154 ON A CUB FOUND IN A BEAR'S DEN—GILPIN. 
the cub, it must have been born. An atmosphere, saved only by 
the animal heat of the mother from that without the den, often 
approaching zero, and a torpid mother, awaits this blind born, 
feeble offspring. As no personal observation can ever assist us. 
we may only conjecture that some instinct leads it to the 
mamma where, like certain marsupials, it retains a firm hold 
upon the nipple; and now a change comes over the still torpid 
parent,—the blood that thus far carried nutrition to the foetus 
must, as it were, change its base-—the circulation of the uterus 
shrinks and becomes obliterated, whilst that of the mamma must 
correspondently increase and allow the lacteal glands to secrete 
milk. And all this performed with no assistance without, but 
from sources accumulated nearly two months ago. To suppose 
the parent is roused during parturition scarcely accords with the 
analogy to the facts which we do know, that is, her torpor dur- 
ing lactition. Besides, modern science has caused, by the use of 
esthetics, the whole phenomena of birth to be performed without 
the knowledge of the parent; and, moreover, the care during 
lactition, which we know is performed during torpor, is more won- 
derful. The most wonderful fact is, that no food is taken by the 
parent during both operations. Dating the birth at the first of 
January, three and a half long dark months must this torpid 
mother secrete milk before she emerge into light or procure food 
for herself. The appearance of the cub at ten days old, its lean- 
ness, its weight (eleven ounces), the parent sometimes weighing 
five hundred pounds, attests that the amount of uterine nourish- 
ment it had then received was of the smallest quantity. It was 
scarcely the size of a pup, one say of six or seven the litter of a 
bitch weighing thirty or forty pounds. That after birth it 
receives but little food, and passes the most of its life in semi- 
torpor, and scarcely grows until the parent emerges, we can only 
prove by their extreme smallness when found in early Spring. 
Unfortunately I have no dates to those I have seen at that age, 
or to a pair of young Polar bears I once saw, in whose instance 
the retreat must have been doubled in length and severity by 
the Arctic latitude and ice formed den. We may here remark, 
that in our bear hibernation destroyed all maternal instinct ; 
