THE ZooLocist—JANUARY, 1876. 4737 
not advisable to approach such a powerful enemy unless he is 
completely disabled. We met with bears which stood as firm as 
a rock against the shot, although at every bullet they quivered 
violently, and streams of blood flowed from them. Void of all fat 
and hungry these beasts of prey haunted the coast, until upon 
discovering the ship the movements of the men at once drew their 
attention, and they never left the neighbourhood of Griper Roads 
(the name of the winter harbour). Whoever went into the open 
air, though only a few steps from the ship, during the long polar 
night, required his gun at half-cock. One night the engineer as 
he came on deck heard a great rustle, and in the morning foot- 
prints showed that a bear had advanced over the snow to. the tent. 
These besiegers also paid repeated visits to our provisions on land; 
but they played our astronomers the worst trick, for they carried off 
the measuring apparatus for the deciding the length of the base. 
The greatest evil for sledge-travellers is that however important a 
depot they may make for provisions, they can never leave it secure 
from these fer of the ice. The best way is to hang a sack upon 
an inaccessible wall of rock. The strength which the bears possess 
in digging out anything that is buried is astonishing. Covering 
over with frozen sand and water is better than the heaviest stone, 
because it blunts the bear’s claws. In’spite of their great numbers 
seldom more than three (and that a family) are ever seen together. 
It is always well understood that the old ones must be killed first, 
for a she-bear deprived of her cubs is a terrible adversary. If they 
are only wounded, she pushes them before her or defends them with 
her own body, though a cub will never hesitate to devour the flesh 
of its mother. 
The ice-fields of its native home are pleasant to the bear, and it 
will not willingly part from them. The whaler ‘ Bienenkorb,’ which 
we visited in 1869, had one in a cage on deck; and when, from the . 
strong motion from the ship, it caught sight of the ice, it began to 
howl dismally. Indeed the sight of the drift-ice worked so power- 
fully on the creature that they were obliged at last to have a veil of 
sail-cloth before the cage. On the 23rd of August, on our return 
voyage, we saw through the pack-ice, half-hidden by the fog, the 
three last bears, and as it fell they seemed to be taking leave of us 
in a strange tableau. 
Arctic Forx.—The Arctic fox is a very interesting species of its 
genus. It is either (and that irrespective of the time of year) bluish 
