50 



Quadrupeds 



THE POLAE, OR GREAT WHITE BEAR 



(Ursus maritimus.)} 



THE 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 animal advances in age ; the ears 

 are small and round, and the head long. It inhabits the 

 Arctic shores of both hemispheres. It walks heavily, 

 and is very clumsy in all its motions ; its senses of hear- 

 ing and seeing appear very dull, but its smell is very 

 acute ; and it 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 cau- 

 tiously to a large piece of ice, on which two female 

 walruses were lying asleep with their cubs. The Bear 

 crept up some hummocks behind them, and with his fore 

 feet loosened a large block of ice, which, with the help 

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

 immediately over the heads of the sleepers, when he let 

 it fall on one of the old animals, which was instantly 

 killed. The other walrus, with its cubs, rolled into the 

 water, but the young one of the murdered female re- 

 mained by its dam, and on this helpless creature tho 

 Bear rushed, thus killing two animals a t once." 



