III.] THE POLAR BEAR. 109 



had left unwatcbed for a few hours at the bottom of Stor Fjord. 

 He ate up a carefully-cooked reindeer roast, tore the reserve 

 clothes, scattered about the ship-biscuit, &c. ; and after we had 

 returned in the evening, gathered our things together in a heap, 

 closed the tent and lain down to sleep, the same bear returned, 

 and, while we slept, appropriated all the reindeer beef we had 

 cooked to be used, in place of the roast we had lost, during the 

 following day's journey. During one of the English expeditions 

 in search of Franklin, there was killed on one occasion, a bear 

 in whose stomach there was found, among many other articles, 

 the stock of sticking-plaster from a neighbouring depot. The 

 bear can also remove very large stones, but a layer of frozen 

 sand is too much for him. 



The Polar bear swims exceedingly well, but not so fast as that 

 he can escape in this way, if he be pursued in a boat ; if a boat 

 and stout rowers are at hand he is accordingly done for, if, as 

 often happens, he in attempting to escape seeks his deliverance 

 in the sea. There, he is, as the hunters say, " as easy to kill as 

 a sheep," but one has to make haste to get hold of the killed 

 animal with a harpoon or in some other way, for it speedily 

 sinks, unless it is very fat. 



The walrus-hunting vessels from Tromsoe brought home in 

 1868 twenty, in J 869 fifty-three, in 1870 ninety-eight, in 1871 

 seventy- four, and in 1872 thirty-three bears. It may be inferred 

 from this that the Norwegian walrus-hunters kill yearly on an 

 average at least a hundred bears. It is remarkable that in this 

 large number a pregnant female or one with newly-born young 

 is never found. ^ The female bear appears to keep herself well 

 concealed during the time she is pregnant : perhaps in some 

 ice-hole in the interior of the country. 



Whether the Polar bear hibernates during winter is not 

 (luite settled ; various facts, however, point in this direction. 

 For instance, he disappears almost completely from wintering 

 stations during the dark time, and holes have sometimes 

 been met with in which bears were concealed. Thus it once 

 happened to Tobiesen that he went down with one foot into 

 such a hole, to the no small dismay not only of the experienced 

 Avalrus-hunter, but also of the bear. 



It is also stated that the bear during the dark time goes to 

 the edge of the ice to seek his food. I cannot say positively 

 whether this is the case or not ; but the fact points in an 

 opposite direction, that while only a single bear was seen in the 

 course of the winter in the open water in the neighbourhood of 

 our winter station at Mussel Bay in 1872-73, Palander and I 



^ During the wintering of 1869-70 on East Greenland, Dr. Pansch once 

 snw a female hear with quite small voung {Die zweite deufsche Nord- 

 [wlar/ahrt, Leipzig, 1873-74. Vol. IL p. 157). 



