The terrestrial mammals and birds of North-East Greenland. 69 



dam were surrounded by frozen milk Avhich had trickled out from 

 the cub's mouth while it was sucking. 



^^/ii 06. Three bears — mother with two large cubs — came 

 close to the ship during the night. While the young bears were 

 fighting the dogs violently, the old one walked quite close to the 

 ship's side. From the ship some shots were aimed at the bears, 

 yet without much effect on account of the darkness. Pursued by 

 some dogs the family of bears at last fled across the country and 

 further on to the sea-ice. 



^/12 06. A sledge expedition returned from a 22 days' journey 

 to Shannon and Sabine 0. On the journey four bears were 

 observed, two of which were shot. The first, a young male, was 

 killed "/11 at the edge of an open crack in the ice, 2 meters broad 

 and very long. A great number of bear traces were observed 

 along this crack; doubtlessly many seals resorted to the place. 

 When the travellers again passed this spot on their journey home, 

 they shot here (^/12) an old, very large male bear. This bear had 

 just caught a seal in its dwelling under the snow, sheltered by a 

 rather large bulk of up-screwed ice. Of the seal the skin and blub- 

 ber down to the hind flappers had already been devoured. The 

 bear had dragged the remains of his prey away to an ice-berg 30 

 meters from the seal's dwelling, on the lee side of which large mas- 

 ses of snow were deposited. In the firmest parts of the snow the 

 bear had with his fore paws cut out some large, regular blocks, 

 carefully hiding the remaining seal meat with these. On a lair 

 scraped up in the snow the bear was lying, keeping watch over his 

 "depot". 



The two bears here mentioned were shot off Haystack. 



On the journey home the travellers made halt at Teufelkap, 

 where a depot of provisions and dog's food was placed. Round the 

 depot several foot-prints of bears were seen, among others the traces 

 of a female with two rather small cubs, yet hardly less than half 

 a year old. The bears had carefully examined the whole depot, 

 eaten half of the dog's food (dried fish) and made an unsuccessful 

 attack on the provision chest which was lined with tin inwardly. 

 Deep marks of the animal's teeth were left all over the chest which 

 had been moved away several meters from its original place. A 

 marking pole had been pulled down and broken. 



^^/12 06. A rather old male bear was shot in the neighbourhood 

 of Hvalrosodden. The hunters were staying in the tent, when the 

 dogs, barking violently, ran out on the bay dragging the sledge after 

 them. About two hundered meters out on the bay the bear was 

 found, barricaded near an ice-berg and surrounded by the dogs. 



