WHITE BEAR AND BROWN BEAR 
CHAPTER V 
The Polar Bear. 
HE bear tribe in the strict sense, that is the 
family Urside, differ from the other bear-like 
creatures, which we have considered, by their larger 
size and massive build. Even the little and very spry 
Malay bear is big when compared with e.g. a glutton, 
one of the largest of the non-ursine Arctoidea. Al- 
though bears can dig, they cannot, or at any rate do 
not, burrow holes for themselves like others of their 
allies, such as the badger. The polar bear differs 
from its congeners mainly in its very large size and 
white fur. The Zoological Society have exhibited in 
the past fairly large polar bears, and it will have been 
noticed by those who saw some of those animals that 
the fur was not of that brilliant whiteness with which it 
is wont to be represented in works upon Natural history. 
To set down this loss of pure colour to the “ smuts ”’ 
prevalent even in Regent’s Park would be incorrect ; 
for the polar bear is really only pure white when young. 
It gets brown with age, and the sailors who know it in 
its haunts call it ‘‘ Brownie.” Darkening with age is a 
common phenomenon in animals, and is even noticeable 
in ourselves before, of course, the ultimate whitening of 
senility. 
This bear has been also nicknamed the “ farmer ”’ 
owing to its leisurely and agricultural gait. The 
polar bear, “alone and palely loitering,” in very 
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