520 ACCOUNT OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



like bed, aud is used as such, in some parts of 

 Greenland. The flesh, when cleared of the fat, is 

 well flavoured and savoury, especially the muscular 

 part of the ham. I once treated my surgeon with 

 a dinner of bear's-ham, who knew not, for above a 

 month afterwards, but that it was beef-steak. The 

 liver, I may observe as a curious fact, 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 inadvertently eaten 

 the liver of bears, have almost always been sick af- 

 ter it : some have actually died ; and the eifect on 

 others, has been to cause the skin to peel off their 

 bodies. This is, perhaps, almost the only instance 

 known of any part of the flesh of a quadruped prov- 

 ing unwholesome. 



Bears, though they have been known to eat one 

 another, are remarkably affectionate to their young. 

 The female, which has generally two at a birth, de- 

 fends its young with such zeal, and watches over 

 them with such anxiety, that she sometimes falls a 

 sacrifice to her maternal attachment. A pleasing 

 and very extraordinary instance of sagacity in a mo- 

 ther bear was related to me by a credible and well 

 informed person, who accompanied me in several 

 voyages to the whale-fishery, in the capacity of sur- 

 geon. This bear, with two cubs under its protec- 

 tion, was pursued across a field of ice, by a party of 

 armed sailors. At first she seemed to urc;;c the 



