QUADRUPEDS. 35 
THE POLAR, OR GREAT WHITE BEAR. 
(Ursus Maritimus.) 
THE Polar Bear is generally from six to eight feet long. 
The fur is long and white, with a tinge of yellow, which 
becomes darker as the animal advances in age ; the ears 
are small and round, and the head long. It inhabits 
Greenland and Lapland, and is found as far north as 
eighty degrees. It walks heavily, and is very clumsy in 
all its motions ; its senses of hearing and seeing appear 
very dull, but its smell is very acute ; and it does not ap- 
pear destitute of some degree of understanding, or at 
least of cunning. Captain King, who visited the shores 
of the Arctic Ocean in 1835, relates a curious instance of 
the cunning of this animal. " On one occasion a Polar 
Bear was seen to swim cautiously to a large piece of ice, 
on which two female walruses were lying asleep with 
their cubs. The Bear crept up some hummocks behind 
them, and with his fore feet loosened a large block of ice. 
which with the help of his nose and paws, he rolled and 
carried till it was immediately over the heads of the 
sleepers, when he let it fall on one of the old animals, 
