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ZOOLOGICAL 

 SOCIETY BULLETIN 



Number 4.3 



Published by the Xck' York Zoological Society Junuari), 1911 



THE CAPTURE OF "SILVER KIXG. 



By Paul J 



50 many of mj' friends have asked me how 

 the large polar bears were captured that I 

 brought back from my recent liunting expe- 

 dition in the arctic regions and presented to the 

 Xew York Zoological Society, I am tempted to 

 gratify a desire that is perfectly natural. 



On Saturday, July 30, at three o'clock in the 

 morning, in one of tlie small bays of Ellesraere- 

 land. about the 77th parallel, we siglited a large 

 bear on the ice. a mile or two ahead. He stood 

 on the very edge of an enormous pan of ice 

 which extended sonje two miles back to the shore. 

 The lofty mountains of the mainland, furrowed 

 with enormous glaciers, made a beautiful back- 

 ground, and the cold midnight sun. together 

 witli the arctic calm, completed a picture that 

 anv man would remember to his dying dav. 



R.MNEY. 



The bear stood with his long neck thrust well 

 forward, trying to get our scent. Probably he 

 never had seen man liefore. We headed almost 

 straight for him. and when the ship hit the ice 

 a hundred 3'ards to his left, he took to the water 

 like a duck. 



One of the most remarkable things about a 

 polar bear is his cleverness in diving from a 

 pan-ice. The most difficult dive for an expert 

 swimmer to make is from something almost at 

 a level with the water. The bear makes a more 

 beautiful dive than I have ever seen made by a 

 human swimmer, and when he glides into the 

 water, he leaves hardly a ripple behind him. 

 They cannot stay under water very long, how- 

 ever, as we found when pursuing them with the 

 launches. 



HE STOOD ON THE EDGE OF AN ENORMOUS ICE PAN. 



