34 NORTHERN ZOOLOGY. 
the genus, but takes up its residence in a different situation, generally under the 
declivities of rocks, or at the foot of a bank, where the snow drifts over it to a great 
depth; a small hole, for the admission of fresh air, is constantly observed in the 
dome of its den. This, however, has regard solely to the she-Bear, which 
retires to her winter-quarters in November, where she lives without food, brings 
forth two young about Christmas, and leaves the den in the month of March, when 
the cubs are as large as a shepherd’s dog. If perchance her offspring are tired, 
they ascend the back of the dam, where they ride secure either in water or ashore. 
Though they sometimes go nearly thirty miles from the sea in winter, they always 
come down to the shores in the spring with their cubs, where they subsist on seals 
and sea-weed. The he-Bear wanders about the marshes and adjacent parts 
until November, and then goes out to the sea upon the ice, and preys upon seals. 
They are very fat, and though very inoffensive if not meddled with, they are very: 
fierce when provoked *.”’ | 
Captain Lyons records the Esquimaux account of the hibernation of the Polar 
Bear in the following words: “ From Ooyarrakhioo, a most intelligent man, I ob- 
tained an account of the Bear, which is too interesting to be passed over in silence. 
‘At the commencement of winter, the pregnant Bears are very fat, and always 
solitary. When a heavy fall of snow sets in, the animal seeks some hollow place 
in which she can lie down, and remains quiet, while the snow covers her. Some- 
times she will wait until a quantity of snow has fallen, and then digs herself a 
cave: at all events, it seems necessary that she should be covered by and lie 
amongst the snow. She now goes to sleep, and does not wake until the spring 
sun is pretty high, when she brings forth two cubs. ‘The cave, by this time, has 
become much larger, by the effect of the animal’s warmth and breath, so that the 
cubs have room enough to move, and they acquire considerable strength by con- 
tinually sucking. The dam at length becomes so thin and weak, that it is with 
great difficulty she extricates herself, when the sun is powerful enough to throw 
a strong glare through the snow which roofs the den.’ The Esquimaux affirm that 
during this long confinement the Bear has no evacuations, and is herself the means 
of preventing them by stopping all the natural passages with moss, grass, or 
earth. The natives find and kill the Bears during their confinement by means of 
dogs, which scent them through the snow, and begin scratching and howling very 
eagerly. As it would be unsafe to make a large opening, a long trench is cut of 
sufficient width to enable a man to look down, and see where the Bear’s head lies, 
* Grauam, MSS. p. 20. 
