104 STORIES OF BIRDS AND BEASTS 



"What does the Musk Ox eat?" asked Nat. 



" Moss, wiry grass, and lichens, a scanty living dug 

 from beneath the snow with the hooked horns, or scraped 

 up with the hoofs that do double service in digging and 

 helping the ox climb rocks, and also to run swiftly over 

 slippery ground. The cud-chewers fare poorly in the 

 Northlands. Where the prowling flesh-eaters can feed 

 upon each other, the grass-eaters often go hungry, and 

 all the beasts of the Barren Grounds are flesh-eaters, 

 save the Caribou and Musk Ox. 



" Now we go further north and reach frozen sea edges. 

 Round these ice-clad borders prowl the Polar Bears, 

 following the ice downward as it creeps to open sea in 

 winter, and going north again in summer, seldom com- 

 ing twoscore miles inland, like the coast-loving Eskimo 

 himself. 



" What is he made of, this great, clumsy, half-ton mass 

 of flesh, clothed in thick, yellow-white fur from nose tip 

 to point of claws? Clothed ? no; padded is the batter 

 word, for his long neck and small head grow from a 

 rolling bale of fur on legs. This White Bear sleeps on 

 ice and soaks in ice water, never dreaming of the cold. 

 Can he be warm-blooded flesh ? But yes, he is. The 

 she Bears bring forth their young in icy caves and 

 harden their cubs to swim with them in icy seas, and to 

 follow their parents while they track and hunt down 

 their Seal and Walrus meat, or shuffle along the shores 

 to feed upon dead Whales. 



"A great hunter is this Bear, quick of tooth and 

 claw; he stalks the Seals as men do, stealing behind 

 them when they come upon land, seizing them when 

 they turn to hide in their water-holes. Over all the 



