POLAR BEAR. 459 
tliey happen to find. They are said to be fre- 
quently seen in Greenland in great droves, allured 
by the scent of the flesh of Seals, and will some- 
times surround the habitations of the natives, and 
attempt to break in; s.nd it is added, that the 
most successful method of repelling them is by 
the smell of burnt feathers. They grow extremely 
fat, a hundred pounds of fat having been taken 
from a single beast. The flesh is said to be coarse, 
but the skin is valued for coverings of various 
kinds, and the Greenlanders often wear it as a 
clothing. The split tendons are said to form an 
excellent thread. During the summer they re- 
side chiefly on the ice-islands, and pass frequently 
from one to another; being extremely expert 
swimmers. They have been seen on these ice- 
islands at the distance of more than eighty miles 
from land, preying and feeding as they float 
along. They lodge in dens, formed in the vast 
masses of ice, which are piled in a stupendous 
manner, leaving great caverns beneath : here they 
breed, and bring one or two young at a time, and 
sometimes, but very rarely, three. The affection 
between parent and young is so great, that they 
will sooner die than desert each other. They fol- 
low their dams a very long time, and grow to a 
large size before they quit them. 
During winter they retire, and bed themselves 
deep beneath the snow, or else beneath the fixed 
ice of some eminence, where they pass in a state 
of torpidity the long and dismal arctic night, ap- 
pearing only with the return of the sun. 
