VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 65 



fat has been got ; and Captain Fox is said to have 

 killed one which yielded forty-eight gallons of oil. 

 Forster's Hist. Voy. p. 363. 



The skins are imported into Britain, chiefly for 

 covering coach-boxes. In Greenland the inhabi- 

 tants use the flesh and fat as food ; and of the skins 

 they make seats, boots, shoes, and gloves ; the ten- 

 dinous parts they split into fibres for the purpose 

 of sewincr.* 



The food of the Polar bears consists chiefly of 

 fish, of seals which they seize when sleeping, and 

 the carcasses of whales, walrusses, &c. so often 

 found floating in the northern seas. On land 

 they prey on the rein-deers, young birds, and 

 eggs ; and sometimes lay hold of the Arctic fox, 

 notwithstanding all his stratagems in order to 

 escape. Some naturalists have maintained that the 

 Polar bear chiefly delighted in human flesh ; 

 this, however, is expressly contradicted by Fa- 

 bricius, who, from his long residence in Green- 

 land, must be allowed to be unexceptionable 

 authority. It will not prey on man, says he, un- 

 less pressed by hunger, and it deserves to be 

 mentioned, that the Greenlanders feign themselves 

 dead when they wish to avoid the pursuit. It 



• Fab. Faun. Groenland. edit. ] 780, p. 24-, 



