74 NATURAL HISTORY. 



the waves. Nelson nearly lost his life by imprudently 

 attacking one of these animals with no weapon but a rusty 

 musket, which could not be induced to fire ; and indeed had 

 he not been separated from the infuriated bear by a cleft in 

 the ice, he could hardly have escaped its claws. As the seals 

 frequently crawl out of the water upon rocks or fragments of 

 ice, the Polar bear is forced to swim after them, but lest they 

 should observe him he makes his approaches by a succession 

 of dives, and contrives that the last dive brings him directly 

 under the unsuspecting seal, who is immediately grasped and 

 killed. Richardson states that these bears are often drifted 



Ilorribilis (Lat. horrible}, the Grizzly Bear. 



from Greenland to Iceland on fields of ice, and that they find 

 the flocks arid herds so very delicious after a long course of 

 seal diet, that the inhabitants are forced to rise in a body and 

 put an end to their depredations. 



To give this animal, who is constantly running over fields 



