3768 The Zoologist— November, 1873. 



starving man, it is nothing beside the effects which such extracts 

 from books as " Terrific Encounter with a Polar Bear," or " The 

 unparalleled Ferocity of the Lion of the North," have when skil- 

 fully administered to a sufferer from ennui in Spitsbergen latitudes. 

 Instead of raging monsters capable of receiving with pleasure some 

 dozens of bullets and lance-thrusts, and coming up again for more, 

 modern polar bears are quite ready to die if they get only one. 

 The last thirty years must have worked a wonderful change in 

 their constitution. The first that was killed by us tried to escape 

 when she saw the boat approaching. Lieut. Chevmside had shot a 

 walrus on his way to Table Island, and in returning the bear was 

 seen beside the krang. When the boat came near she seemed 

 undetermined whether to make a stand or to retreat; deciding at 

 length upon the latter course, and seeing that the water offered the 

 safest route, she deliberately stepped backwards, and carefully let 

 herself down into it: she had not gone far, however, before she 

 returned to the ice she had left. Clambering up again, she 

 crouched down at the water's edge facing the boat: one bullet 

 through the ribs from Mr. Chermside's rifle, and the ferocious beast 

 " went off as quiet as a lamb." Ex uno disce omnes. I can speak 

 without prejudice on this subject, for I have never fired at a bear 

 in my life. 



Canis lupus.— On the morning of the 29th of June we were made 

 fast to the floe between Walden and Parry's Islands, when an 

 animal was seen ranging over the hummocks at some little distance 

 from the ship. Our skioman, Jeffreys, went up to the crow's nest 

 and watched it for a long time through the ship's glass. He 

 described it as being as large as a Newfoundland dog, and in colour 

 black with white spots. He has no doubt of its being a wolf. As 

 he kept a wolf last year on a ship in the Straits, his opinion as to 

 the identity of the animal before him on this occasion carries some 

 weio^ht with it. The Swedes told me after this that they also saw 

 at the Seven Islands what they took to be a wolf. Again, in August, 

 Lieut. Chermside and I came across a track in the snow on Phipps's 

 Island, one of the best-marked footprints in Avhich measured five 

 inches by three. Capt. Walker, of the ' Samson,' also, both in May 

 and in August, found in a valley at the head of Magdalena Bay, 

 some very large foot-prints in the snow; and he says that nobody 

 could persuade him that they were not wolf-tracks. He tried to 

 trap the animal, but the burgomasters persisted in getting caught 



