Old Martin

[2][3][5][6] Writing in 1829 the zoologist Edward Turner Bennett said as a conclusion to his chapter on grizzly bears: In no respect has the subject of the present notice, whose portrait admirably illustrates the peculiarities of his species, degenerated from the race of which he appears to be the sole representative in Arkansas.

He was presented to his late wife, more than seventeen years ago, by the Hudson’s Bay Company, and has long been the oldest inhabitant of the Tower Menagerie.

His size is far superior to that of any other bear that has ever been seen in this quarter of the globe; and his ferocity, in spite of the length of time during which he has been a prisoner, and of all the attempts that have been made to conciliate him, still continues undiminished.

He does not offer the slightest encouragement to familiarity on the part of his keepers, but treats them with as much distance as the most perfect strangers; and although he will sometimes appear playful and good tempered, yet they hate him too much to trust themselves within his clutch.

[5] In 1999 Old Martin's skin and feet were found at the Natural History Museum, London, catalogued as a "black bear", and were returned to the Tower for a special exhibition.