130 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 
seized on the bodies of the seamen, carried them ofF 
in their mouths with the greatest ease, and devoured 
them at their leisure within sight of the survivors ; or 
even by Robert Lade, that two of these animals made 
an attack upon a party of hunters, killed several of the 
natives, and desperately wounded two Englishmen ; we 
are quite unable to reconcile their statements with the 
fact that the Polar Bear is in reality but little larger 
than the common European species, and more dangerous 
only in proportion to this augmentation in size. 
Of the vast numbers observed by our adventurous 
countrymen in the late northern expeditions, the largest 
appears to have been one, the length of which is stated 
by Captain Lyon at eight feet seven inches and a half, 
and its weight at sixteen hundred pounds. No previous 
authentic measurement had much exceeded seven feet ; 
and the far greater number even of fully adult indivi- 
duals are spoken of as of very inferior dimensions. A 
specimen in the French Menagerie, which afforded 
M. Cuvier the first truly characteristic representation 
of the species ever published, measured about six Eng- 
lish feet at its first arrival, and had not increased in 
size at the end of seven years. A female mentioned by 
Dr. Richardson as having been attended by two cubs, 
and therefore unquestionably adult, " was so small that 
two or three men were able to lift her into a boat." 
And another female, also adult, of which some account 
is given by Pallas, was no more than six feet nine 
inches from the tip of the nose to the root of the tail. 
These instances are fully sufficient to show the fallacy 
of the measurements transmitted to us by the earlier 
writers. 
The shape of the Polar Bear is very different from 
that of the more strictly terrestrial species, and seems 
peculiarly fitted to the liquid element in which it passes 
