THE POLAR BEAR. 3I9 



consisting of fishes and seals, which it captures skilfully. It can swim 

 long distances, and has been seen swimming steadily across a strait forty 

 miles wide. Its fur is of a silvery white, tinged with a yellow hue rather 

 variable in different specimens ; the claws are black, the neck is very 

 long in proportion to the body, and the head is small, sharp, and almost 

 snake-like. The foot is equivalent in length to one-sixth of the entire 

 length of the body, and the sole is covered with thick fur. 



The Polar Bear has a most acute sense of smell, which enables it to 

 detect the breathing holes which the seals make through the ice, even 

 when the snow is lying thickly over them. After its repast it lies down 

 to sleep, and is often carried off to sea on the moving ice-fields ; one was 

 observed two hundred miles from land, and as fish are not easily caught 

 at sea, it doubtless had a hard time. Sometimes whole herds of Polar 

 Bears have been carried by drift-ice to civilized shores, where they prey 

 on sheep and cattle, to the dismay of their unwilling hosts, and are said 

 not to hesitate to attack man. Instances have been known where they 

 have pursued hunters back to their ships, and tried to make their way 

 into the cabms through the port-holes. 



The Polar Bear dreads heat, and in a climate like ours requires to 

 have daily poured over it, winter and summer, sixty to eighty pails of 

 water. It always remains wild and savage, and even when caught 

 young, can be only very slightly tamed. 



Its flesh is very good, and the animal is hunted for it by the natives as 

 well as by all whale-fishers and Arctic explorers ; but the liver must be 

 avoided ; Kane, for an experiment, tasted the liver of a newly killed 

 animal, and became seriously sick in consequence. 



It is said that the female of this genus hibernates, but that the male 

 continues in the active exercise of all his faculties. The Polar Bear 

 sometimes attains the length of nine feet, and the average is over eight 

 feet. Ross weighed one which had lost thirty pounds of blood, and it 

 tipped the scale at 1131 lbs., while Lyon saw one that weighed sixteen 

 hundred pounds. 



II.— GENUS URSUS. 



The twelve species which constitute this genus are found in all the 

 northern regions of the globe from the arctic circle to Mount Atlas and 

 the Gulf of Mexico, and present a striking similarity over this extensive 

 region. 



