154 ON A CUB FOUND IX A BEAE'S DEN — GILPIN. 



the cub, it must have been born. An atmosphere, saved only by 

 the animal heat of the mother from that without the den, often 

 approaching zero, and a torpid mother awaits this blind-born, 

 feeble offspring. As no personal observation can ever assist us, 

 we may only conjecture that some instinct leads it to the 

 mamma where, like certain marsupials, it retains a firm hold 

 upon the nipple ; and now a change comes over the still torpid 

 parent, — the blood that thus far carried nutrition to the foetus 

 must, as it were, change its base, — the circulation of the uterus 

 shrinks and becomes obliterated, whilst that of the mamma must 

 correspondency increase and allow the lacteal glands to secrete 

 milk. And all this performed with no assistance without, but 

 from sources accumulated nearly two months ago. To suppose 

 the parent is roused during parturition scarcely accords with the 

 analogy to the facts which we do know, that is, her torpor dur- 

 ing lactition. Besides, modern science has caused, by the use of 

 anaesthetics, the whole phenomena of birth to be performed with- 

 out the knowledge of the parent : and, moreover, the care during 

 lactition, which we know is performed during torpor, is more won- 

 derful. The most wonderful fact is, that no food is taken by the 

 parent during both operations. Dating the birth at the first of 

 January, three and a half long dark months must this torpid 

 mother secrete milk before she emerge into light or procure food 

 for herself. The appearance of the cub at ten days old, its lean- 

 ness its weight (eleven ounces), the parent sometimes .weighing 

 five hundred pounds ; attests that the amount of uterine nourish- 

 ment it had then received was of the smallest quantity. It was 

 scarcely the size of a pup, one say of six or seven the litter of a 

 bitch weighing thirty or forty pounds. That after birth it 

 receives but little food, and passes the most of its life in semi- 

 torpor, and scarcely grows until the parent emerges, we can only 

 prove by their extreme smallness when found in early Spring, 

 Unfortunately I have no dates to those I have seen at that age, 

 or to a pair of young Polar bears I once saw, in whose instance 

 the retreat must have been doubled in length and severity by 

 the Arctic latitude and ice-formed den. We may here remark, 

 that in our bear hibernation destroyed all maternal instinct; 



