146 NATURAL HISTORY IN ANECDOTE. 



the land bear, and the honey bear. The polar bear is the 

 sea bear; the brown bear, the black bear, and the grizzly 

 are land bears, and the Malayan bear is the honey bear. 

 Mr. Wood says, "Bears and their allies are mostly heavy, 

 and walk with the whole foot placed flat on the ground, 

 unlike cats and dogs who walk with merely their paws or 

 toes. They are omnivorous, that is, they can eat either 

 animal or vegetable food, so that a leg of mutton, a pot of 

 honey, a potatoe, or an apple are equally acceptable." The 

 bears of Kamtchatka live principally on fish, which they are 

 adepts in catching. The bear is found in the polar regions, 

 in Siberia, the Caucasus, the Pyrenees, the Himalayas, in 

 various parts of Western Asia, in Canada, and the United 

 States. 

 The Polar The Polar Bear is eight 01 nine feet long, and 

 Bear. a little more than four feet in height. He has 

 a long nose, short ears, large legs, and a short tail. His 

 body and neck are long, and he has five sharp claws on 

 each foot. His colour is a yellowish white; his hair long 

 and shaggy. He inhabits Greenland and Lapland, as far 

 north as eighty degrees. He lives on fish and seals and 

 the bodies of whales, which are thrown ashore or which he 

 finds in the sea. Dr. R. Brown deprecates the stories of the 

 polar bear's ferocity which he regards as greatly exaggerated, 

 though he admits, that when enraged, or suffering from 

 hunger, they are formidable foes. That they are wary animals 

 the following story quoted firom Captain Brown will show. 

 " The captain of a Greenland whaler, being anxious to procure 

 a bear without injuring the skin, made trial of a stratagem 

 of laying the noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a 

 piece of kreng within it. A bear, ranging the neighbouring 

 ice, was soon enticed to the spot by the smell of burning 

 meat. He perceived the bait, approached, and seized it in 

 his mouth; but his foot, at the same time, by a jerk of the 

 rope, being entangled in the noose, he pushed it off with his 



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