258 



THE BEASTS OF PREY. 



blocks or else digs a pit in the snow and suffers 

 herself to be snowed in. Considering the large 

 amount of snow which falls in those regions, it is 

 not long until her winter quarters are provided with 

 a thick and rather warm covering. Before retiring 

 for the season she lays up a goodly supply of fat, 

 and on this she lives during the winter; for she 

 leaves her den only when the sun of spring stands 

 high above the horizon. During this retirement the 

 Cubs make their appearance. They accompany 

 their mother on her wanderings much earlier than 

 the children of the land Bears. They are most 

 carefully and tenderly fed and protected by her. 

 Even when they have become half-grown or little 

 short of adult age, the mother shares all dangers 

 they incur; she teaches them their craft, consisting 

 of swimming and the catching of fish, in their 

 earliest youth. The pretty little fellows soon know 

 how to do both, but they try to arrange things for 

 themselves as conveniently as possible, and even 

 when they are rather large they comfortably rest on 

 the mother's back when tired. 



Female Polar Explorers and whalers have narrated 

 Bears are Good touching stories of the self-sacrificing 



Mothers. and loving spirit of Polar Bear moth- 

 ers. Scoresby says: "A she-Bear, which had two 

 Cubs, was pursued by several armed sailors on the 

 ice. At first she seemed to incite the Cubs to 

 greater speed by hurrying on in advance and look- 

 ing back at them, trying to impart to them a sense 

 of the danger they were in by peculiar motions and 

 a particularly plaintive tone of voice; but when she 

 saw that her pursuers were drawing too close to her, 

 she endeavored to drive the Cubs on, pushing and 

 shoving them, and thus she succeeded in making 

 good her escape." 



Polar Bears A great many accidents are charged 

 Are Dangerous to the fierce attacks of Polar Bears, 



as Foes. and many a whaler is said to have 

 lost his life through his foolhardiness in eritering 

 into a combat with one. Such narratives are usually 

 found in travelers' descriptions of former times, and 

 rarely in those of more recent date. In order to 

 explain the sharp contradictions, it may be assumed 

 that either the dangerousness of the Polar Bear was 

 much overrated in the olden times, or that he has 

 since changed his grim temper, perhaps in conse- 

 quence of a better aciquaintance with Man. At any 

 rate, the idea of dangerousness, as applying to the 

 whole species, is not an accurate one. The average 

 experience of those who have hunted and observed 

 him a great deal during the last few decades goes 

 to prove the reverse. Lamont, who has undertaken 

 hunting expeditions to the far north in his own ship, 

 writes as follows: "I consider the Polar Bear the 

 strongest of all Beasts of Prey; but like all other 

 wild animals, he does not attack Man so long as he 

 can avoid him, with very rare exceptions." Nor- 

 denskiold sums up his own and a great many other 

 people's experiences in the following words: "If one 

 meets a Polar Bear unarmed,, a few violent motions 

 and shouts sufifice to rout him; but if one flees from 

 him, one may rest assured that the animal will very 

 soon be at his heels. A wounded Bear always flees. 

 Often he puts snow on his wound with his paw, and 

 sometimes, in his agony, he digs a whole in the snow 

 to hide his head. When a ship rides at anchor, a 

 Bear sometimes swims up to it, and when a tent is 

 pitched in some remote region, the occupant often 

 iinds a Bear in the morning, which has sniffed at 

 ihe tent at night, but dared not enter it. Formerly 



the sight of a Polar Bear used to strike terror to the 

 hearts of Arctic explorers, but nowadays hunters, 

 armed with their spears, do not hesitate to attack 

 even great numbers of Bears. They rely less on 

 their guns. Sometimes they have killed as many as 

 twelve Bears with their spears in a short time. I 

 know of one case only, where a Norwegian hunter 

 was severely injured by a Bear." 

 How Polar Bears In eastern Greenland the Bear acts 

 Act Toward in the same way. " Encounters with 



Man. Polar Bears," say Copeland and 



Payer, "have the most varied issues. It not in- 

 frequently happens that a sleighing party, obliged 

 to forego a hunt by lack of time or for other reasons, 

 passes by one or several Polar Bears, which often 

 are at a distance of a few paces only, and display 

 no other emotion by their demeanor than that of 

 curiosity and amazement. Or else they content 

 themselves with going around the sleigh, their heads 

 constantly turned in its direction. One of our 

 sailors, called Klentzer, went through an experience 

 as dangerous as it was ludicrous, in our winter 

 harbor. He was walking along the decline of the 

 Germania mountain, unarmed, and v^as about two 

 thousand paces away from the ship, when he per- 

 ceived a Polar Bear close behind him. He was well 

 aware of the remarkable speed which these crea- 

 tures may attain, and which renders any attempt at 

 escape futile; he also knew about the frequently 

 isuccessful trick of distracting the Bear's attention 

 by a continuous dropping of objects, while trying to 

 gain the protecting shelter. of the ship at a leisurely 

 pace, calling all the while for help. So he gradu- 

 ally divested himself of his hood, gloves, stick, etc., 

 all of which the Bear pulled to pieces with its teeth. 

 Still the animal finally came close up to him and 

 sniffed his hand like a Dog. Then the Man, who 

 had been incessantly shouting for help, resolved 

 upon the desperate and impossible feat of strangling 

 his foe with a strap, if it should attack him. His 

 piercing cry was heard from the ship. We hurriedly 

 armed ourselves, but feared the worst. The great 

 distance we had to traverse gave the Bear enough 

 time to have destroyed his victim ten times over 

 before we could come to the rescue, but he was sO' 

 slow in making up his mind, that our approach, 

 shots and shouts drove him away. He made his 

 escape over steep rocky inclines and wa.s gone as 

 suddenly as if he had been blown away." 



Polar Bears The Polar Bear is hunted, wherever 

 Are Vigorously he ranges, on account of his flesh, fat 

 Hunted. and fur. He is destroyed with gun, 

 spear and trap ; and according to Seemann, some 

 hunters are said also to have recourse to the follow- 

 ing trick. They bend a piece of whalebone, about 

 four inches wide and twenty-four inches long,in the 

 form of a spring, wrap it in seal-fat and let it freeze. 

 Then they go in search of a Bear, provoke him with 

 an arrow, throw the piece of .fat down and flee. The 

 Bear sniffs the piece, and discovering that his find 

 is eatable, he swallows it and perishes ; for in the 

 warm temperature of his stomach the fat thaws, the 

 whalebone springs apart and tears his intestines. 

 I leave it as an open question, whether such sus- 

 picious pieces of fat are really swallowed whole by 

 these distrustful creatures when they have been 

 irritated as described in this story. 

 Polar Bears are When they deem themselves secure, 

 Very Destruo- however, they devour the most varied 



tiue. and remarkable objects and have a 



peculiar and by no means laudable tendency to 



