ean glutton and American wolverine (_gulo_), the badgers of
both continents, and of Asia (_meles_), the raccoon (_procyon_), the
Cape ratel (_mellivora_), the panda (_ailurus_), the benturong
(_ictides_), the coati (_nasua_), the paradoxure (_paradoxurus_), and
even the curious little teledu of Java (_mydaus_). It was Linnaeus
himself who first entered these animals under the heading of _bears_--at
least, such of them as were known in his day; and the French anatomist,
Cuvier, extended this incongruous list to the others. To distinguish
them from the true bears, they divided the family into two branches--the
_ursinae_, or bears properly so called, and the _subursinae_, or little
bears. Now, in my opinion," continued Alexis, "there is not the
slightest necessity for calling these numerous species of animals even
`_little bears_.' They are not bears in any sense of the word: having
scarce any other resemblance to the noble Bruin than their plantigrade
feet. All these animals--the Javanese teledu excepted--have long tails;
some of them, in fact, being very long and very bushy--a characteristic
altogether wanting to the bears, that can hardly be said to have tails
at all. But there are other peculiarities that still more widely
separate the bears from the so called `little bears;' and indeed so many
essential points of difference, that the fact of their being classed
together might easily be shown to be little better than mere anatomical
nonsense. It is an outrage upon common sense," continued Alexis,
warming with his subject, "to regard a raccoon as a bear,--an animal
that is ten times more like a fox, and certainly far nearer to the genus
_canis_ than that of _ursus_. On the other hand, it is equally absurd
to break up the true bears into different _genera_--as these same
anatomists have done; for if there be a family in the world the
individual members of which bear a close family likeness to one another,
that is the family of Master Bruin. Indeed, so like are the different
species, that other learned anatomists have gone to the opposite extreme
of absurdity, and asserted that they are all one and the same! However,
we shall see as we become acquainted with the different members of this
distinguished family, in what respects they differ from each other, and
in what they are alike."

"I have heard," said Ivan, "that here, in Norway and Lapland, there are
two distinct species of the brown bear, besides the black v