50 Quadrupeds. 
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 the 
Arctic shoves of. both hemispheres. It walks heavily, 
and is very clumsy in all its motions ; its senses of hear- 
ing and seeing appear very dull, but its smell is very 
acute ; and it does not appear 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 cau- 
tiously 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, which was instantly 
killed. The other walrus, with its cubs, rolled into the 
water, but the 3 r oung one of the murdered female re- 
mained by its dam, and on this helpless creature tho 
Bear rushed, thus killing two animals at once/' 
