clxxxiv 
APPENDIX. 
It is mentioned by several authors, but apparently without authority, that 
the white bear sleeps during the winter in caverns in the ice. Fabricius 
expressly states the contrary on his own knowledge. The bears which were 
seen in Melville Island may have passed the winter in the neighbourhood of 
Barrow’s Straits, where it is probable open water may be found in the 
greater part, if not during the whole, of the year. 
The weight of this species varies exceedingly according to the condition 
of the individual ; one killed in the former Expedition weighed above 1,100 
pounds ; whereas another which was obtained in the present Voyage, and which 
was somewhat larger in all its measurements, weighed not quite 900 pounds. 
The canine teeth are solitary in the upper, and approximate to the fore 
teeth in the under jaw. 
On the return of the ships through Barrow’s Strait, a bear was met with 
swimming in the water about mid-way between the shores which were 
about forty miles apart ; no ice was in sight except a small quantity near the 
land ; on the approach of the ships, he appeared alarmed and dived, but rose 
again speedily ; a circumstance which may seem to confirm the remark of 
Fabricius, that well as the Polar bear swims, it is not able to remain long 
under water. 
2. Gulo Luscus. Woolverene. 
The skull of a woolverene without the lower jaw was picked up in 
Melville Island, but the living animal was not met with. Since the return 
of the Expedition, the skull has been identified with one which is in the 
museum of the College of Surgeons, marked by the late Mr. John Hunter, as 
belonging to a woolverene from Labrador ; it has also been identified with the 
skull of a woolverene in the collection of Joshua Brookes, esq., which he 
was so obliging as to cause to be taken out of the skin for the purpose of com- 
parison. This animal is therefore enumerated with confidence amongst the 
quadrupeds of the North Georgian Islands, although it is probably of rare 
