WHITE BEAR. 
the sea : they devour rein-deer, and any other 
beasts they can seize ; they even attack men, 
and dig up dead carcases. But, when almost 
famished, as they often find themselves in those 
barren and desart countries, they are obliged 
to live in the ocean. They plunge in, to seize 
the young seals, and other marine animals ; 
and they rest on the ice, waiting their prey, 
which they perceive, from their station, ap- 
proaching at a great distance. As long as 
they find this post produces them an abundant 
subsistence, they never quit it: so that when 
the ice begins to float, in the spring season, 
; they sufFcr themselves to be carried away with 
i it ; and, as they cannot now rejoin the land, 
or even quit the ice on which they are em- 
barked for any long time together, they often 
perish in the open sea. Those which arrive 
on the coasts of Norway and Iceland, with 
these floats of ice, are so greatly famished, as 
to fly with the utmost ferocity on every crea- 
ture they meet, in order to devour it; and 
what has still augmented the prejudice, that 
:hese White Bears are of a more ferocious or 
nore voracious kind than the common Bear,* 
s because some authors have persuaded them- 
selves 
