292 MOSTLY MAMMALS 
from eight to nine or a dozen in number. Their favourite 
haunts seem to be the gently sloping and boulder-strewn 
short valleys at the foot of the cliffs. Here they can be 
approached without much difficulty, and killed in the open, 
the members of the herd standing to gaze unconcernedly 
at the aggressor after one or more of their number has 
been shot down. When separated from their mothers, 
the young calves are by no means difficult to capture. I 
have been told by a friend that during an expedition to 
Greenland some officers succeeded in capturing a number 
of these calves, which they were carrying down on their 
shoulders to the coast; but the captive animals squealed 
so loudly as to attract the attention of all the Polar bears in 
the neighbourhood, which thereupon started in pursuit and 
soon induced the unarmed captors to drop their booty ! 
