168 
A VOYAGE TO SPITZBERGEN. 
the bear with a well-directed bullet. The body rolled 
over into a pool of water, and as he was quite dead 
it hardly needed the stout kick delivered by an 
incredulous looker-on to satisfy himself of the fact. 
Then the men proceeded to flay the hide. There 
was not the slightest trace of food in the miserably 
contracted stomach, and we were puzzling over this 
strange fact, unable to account for the vitality of an 
animal so empty, when one of the men volunteered 
to explain by what means the bear’s life is sustained. 
According to him, when food fails these Arctic bears, 
a gland behind the middle claw in the hollow of the 
foot is sucked by the starving beast, and by this story, 
whose truth the man implicitly believed in, he uncon¬ 
sciously confirmed one of the oldest fables recounting 
the peculiarities of Bruin. We ourselves, however, 
had no opportunity of witnessing this interesting 
operation. 
We now set to work in earnest. Attaching the 
rope to the hide, we dragged it towards the ship, 
while some of the men made a bonfire of the car¬ 
case. As the men make up the fire, we examine the 
powerful structure of the limbs; flat and without 
any indication of strength when viewed from the 
front, the fore-arms are a vast network of powerful 
sinews, when looked at in profile,—the paw attached 
