LAST VOYAGE OF CAPT. ROSS. 
311 
just before it, was marked out by a bear for its prey, and secured 
by the artifice of diving under the ice, and making its way to 
the hole by which the seal was prepared to retreat. The seal 
however observed its approach and plunged into the water, but 
the bear instantly sprang upon it, and appeared in about a 
minute afterwards with the seal in its mouth. 
The captain of one of the whalers being anxious to procure a 
bear, without wounding the skin, made trial of the stratagem of 
laying the noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a piece of 
blubber upon it; a bear ranging the neighbouring ice, was soon 
enticed to the spot by the smell of the meat, he perceived the 
bait, approached and seized it in his mouth, but his foot at the 
same moment by a jerk of the rope, being entangled in the noose, 
he pushed it off with the adjoining paw, and deliberately retired. 
After having eaten the piece he carried away with him, he re¬ 
turned ; the noose with another piece of blubber being then re¬ 
placed, he pushed the rope aside, and again walked triumphantly 
off with the blubber. A third time the noose was laid; but 
excited to caution by the evident observation of the bear, the 
sailors buried the rope beneath the snow, and laid the bait in a 
deep hole dug in the centre. The bear once more approached, 
and the sailors were assured of their success, but bruin more 
sagacious than they expected, after snuffing about the place for 
a few minutes, scraped the snow away with his paw, threw the 
rope aside, and again escaped unhurt with his prize. 
The female bear is as fierce in her hostility as the male; but 
nothing can exceed the affection which she feels for her young. 
The difficulty of procuring food for them, and the hardships to 
which they are exposed, no doubt call forth this quality. Some 
of the instances on record are as singular as they are affecting, 
the following is one of the most striking. 
Early in the morning of the 10th March, the man at the bows 
gave notice, that three bears were making their way very fast 
over the ice, and directing their course towards the ship. They 
had probably been invited by the blubber of a walrus, which the 
men had set on fire, and which was burning on the ice at the 
time of their approach. They proved to be a she bear and her 
