VOYAGE TO SPITZBEItGEN. 67 



often give him a decided superiority. What the 

 bear, however, wants in strength, he supplies by 

 cunning, as he takes huge fragments of ice in his 

 paws, and, dashing them against the head of the 

 walrus, attacks and kills him after he is stunned 

 by these blows. The one and the other often fall 

 in this desperate fray.* 



According to Fabricius, their time of parturi- 

 tion is in the winter, and their number of young 

 at a birth seldom exceeds two. At this period, if 

 on land, they make large dens in the snow ; but 

 thev frequently bring forth in some of those vast 

 caverns, so often found in the huge masses of pack- 

 ed ice. Their attachment to their offspring is re- 

 markably great. When mortally wounded, they 

 will take their little cubs under their paws, em- 

 brace, and bemoan them with their latest breath. 



Polar bears are equally at home by land and 

 by sea, where they swim with great strength and 

 agility ; they also dive, but cannot remain long 

 under water. As if impatient of rest, they are fre- 

 quently seen passing from one island of ice to an- 

 other, and are often met with at a great distance 

 from land. They are frequently drifted into Ice- 

 land and Norway, where, from the extreme hunger 



* Fabr. loc. cit. 



