MAMMALIA — BEAR. 



HI 



pressed by this poor beast in the last moments of her expiring young ones. 

 Though she was herself dreadfully wounded, and could but just crawl to 

 the place where they lay, she carried the lump of flesh she had fetched 

 away, as she had done others before, tore it in pieces and laid it before 

 them ; and when she saw that they refused to eat, she laid her paws first 

 upon one and then upon the other, and endeavored to raise them up. When 

 she found she could not stir them, she went off, and when she had got to 

 some distance, she looked back and moaned. Finding this to no purpose, 

 she returned, and, smelling round them, began to lick their wounds. She 

 went off a second time as before ; and, having crawled a few paces, looked 

 again behind her, and for some time stood moaning. But still her cubs not 

 rising to follow her, she returned to them again ; and, with signs of inex- 

 pressible fondness, went round pawing them and moaning. Finding at last 

 that they were cold and lifeless, she raised her head towards the ship, and 

 uttered a growl of despair, which the murderers returned with a volley 

 of musket balls. She fell between her cubs, and died licking their wounds." 

 Mr Scoresby mentions a singular circumstance with respect to a part 

 of this animal. "The liver, I may observe, as a curious fact," says he, "is 

 hurtful, and even deleterious ; while the flesh and liver of the seal, on which 

 it chiefly feeds, are nourishing and palatable. Sailors who have inadver- 

 tently eaten the liver of bears, have almost always been sick after it : some 

 have actually died ; and the effects on others has been to cause the skin to 

 peal off their bodies. This is, perhaps, almost the only instance known 

 of any part of the flesh of a quadruped proving unwholesome." 



THE LARGE LIPPED BEAR.* 



This animal, which was first brought from India about forty years ago, 

 was at first misnamed the five-fingered, or ursine sloth. It has, however, 



Ursus lahiatus, Desm. 



