258 WHALING AND BEAR-HUNTING 



seals dash across the surface of the loch we are in, as if they 

 too enjoyed the change from damp, heavy air to the keen, 

 sharp, exhilarating air from the north. There is no use 

 firing at these harp seals in the water, for they always sink 

 on being shot. Besides, some of us think a shot might 

 disturb the she-bear and family. She went off to a floe 

 about the size of Perthshire, and we follow round northerly, 

 and perhaps to-morrow morning we may sight her again. 



One of the prettiest and rarest things in the world is to 

 see a mother bear with her cubs, the little yellow fellows 

 with their black eyes and noses jumping and rolling over 

 their mother, pulling her ears, and the old bear showing every 

 sign of love for her offspring. Then to see the old bear 

 stalking a seal and the little ones sitting away behind, jogging 

 each other, making notes about their mother's cleverness. 

 Their education takes two years. The smaller black bear 

 of Newfoundland and America sends away its young after 

 one year's teaching ; there means of subsistence are more 

 simply obtained, there is so much wild fruit and so many 

 roots and other things for them to eat. But to stalk a seal 

 up here on these flat ice-floes, even with a rifle, takes very 

 considerable skill. I speak with feeling. For the bear to get 

 within clinching distance must require even greater experi- 

 ence. The polar bear has usually two and sometimes three 

 of a family, not oftener than once in two years. The mother 

 is frequently seen with only one cub and the father is then 

 supposed to have eaten the other. The male bear is said to 

 take little or no interest in the education of its young. Why 

 the young, two or three year old bear we first caught 

 showed such interest in the old bear, Hamilton's first bear, 

 I cannot quite understand, for though he kept half-a-mile 

 to leeward he always seemed to have an eye lifting for the 

 old bear's movements. I wonder if he was waiting for the 

 old fellow to kill something, then to drop in on a neighbourly 

 call about meal-time. 



Alas, this journal is all bear as yet, and no whale to speak 

 of; I have never been in such lifeless water anywhere in 

 regard to cetacean life. And yet we should see various 

 whales, the Balsena Mysticetus, called the Right whale, 



