THE BEAR. 
407 
so as to bring it into a more regular form. 
The Polar bear is called the marine bear 
in our classification, on account of its 
almost amphibious habits. They inhabit 
only the extreme Northern regions, seldom 
descending below the fifty-fifth parallel of 
latitude, which, you may observe, crosses 
Hudson’s Bay just at the entrance of James 
Bay. They have been found in lower 
latitudes borne upon floating ice; and in 
this way they are often carried from the 
coasts of Greenland to those of Iceland, 
where they commit such ravages that the 
whole population of the island turns out 
to destroy them. They are found upon all 
the Asiatic coasts of the Frozen Ocean, in 
Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Greenland, 
Labrador, and on the coast of Baffin’s and 
Hudson’s Bays. Dr. Kane, who reached a 
higher northern latitude than any one else 
has ever done, found them still to the north 
of him, smd believed that they were to be 
met with as far north as the open sea which 
is now almost positively known to exist 
around the North Pole, and the borders 
of which were actually reached by his 
companions, Morton and Hans the Esqui- 
