66 THE POLAR BEAR. 



Nevertheless the bears still possess formidable destructive 

 weapons ; their jaws are actuated by powerful muscles, and 

 are both armed in front with six incisors and two large pointed 

 conical teeth, or laniaries. Their claws, although not indeed 

 so sharp as in the tiger, are yet sufficiently capable, from the 

 great power of the limbs, of inflicting severe lacerations : and 

 the irresistible gripe of these animals, — their favourite and 

 almost peculiar method of attack, — is proverbial. The cou- 

 rage of the bear corresponds with his corporeal powers ; and 

 although he avoids a rencontre with man, and exercises con- 

 siderable caution under circumstances not familiar to him, 

 and from which danger might be apprehended, yet when 

 compelled to fight, he becomes a formidable opponent, bring- 

 ing his forces into the field with good-will and energy, and 

 losing none of his natural advantages through fear. 



Possessing an internal organization capable of digesting 

 either animal or vegetable food, and locomotive powers 

 adapted to a vast variety of circumstances, it may be readily 

 supposed that the animals of the genus Ursus are widely 

 distributed over the face of the globe. Indeed it will be dif- 

 ficult to point out any other group in the class Mammalia, 

 inferior to man, so truly cosmopolite. Accordingly species of 

 the bear, differing but little from each other in general form, 

 are met with from the equator to the pole : and, notwith- 

 standing the organized products which characterize these 

 latitudes are of a nature so widely different, the bear contrives 

 in both climates to satisfy his voracious appetite and grow fat. 



In the arctic regions, where the vegetable kingdom is feebly 

 represented by lichens and mosses, but where, on the contrary, 

 the ocean teems with myriads of small mollusca, and at the 

 same time exhibits animal life under its bulkiest forms, — here 

 the polar bear is found laying wait for and combating the 

 walrus and the seal; pursuing and overtaking in its own ele- 

 ment the swift salmon ; employing stratagem to surprise the 

 smaller quadrupeds and birds which in summer-time visit 

 the higher latitudes ; less delicate also in his appetites than 

 the more strictly carnivorous quadrupeds, this species does 

 not disdain to feast on the stranded carcase of the whale; and 

 being of a slothful disposition, he prefers this more easy and 

 abundant sustenance to that which demands from him more 

 active predatory exertions. 



In the tropical regions, on the contrary, where vegetation 

 is exhibited under the most luxuriant forms and in the great- 

 est profusion, the bears live almost exclusively on vegetable 

 matter; and it is interesting to observe that these species 

 are the smallest of the genus, and are consequently best fitted 



