17 



grass; Bay has even found sea-weeds. Several of the killed 

 bears had nothing in their stomachs; one that came swim- 

 ming up to the ship had swallowed a cork that had been 

 thrown out from the ship. On the whole the polar bear is not 

 fastidious ; it may swallow the most strange things. A bear 

 killed in Dunholm near Stewart had eat, with good appetite, 

 several eider ducks' eggs and eider ducks (the female is 

 sitting so firmly on the nest , that you may go quite near it) ; 

 it even went up to the hauled up boat, and eat a pair of killed 

 birds that were in the boat. Though we in several places 

 found lemmings in considerable numbers, no lemming was ever 

 found in the stomach of any of the killed bears; especially in 

 Ørsteds Dal where the above named bear with her young was 

 killed, 1 had expected to find lemming in their stomachs; the 

 lemming was there in great mumbers ; but both the old and 

 the young bear had nothing but Oxyria in their stomachs. 



None of the bears we saw tried to attack; but indeed it 

 was in the good time , in which they are very well fed. But 

 they were very curious ; during the days we stayed at the 

 mouth of Kaiser Franz Joseph's Fjord, no less than four bears 

 came by and by swimming up to the ship from curiosity. Still, 

 one meagre bear we saw; it came paddling from land across 

 the land-ice on Carlsberg Fjord , quite near the ship where it 

 was killed; it was a very large and very lank bear; it was old 

 and had worn off teeth; it walked, in a very strange way that 

 looked exceedingly funny; it became apparent that it suffered 

 from an affection of the hip ; one of its thighs was rather 

 spoiled, and it could no more support life. 



According to the experiences gathered during the second 

 German expedition, the bear appears on the coast through 

 the whole of the winter. But at Scoresby Sund, and probably 

 also at Kaiser Franz Joseph's Fjord, a migration takes place in- 

 ward to the bottom of the inlet in spring, and outward in 

 autumn. Thus not a single bear was seen at Hekla Havn, where 

 xxis. 2 



