124 



The Living Animals of the World 



Photo by G. W. Wilson Co., Ltd.] 



THE ICE-BEAR'S COUCH. 



[Aberdeen. 



A favourite attitude of the polar bear is to lie stretched on its stomach, with the hind and fore 

 legs extended flat. The head often lies between the fore paws. Notice the hair on the feet, which 

 keeps the animal from slipping when on the ice. 



Fl^^^___^__._^^^_|_^^^^^__ ___._|_ beats abandoned and 

 covered over, and cabins 

 of wrecked ships. One 

 Wk - bear which had looted a 



provision depot was found 

 to have swallowed a 

 quantity of sticking- 

 plaster. The ice-bear has 

 been met swimming at a 

 distance of eighty miles 

 from land, and with no 

 ice in sight. This shows 

 how thoroughly aquatic 

 its habits and powers are. 

 Polar bears do not husf their 



O 



victims, like the brown 

 bear, but bite, and use 

 their immense feet and 

 sharp claws. It has been 

 said that when one catches 

 a seal on the ice it will 

 play with it as a cat does with a mouse. The size of these bears varies very much. Seven 

 or eight feet from the tip of the nose to the tail is the usual length ; yet they have been 

 known to exceed even 13 feet in length. This would correspond to an immense difference 

 in bulk and weight. An ice-bear was once found feeding on the body of a white whale, 

 15 feet in length, and weighing three or four tons. The whale could not have got on to 

 the ice by itself, and it is difficult to imagine that any other creature except the bear could 

 have dragged it there from the sea, where it was found floating. "When hunting seals, polar 

 bears will chase them in the water as an otter does a fish, but with what result is not known. 

 Besides stalking them in the manner described above, they will mark the place at which seals 

 are basking on the rim of an ice-floe, and then dive, and come up just at the spot where the 

 seal would naturally drop into the water. Those shot for the sake of their skins are nearly all 

 killed when swimming in the sea. The hunters mark a bear on an ice-floe, and approach it. 

 The bear always tries to escape by swimming, and is pursued and shot through the head from 

 the boat. When the females have a cub or cubs with them, they will often attack persons 

 or boats which molest them; otherwise they do not willingly interfere with man, except, as 

 has been said above, when they mistake men for seals or other natural prey. 



The instances recorded of the affection shown by these animals for their young are 

 somewhat pathetic. When the Carcase frigate, which was engaged on a voyage of Arctic 

 discovery, was locked in the ice, a she-bear and two cubs made their way to the ship, attracted 

 by the scent of the blubber of a walrus which the crew had killed a few days before. They 

 ran to the fire, and pulled off some of the walrus-flesh which remained unconsumed. The crew 

 then threw them large lumps of the flesh which were lying on the ice, which the old bear 

 fetched away singly, and laid before her cubs as she brought it, dividing it, and giving each a 

 share, and reserving but a small portion for herself. As she was fetching away the last piece, 

 the sailors shot both the cubs dead, and wounded the dam. Although she could only 

 just crawl to the place where the cubs lay, she carried the lump of flesh which she had last 

 fetched away, and laid it before them ; and when she saw that they refused to eat, laid her 

 paws on them, and tried to raise them up, moaning pitifully. When she found she could not 

 stir them, she went to some distance, and looked back, and then returned, pawing them all 

 over and moaning. Finding at last that they were lifeless, she raised her head towards the 

 ship and uttered a growl, when the sailors killed her with a volley of musket-balls. 



