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SKELETON OF POLAR BEAR 



offence, it is considered by the experienced Bear-hunters of Norway to be inferior in 

 combat to the common Brown Bear, and is less dreaded by them as an antagonist. 



Its powers of endurance are necessarily great, for its means of subsistence are always 

 precarious, and in many cases are extremely small indeed. As the Bear is in the habit 

 of passing so much time upon the ice, and generally devours upon its frozen surface the 

 prey which has been captured, it is liable to be affected by the sudden and extraordinary 

 changes that are constantly taking place in the vast ice-fields of these cold regions. 

 Pieces of ice on which the Bears are quietly sleeping after their repast, become noise- 

 lessly dissevered from the main body, and are carried off to sea fora very great distance 

 before the Bear is aware of its enforced voyage. Scoresby records such an instance, 

 where he met with a Polar Bear upon a piece of drift ice that was floating at sea some 

 two hundred miles distant from the land. As the ice nourishes no animals that could 

 afford nutriment to the white-coated resident, the Bear is forced to depend for its entire 

 subsistence upon the fish that it may be able to capture. Out at sea, however, the fishy 

 tribe are not so easily procured as near the shore, and the hunger-endurent powers of the 

 Bear are thoroughly tested before it can again place its shaggy foot on the welcome soil. 



Owing to these marine excursions the Polar Bear is forced to pay unwilling visits to 



SKELETON OP POLAR BEAR 



civilized shores which its loves not, and where it is obliged to fall upon the sheep and 

 cattle of the residents in order to appease its hunger. The ire of the owners is greatly 

 excited by the loss of their cattle, and the unfortunate Bear a thief in spite of itself 

 is soon destroyed by the bereaved proprietors. Sometimes a whole party of Polar 

 Bears is thus carried off, and for a while they inflict infinite damage on the country where 

 they land. 



As the Nennook passes its life among the wintry regions of the north, its hyberna- 

 tion has been often discredited, and it has been said to make a partial migration south- 

 wards, as soon as the terrible frosts of the Arctic winter close up the pools whereto 

 the seals and other animals which constitute its prey are in the habit of resorting. 

 Other writers, again, assert that the Polar Bear ceases feeding in the winter, as do the 

 other members of the same group, and that the young Nennooks are produced while the 

 mother is safely housed in her den. There is a truth in both these opinions, for it is 

 now ascertained that the female Polar Bear is in the habit of hybernating, but the male 

 Nennook passes his winter in the active exercise of his faculties. 



The winter home of the Polar Bear is always made in some sheltered situation, such 

 as the cleft of a rock, or the foot of a precipitous bank. In a very short time after the 



