Bear
2 of the 7 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Bear. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a family of well known animals. The bear has a shaggy coat, a heavy, clumsy body, and a short tail. It walks on the entire sole of the foot, rather than on the toes. The nearest American relative is the raccoon. There are many species, distributed throughout Europe, Asia, and America; but, excepting in the Atlas Mountains, none are known in Africa or Australia. The bear of history is the common brown bear of Europe, which, however, is becoming very scarce. It had disappeared in England by the time of the Norman Conquest. It is the heraldic emblem of the Swiss canton of Berne. Kipling likens Russia to "the bear that walks like a man." Four groups are recognized in America: The black bear, the white bear, the grizzly bear, and the brown bear; in all, as some think, seventeen or more species. The cinnamon bear is classed with the black bear. The black bear is distributed everywhere in North American forests, unless exterminated. It is rather a solitary animal, each family occupying its own range, to the exclusion of others. It enjoys a great variety of food,--fish, insects, acorns, beech nuts, and, in time of scarcity, it is not averse to carrying away a farmer's pigs or sheep. It is fond of berries, especially of blueberries and bearberries. The bear is also very fond of honey. It digs up the nests of bumblebees, and will tear open a rotten log or tree in which a swarm of bees may have hived. Its thick hair protects it from the sting of the bees. This bear is entirely inoffensive and attacks a person only under the most extreme provocation, or in defense of its young. From one to three cubs are produced at a birth, and remain blind for about four weeks. In the autumn, the bear rolls itself up in a hollow tree or cavern, or in an excavation under some stump or log, and sleeps through the winter. It is a very imitative, good natured animal. If not tormented, a tame bear will roll about the dooryard playing with the dog and children. Specimens kept on the parade ground of a military post have been known to go through the manual of arms without instructions, shouldering a stick for the purpose. In addition to the ordinary black bear, the group includes the Labrador bear, the Louisiana bear, the everglade bear, the cinnamon bear of the Rockies, the Queen Charlotte bear of British Columbia , and the glacier bear of Alaska, the latter being the smallest American bear known. The polar bear of the far north is creamy white. This bear brings forth its hardy young in such a den as can be made in an Arctic region, frequently under the snow. It swims with great facility, pursuing seals and fishes in the water; the eider duck, and other Arctic birds on land. A young walrus is quite to the polar bear's taste. In summer, it varies a flesh diet with roots and mosses. This bear follows the edge of the ice pack. No water is too icy, no weather too cold, for this bear. With its warm, shaggy coat, it quite enjoys its Arctic home. Its tracks have been seen as far north as 84 deg.Owing to the nature of the region in which it lives, the polar bear is likely to live after all other species are extinct. As many as a score have been seen at one time on a single islet. A well grown specimen weighs eight hundred or a thousand pounds. The prevalent western species of the Rocky Mountains is the powerful grizzly bear, a strong, but, if let alone, not a dangerous animal. It seldom attacks man. However, it is considered an undesirable neighbor in the vicinity of a stock ranch. Bret Harte has described the grizzly admirably in the following lines: Coward,--of heroic size, In whose lazy muscles lies Strength we fear and yet despise; Savage, whose relentless tusks Are content with acorn husks; Robber, whose exploits ne'er soared O'er the bee's or squirrel's hoard; Whiskered chin and feeble nose, Claws of steel on baby's toes. Joaquin Miller, who has written a whole book of bear stories, states that he never knew a grizzly to begin a fight or to eat human flesh. They are clumsy, good-natured eaters of berries, capable of becoming enraged, but they are never cruel. They never toy as a cat does with a mouse. Grizzly bears at one time were found as far east as Minnesota but the genuine grizzly of California is now rare. There are some fine specimens in the Yellowstone National Park . Allied species are the Sonora grizzly found in New Mexico , the Alaskan grizzly, and the Barren-Ground grizzly which is still hunted in the Great Slave Lake region. The group of American brown bears was distributed until of late among the blacks and grizzlies. It contains several Alaskan species. The Kadiak bear, found chiefly on the island of that name, is the largest of all bears, the largest flesh eating animal known. It eats berries, grass, and salmon. Skulls nineteen inches in length are in museums. A specimen killed lately measured fifty-one inches in height at the shoulder. The outstretched forepaws were capable of spanning ten feet, six inches. The Kadiak bear weighs twice as much as a grizzly. Bruin is a favorite character in juvenile literature. The story of the three bears, the big bear, the little bear, and the middle sized bear, with their chairs of corresponding sizes, is thoroughly characteristic. Of American writers, Ernest Thompson-Seton and his Lives of the Hunted should be mentioned for sketches of bear life. See Bearberry ; Berne ; Raccoon Brown bear Polar bear. Bears Long-lip bear Ring-necked bear 2026 Editor's Note: Bears loom large in modern culture and conservation: the polar bear became the emblem of climate change as its Arctic ice melts, the giant panda the very symbol of endangered species. And one bear conquered the nursery — the ' teddy bear ,' named after Theodore Roosevelt, who in 1902 refused to shoot a t ether ed bear, inspiring the toy that has comforted children ever since. (Ed: BR 2026-06-01)
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the English name of the various species of plantigrade mammals belonging to the ursus and some neighboring genera. The term plantigrade, applied to the bears, intimates that they walk on the soles of their feet; not, like the digitigrade animals, on their toes. Though ha having six six incisor teeth in each jaw, like the rest of the carnivora, yet the tubercular crowns of the molar teeth show that their food is partly vegetable. They grub up roots, and, when they can obtain it, greedily devour honey. They hibernate in winter. The best known species is ursus arctos, the brown bear. They are wild in this country, on the continent of Europe, and in Asia. Other species are the Syrian bear (ursus syriacus, which is the bear of Scripture); the American black bear (ursus americanus); the grizzly bear of the same continent (ursus ferox); and the Polar bear (ursus or thalassarctos maritimus), and others. The earliest representative of the ursidæ, or bear family, known at present, does not belong to the typical genus ursus. It is called amphicyon, and is of Miocene age. Of Post-pliocene bears, one, ursus priscus, seems the same as ursus ferox (the grizzly bear). Several bears, ursus spelæus, arctos, and others, have been found in caves, in England and elsewhere. Of these, ursus spelæus, from the Greek spelaios a grotto, cavern, or pit, is the one called especially the cave bear. It is a giant species, occurring in the later rather than the earlier Postpliocene beds. In Stock Exchange parlance, a bear is one who contracts to sell on a specified day certain stock not belonging to him, at the market price then prevailing, on receiving imaginary payment for them at the rate which obtains when the promise was made. It now becomes his interest that the stock on which he has speculated should fall in price. The purchaser, called a "bull," sees it to his advantage to make the stock rise. The origin of the term is uncertain. In astronomy, the word is applied to one or other of two constellations, Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, called respectively the Great Bear and the Little Bear. When the word Bear stands alone, it signifies Ursa Major.