,8 BIG GAME SHOOTING 



Danes Island (north coast of Spitzbergen), were both females^ 

 accompanied on each occasion by a cub. I think it possible, 

 therefore, that it is only the females which are about to cast 

 their young in the spring that lie dormant during the winter. 

 Why the rest are roaming in the darkness, or what they find to 

 eat in that land of death, I cannot tell ; for the seals do not lie 

 on the ice in the dark time (at that season of the year we 

 could not distinguish day from night), and, as has been said, 

 the bear is no match for the seal in the water. 



Even if the records of gigantic grizzlies — brutes weighing 

 2,000 lbs. and upwards — are trustworthy, the polar must yet 

 be allowed to be, upon the average, the largest of his tribe. 

 Most Londoners know the old beast in the Zoological Gardens 

 in Regent's Park (presented by Mr. Leigh Smith), which is a 

 good type of a big male ; and it is not too much to say that a 

 large full-grown male bear of this species will measure from 

 8 ft. to 8 ft. 6 ins. from snout to tail, and weigh, probably, 

 1,500 lbs. The largest I have myself killed measured 8 ft. 

 (Norwegian measurement) in length in the flesh, but I have 

 seen a skin, now in the possession of Mrs. Dunsmuir, of Victoria, 

 British Columbia, which measures 9 ft. 10 in. from the snout to 

 root of tail. This must have belonged to an enormous bear. 



The reasons why some of the expeditions after polar bear 

 are unsuccessful have already been referred to. If the bears 

 are sought for in the proper places, there is no reason why they 

 may not be found and killed. Around Spitzbergen the most 

 'likely' places are in Stor Fjord, along the south-east and 

 east coast (which indeed is but seldom accessible), and on the 

 north coast east of Wiide Bay, and in the Hinlopen Straits ; 

 the number of bear to be found in these localities depending, 

 of course, on the state of the ice. In the spring of 1889, the 

 south-east coast was more or less open, and the bears were so 

 numerous that the skipper of one of a fleet of seven walrus 

 sloops, which arrived from Norway during the last week in May, 

 told me that he had counted upwards of twenty bears on the ice 

 at one time, near Half-moon Island. In the same spring, one 



