POL AR ge BE AR. 
During fummer they refide chiefly on iflands of ice, and pafs fre- 
quently from one to the other. They fwim moft excellently, and 
fometimes dive, but continue only a fmall fpace under water. They 
have been feen on iflands of ice eighty miles from any land, preying 
and feeding as they float along. They lodge in dens formed in the 
vaft maffes of ice, which are piled in a ftupendous manner, leaving 
great caverns beneath: here they breed, and bring one or two at a 
time, and fometimes, but very rarely, three. Great is the affection 
between parent and young; they will fooner die than defert one 
another *. They alfo follow their dams a very long time, and are 
grown to avery large fize before they quit them. 
During winter they retire, and bed themfelves deep beneath, form- 
ing fpacious dens in the fnow, fupported by pillars of the fame, or to 
the fixed ice beneath fome eminence; where they pafs torpid the long 
and difmal night ¢, appearing only with the return of the fun ft. At 
their appearance the 4éfic Foxes retire to other haunts f. 
The Polar Bear became part of the royal ménagery as early as the 
reign of Henry II. Mr. Walpole has proved how great a patron that 
defpifed prince was of the Arts. It is not lefs evident that he ex- 
tended his protection to Natural Hiftory. We find he had procured 
a White Bear from Norway, from whence it probably was imported 
from Greenland, the Norwegians having poffeffed that country for 
fome centuries before that period. There are two writs extant from 
that monarch, direéting the fheriffs of London to furnifh fix pence a 
day to fupport cx White Bear in our Tower of London ; and to pro- 
vide a muzzle and iron chain to hold him when out of the water ; 
and a lonz and ftrong rope to hold him, when he was fifhing in the 
Thames §. Fit provifion was made at the fame time for the king’s 
Ylephant. 
* Marten’s Spitzb. 102. 
+ Egede, 60. Martens fays, that the fat is ufed in pains of the limbs, and that it 
afGits parturition. 
1 Heemfkirk’s voy. in Purchas, il. 500, 503. || The fame, 499- § Madox’s 
Antiquities of the Exchequer, i. 376. f 
The 
