HITNTI\(! ADVENTURES. 



POLAR BEAR. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



HUNTING THE POLAR BEAR. 



HE Polar Bear is generally from 

 six to eight feet long. The fur is 

 long and white, with a tinge of 

 yellow, which becomes darker 

 as the atoimal advances in age ; 

 the ears are small and round, 

 and the head long. It inhabits 

 Greenland and Lapland, and is 

 found as far north as eighty de- 

 grees. He walks heavily, and 

 is very clumsy in his motions ; his senses of hearing and seeing 

 appear very dull, but his smell is very acute ; and he does not appear 

 destitute of some degree of understanding, or at least of cunning. 

 Captain King, who visited the shores of the Arctic Ocean in 1835, 

 relates a curious instance of the cunning of this animal. ''On 

 one occasion a Polar Bear was seen to swim cautiously to a large 

 piece of ice, on which two female walruses were lying asleep with 

 iheir cubs. The Bear crept up some hum mocks behind them, 

 and with his fore feet loosened a large block of ice, which, with 

 the help of his nose and paws, he rolled nd carried till it was 



