CLASS 1. MAMMALIA: ORDER 5. CARNIVORA. 
169 
Bay and of Labrador, may be stated at about the fifty-fifth parallel. Sir John Franklin learned 
from the Esquimaux to the westward of Mackenzie River, that they occasionally, though rarely, 
visited that coast. Captain Beechey did not meet with any in his voyage to Icy Cape. 
As the Polar bear resides principally on the fields of ice, he is frequently drifted far from the 
land. In this way, they are often carried from the coast of Greenland to Iceland, where they 
commit such ravages on the flocks that the inhabitants rise in a body to destroy them. 
The pairing time of this species is in May, and such is their attachment to each other that if 
one of them is killed, the other will suffer itself to be destroyed rather than leave it. The males 
do not hibernate, but the females do. The Esquimaux account of this process is thus reported by 
Captain Lyon : 
" At the commencement of Avinter, the she-bears are very fat, and always solitary. AVhen a 
heavy fall of snow sets in, the animal seeks some hollow place in which she can lie down, and 
then remains quiet while the snow covers her. Sometimes 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 among snow. She now goes to sleep, and does not wake until the spring 
sun is pretty high, Avhen she brings forth her two cubs. The cave, by this time, has become 
much larger, from the eifect of the animal's warmth and breath, so that the cubs have room enough 
to move, and they acquire considerable strength by continually sucking. The dam at length 
becomes so thin and weak, that it is with great difliculty 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 ; he then selects a mortal part, into which he thrusts his spear. The old 
one being killed, the hole is broken open, and the young cubs may be taken out by hand, as, 
having tasted no blood, and never having been at liberty, they are then very harmless and quiet. 
Females which are not pregnant roam about through the winter in the same manner as the 
males." 
Of the attachment of these northern she-bears to their young, we have many interesting ac- 
counts. The following is furnished by Scoresby, in his narrative of a " Voyage to Greenland :" 
"Early in the morning, the man at the mast-head gave notice that three bears were making 
their way very fast over the ice, and directing their coirrse toward the ship. They had probably 
been invited by the blubber of a sea-horse, Avhich the men had set on fire, and which was buiniing 
on the ice at the time of their approach. They proved to be a she-bear and her two cubs ; but 
the cubs were nearly as large as the dam. They ran eagerly to the fire, and drew out from the 
flames part of the flesh of the sea-horse, which remained unconsumed, and ate it voracionsly. 
The crew from the ship threw great pieces of the flesh, which they had still left, upon the ice, 
which the old bear carried away singly, laid every piece before her cubs, and dividing them, gave 
each a share, reserving but a small portion for herself. As she was carrying away the last piece, 
they leveled their muskets at the cubs, and shot them both dead : and in her retreat, they 
wounded the dam, but not mortally. 
" It would have drawn tears of pity from any but unfeeling minds, to have marked the affec- 
tionate concern manifested by this poor beast, in the last moments of her expiring young. Though 
she Avas sorely w^ounded, and could but just crawl to the place where they lay, she carried the 
lump of flesh she had fetched away, as she had done the others before, tore it in pieces, and laid 
it down before them ; and when she saw that they refused to eat, she laid her paws first upon 
one, and then upon the other, and endeavored to raise them up. All this while it was piteous to 
hear her moan. When she found she could not stir them, she went off, and Avhen at some 
distance, looked back and moaned ; and that not availing to entice them away, she returned, and 
smelling around them, began to lick their wounds. She went off a second time as before ; and 
having crawled a few paces looked again behind her, and for some time stood moaning. But, 
Vol. I. — 22 
