Polar Bear 



lengthened and tapering, forming the most characteristic 

 teature of the animal. Fur thick and long. Colour, dark- 

 brown, sometimes with rufous tints, generally tipped with 

 white or gray, nose and region around the eyes white. 

 Tail usually faintly ringed with grayish-white, sometimes 

 only perceptible on the basal portion below, or occasionally 

 with rings entirely lacking. 

 Range. Mexico, crossing the Rio Grande into Southern Texas. 



This curious beast, reminding one of a coon with nose and 

 tail pulled out to a point, is a characteristically tropical animal, 

 which ranges just over our southwestern border* 



BEARS 



Family Ursida 

 Polar Bear 



Thalarctos maritimus (Phipps) 



Length. 7 feet. 



Description. Entirely white at all seasons, or slightly tinged with yel- 

 lowish; fleshy parts of nose and lips black. (Illustrations facing 

 pp. 249 and 252.) 



R.ange. Circumpolar regions South to Northern Labrador. 



The Polar Bear is the beach ranger of the northern seas. 

 Other bears the world over keep to the shady thickets and 

 forest tangles, where, when the hunting is poor, they can 

 gather wild berries and nuts, and grub roots out of the black 

 earth. But the polar bear rarely tastes vegetable food except in 

 the few short weeks of an Arctic summer. In the desolate, 

 treeless north, he shuffles along over ice-crusted ridges, powdered 

 with snow. His favourite hunting grounds are along the margin 

 of the ice-fields, where the drifting floes grind against the fixed 

 ice of the shore line, and rend and split with the heaving of 

 the ocean. Here he watches for seals at their breathing holes, 

 as patiently as a cat watches for mice, or stalks them under 

 cover of the ice cakes at the edge of the breakers. 



If he sees one resting on the ice where there is small 

 chance of creeping on it undetected, he plunges into the sea 



255 



