The Zoologist— March, 1870. 2041 



Belle Isle, and elsewhere round the coasts, the polar bear has become 

 very rare — nearly, if not quite, extinct. Many of the settlers had met 

 white bears face-to-face, but never knew them act on the offensive, 

 although, generally, if molested, and no ready means of escape 

 presented itself, they would fight in a most determined manner; and 

 all bore testimony to the tenacity of life in this species. The old man 

 Dacre informed me that on one occasion, when salmon-fishing in 

 Portland Creek, a few miles north of Cow Head, he was awakened one 

 morning by hearing something in his "tilt," and upon rousing him- 

 self and looking up he was startled to see a while bear staring him in 

 the face; but although so frightened himself the bear appeared even 

 more so, and hastily took its departure, before the old man's presence 

 of mind had sufficiently returned to remind him that his loaded gun 

 was by his side. Shortly after this two polar bears were seen in 

 Portland Creek Pond, and Dacre fired a ball through one as it swam 

 by a point of land on which he was standing; but, although not more 

 than ten yards distant, the ball failed to strike a vital part, albeit two 

 streaks of blood followed the bear, showing that the missile had passed 

 through the body. It seems strange that an ounce bullet should pass 

 transversely through the body of any animal, save of the very largest 

 class, without destroying it, and yet it is an uncontested fact that deer, 

 and more especially seals, often escape after receiving such wounds. 

 As these bears were seen at Portland Creek in the month of July, it is 

 pretty evident they escaped thither fiiom the drift ice some two or 

 three months before, or, what perhaps is more likely, the bears were 

 hunting for food on shore when the treacherous and boisterous off- 

 shore wind separated their immense icy raft from the land and carried 

 it away to llie warm waters of the Gulf stream, never more to return 

 to bear off its late and savage occupants. Some few years since two 

 of these animals were roaming over the small promontory of Cow 

 Head, at the back of the few houses. Neither was killed, and both 

 soon look their departure without harming either man or beast. At 

 the time of my first visit to Halifax, N.S., the eccentric Mr. A. Downs 

 possessed a bear of this species, and, should these notes find their way 

 to that province, many of my readers there will remember a rather 

 cruel amusement of the old man's, accompanied with the usual 

 exclamation, "Let's stir him up with a long pole ! " each time suiting 

 the action to the words. Flowever gratilying this folly and cruelty 

 may have been to many of his visitors, had only one bar of its large 

 cage proved faulty, more lives than one would probably have been 



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