292 MOSTLY MAMMALS 



from eight to nine or a dozen in number. Their favourite 

 haunts seem to be the gently sloping and boulder-strewn 

 short valleys at the foot of the cliffs. Here they can be 

 approached without much difficulty, and killed in the open, 

 the members of the herd standing to gaze unconcernedly 

 at the aggressor after one or more of their number has 

 been shot down. When separated from their mothers, 

 the young calves are by no means difficult to capture. I 

 have been told by a friend that during an expedition to 

 Greenland some officers succeeded in capturing a number 

 of these calves, which they were carrying down on their 

 shoulders to the coast; but the captive animals squealed 

 so loudly as to attract the attention of all the Polar bears in 

 the neighbourhood, which thereupon started in pursuit and 

 soon induced the unarmed captors to drop their booty 1 



