89 
The skins are imported into Britain 
chiefly for covering coach-boxes. In 
Greenland the inhabitants use the flesh 
and fat as food; and of the skins they 
make seats, boots, shoes, and gloves; the 
tendinous parts they split into fibres for 
the purpose of sewing. # 
The food of the Polar bears consists 
chiefly of fish, of seals which they seize 
when sleeping, and the carcases of whales, 
walruses, &c. so often found floating in the 
northern seas. On land they prey on the 
rein-deers, young birds, and eggs; and 
sometimes lay hold of the Arctic fox, not¬ 
withstanding all his stratagems in order to 
escape. Some naturalists have maintain¬ 
ed, that the Polar bear chiefly delighted in 
human flesh; this, however, is express¬ 
ly contradicted by Fabricius, who, from 
his long residence in Greenland, must 
be allowed to be an unexceptionable au« 
* Fabric. Faun. Greenland. edit. 1780, p. 24 
