THE WHITE BEAR. 357 



nature of their habitats. The peninsula stands out in the 

 Atlantic ocean, bounded on the north by the polar sea 

 and lands, with their floating ice, glaciers, and frozen 

 soil. Past the Atlantic shores of the peninsula sweeps the 

 broad, deep, and powerful Labrador or polar current, bear- 

 ing on its surface through the spring and summer months, 

 and about Hudson's Strait, in certain years, throughout 

 the autumn, a mass of floating ice about 100,000 square 

 miles in extent. Hence the mean annual temperature 

 is, on the coast, especially on the promontories and 

 islands, as low as that of southern Greenland. 



In my first published remarks on the occurrence of 

 the white bear in Labrador, where it issometimes called' 

 the "water bear," in distinction from the black bear, 

 which is very common on that coast, I then supposed 

 that the polar bear was a straggler from Hudson's or 

 Baffin's bays, rather by accident than otherwise, at rare in- 

 tervals breeding so far south as Labrador. But on look- 

 ing over the accounts of the early discoverers and navi- 

 gators, as well as Cartwright's "Journal," I am led to 

 materially alter my opinion and to suppose that the for- 

 mer limits of this creature extended even possibly as far 

 south as Casco bay, on the coast of Maine. 



Whether there are any notices of or references to the 

 white bear in the records and sagas of the Norsemen 

 who visited the coast of Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, 

 we are unable to say. White bears were, however, seen 

 by the first English navigator who discovered our shores, 

 the intrepid Venetian, John Cabot, then sailing under 

 an English flag. The following reference to white bears 

 appears in an extract from an inscription on the map of 

 Sebastian Cabot in Hakluyt's Voyages (iii. 27) : 



