Polar Bear 107 



about 1500 lbs. He mentions, however, a skin measuring 9 feet 10 inches 

 from the snout to the root of the tail ; but the measurement appears to 

 have been taken after its removal from the animal, and is thus probably 

 exaggerated. A length of 9 feet 5 inches, and a height at the shoulder ot 

 4^ feet, are given by iMr. Rowland Ward as the dimensions of a specimen 

 from Baffin Bay; 1600 lbs. being the weight of another specimen 

 recorded in the same list. 



Although the older writers give terrible accounts of the ferocity of the 

 white bear, these are not borne out by the testimony ot later travellers and 

 sportsmen ; but it must be borne in mind that this discrepancy may be 

 largely due to the deadly character of modern firearms as compared with 

 the weapons of an earlier age. Mr. Arnold Pike even goes so far as to 

 despise the white bear from a sporting point of view, saying that its pursuit 

 is far less exciting than walrus-hunting. And no doubt there is a consider- 

 able degree of foundation for this idea, seeing that this bear can in most 

 cases be detected at a long distance by the hunter, stalked without 

 difficulty, and finally dispatched with a well-directed bullet. Consequently, 

 hand-to-hand encounters with white bears are now of rare occurrence. 

 Not so in the old days of Arctic hunting, when the coup dc grdce was often 

 delivered with a spear or the butt-end of a gun. For many years the 

 present writer possessed the skull of a white bear which in its death- 

 struggle bit ofi-' one of the fingers of a Captain Jack, who commanded a 

 vessel engaged in the whaling trade during the early part of last century. 



From the relatively small size and simple structure of its molar teeth 

 the white bear might be inferred to be much more carnivorous in its tastes 

 than are the majority of its kindred ; and, as a matter of fact, this is really 

 the case, its food consisting chiefly of seal, walrus, and porpoise flesh, 

 varied by fish and an occasional gorge on the carcase ot a stranded 

 whale. Although an expert swimmer and diver, the white bear can only 

 attack and kill the unwieldy walrus when on land ; but seals it often 



