Ursus Thibetanus. F. Cuv.

It is with no slight feelings of regret that we find ourselves unable to furnish a complete and satisfactory account of the animal from whom the portrait above given was taken. Very soon after the drawing was completed, and before we had availed ourselves of the opportunity of making the necessary examination, we were unfortunately precluded¹ from so doing by his sudden transfer to another country. His likeness² alone, and a faithful and spirited likeness we will venture to pronounce it, remains³ with us. From this, and from the very imperfect notes which we possess, we have little hesitation⁴ in referring it provisionally to the species first[130] established by M. Duvaucel, and since published by M. F. Cuvier in his splendid Histoire Naturelle des Mammifères. The circumstance, however, of our animal, the only individual of his species ever seen in Europe, having been brought from the Island of Sumatra instead of the continent of India, in which alone the Ursus Thibetanus had hitherto been discovered, is so remarkable⁵, that we should have felt bound, had the means still remained open to us, to institute a close and severe comparison between the living specimen⁶ and the figure and description furnished by M. Duvaucel and M. Cuvier. As it is, we can only repeat the characters of the Thibet Bear as given by them, and refer to our figure for all the proof which we have it in our power to offer of its identity with the present animal. We trust that M. Temminck, or some other competent naturalist⁷ of the country to which the latter has been conveyed, will amply supply a deficiency which certainly would not have existed had we received timely notice of the intended transfer.

M. Duvaucel enumerates⁸ three species of bears inhabiting India and the neighbouring islands. The first of these is the Ursus labiatus, which was strangely mistaken on its first arrival in Europe, nearly forty years ago, for a

分享到：