72 A. L. V. Manniche. 



to be a couple of seals and made straight for us. sniffing with their 

 noses in the air. The mother however soon took alarm and tried 

 to make the curious cubs turn round, pushing and kicking them 

 continually with her fore limbs. When the bears were about two 

 hundered meters away from us, they all rose up on their hind 

 limbs. Raising the muzzles straight in the air and sniffing in diffe- 

 rent directions, with the fore limbs swinging forewards and back- 

 wards, the beautiful animals came wandering slowly towards us. 

 Suddenly the old bear stopped suspiciously for a few seconds, after 

 which she quickly walked away, hiding herself behind a large ice- 

 block in the neighbourhood. The cubs wandered on a few steps 

 more, then even they caught alarm and walked behind the ice- 

 block. When we set out for the latter, hoping to be able to kill 

 the three bears at a very close distance, we saw to our disappoint- 

 ment the animals fleeing at full speed towards the sea-ice. We 

 aimed a shot each of us at one of the cubs which was severely 

 wounded. Soon it was not able to keep up with the others and 

 showed inclination to lie down. When the dam which had watch- 

 ed the movements of the wounded cub with great attention all the 

 time, observed this, she came hurrying back to the cub in long 

 jumps, making it resume its flight through violent blows with the 

 fore limbs, nudging and pushing it on. The cub was still bleeding 

 strongly, and it proved too weak to obey the directions of the 

 mother closely. It was not able to follow her up over the low 

 rocks along the coast of Кар Bismarck, the retreat being therefore 

 laid once more to the less uneven ice-fields. In spite of the greatest 

 exertions we were not able to follow the bears which got ahead of 

 us more and more, disappearing at last far out on the sea-ice among 

 the innumerable ice-blocks there. 



The three bears were very nearly of the same size. 



2/5 07. On "Stormbugt" Freuchen saw a she-bear with two 

 large cubs. 



^/ö 07. This morning I shot a rather large male bear on the 

 sea-ice in the neigbourhood of Maroussia. 



When I was camping out here, I observed numerous traces of 

 bears, also of she-bears accompanied by their cubs, nearly always 

 two in number. On the newfallen snow outside the tent the traces 

 of an uncommonly large bear was seen. (The breadth of the hind 

 paw 28 cm., the length 35 cm.) 



The Greenlander Hendrik came home from a sledge drive to 

 Кар Amélie, carrying with him a very large male bear. While 

 Hendrik was asleep in his little tent during the night, the bear 

 came and put his head inside the tent door. With some small shot 



