over, by J. Cecil Alter
in _James Bridger_, by Stanley Vestal in _Mountain Men_, and by other
writers.
ROOSEVELT, THEODORE. _Hunting Adventures_ in the {illust. caption =
Charles M. Russell, in _Fifteen Thousand Miles by Stage_ by Carrie Adell
Strahorn (1915 ) _West_ (1885) and _The Wilderness Hunter_ (1893)--books
reprinted in parts or wholly under varying titles. Several narratives of
hunts intermixed with baldfaced facts.
SETON, ERNEST THOMPSON. _The Biography of a Grizzly_, 1900; now
published by Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York. _Monarch, the Big Bear
of Tallac_, 1904. Graphic narratives.
SKINNER, M. P. _Bears in the Yellowstone_, Chicago, 1925. OP. A
naturalist's rounded knowledge, pleasantly told.
STEVENS, MONTAGUE. _Meet Mr. Grizzly_, University of New Mexico Press,
Albuquerque, 1943. Montague Stevens graduated from Trinity College,
Cambridge, in 1881 and came to New Mexico to ranch. As respects
deductions on observed data, his book is about the most mature yet
published by a ranchman. Goodnight experienced more, had a more ample
nature, but he lacked the perspective, the mental training, to know what
to make of his observations. Another English rancher, R. B. Townshend,
had perspective and charm but was not a scientific observer. So far as
sense of smell goes, _Meet Mr. Grizzly_ is as good as W. H. Hudson's _A
Hind in Richmond Park_. On the nature and habits of grizzly bears, it is
better than _The Grizzly_ by Enos Mills.
WRIGHT, WILLIAM H. _The Grizzly Bear: The Narrative of a
Hunter-Naturalist, Historical, Scientific and Adventurous_, New York,
1928. OP. This is not only the richest and justest book published on the
grizzly; it is among the best books of the language on specific mammals.
Wright had a passion for bears, for their preservation, and for arousing
informed sympathy in other people. Yet he did not descend to propaganda.
_His The Black Bear_, London, n.d., is good but no peer to his work on
the grizzly. Also OP.