60 
MEMOIR OF PENNANT. 
fish ; it is besides used medicinally, and found 
very efficacious in rheumatic complaints, aches, and 
strains*.” 
The only other passage we shall give fi-om the 
Arctic Zoology, is a curious and somewhat romantic 
description of the habits of the ursine seal, which 
are fovmd in vast multitudes in the islands between 
Kamtschatka and America, but are scarcely knomi 
to land on the Asiatic shore. “ They live in fami- 
lies ; every male is surrounded by a seraglio of 
from eight to fifty females ; these he guards with 
the jealousy of an eastern monarch. Each family 
keeps separate from the others, notwithstanding they 
lie by thousands on the shore. Every family, with 
the unmarried and the young, amounts to about 
1 20. They also swim in tribes, w’hen they take the 
sea. The males show great affection towards their 
* In England, the polar bear became part of the royal 
menagerie as early as the reign of Hemy III. Mr. Walpole 
has proved how great a patron that despised prince was of 
the arts ; it is not less evident that he extended his protec- 
tion to natural History. We find that he had j)rocured a 
white bear from Norway, whence it was probably imported 
from Greenland; the Norwegians having possessed that country 
some centuries before that period. There are two writs 
extant from that monarch, directing the Sheriff of London 
“ to furnish sixpence a-day to support our white bear in our 
Tower of London ; and to provide a muzzle and iron chain 
to hold him, when out of the water ; and a long and strong 
rope to hold him when ho was fishing in the Thames.” Fit 
provision was made, at the same time, for the King's ele- 
phant. 
