walked quietly away, thereby relieving the man from his very disagreeable
.situation,”
The Polar Bears feed chiefly on animal substances, and as they swim and dive
well, they hunt seals and other marine animals with great success. They are
even said to wage war, though rather unequally, with the Walrus. They feed
likewise on land animals, birds, and eggs, nor do they disdain to prey on carrion,
or, in the absence of other food, to seek the shore in quest of berries and roots,
They scent their prey from a great distance, and are often attracted to the whale
vessels, by the smell of burning kreng, or the refuse of the whale blubber,
Captain Lyons thus describes the mode in which the Polar Bear surprises a seal,
“ The Bear, on seeing his intended prey, gets quietly into the water, and swims
jto leeward of him, from whence, by frequent short dives, he silently makes his
approaches, and so arranges his distance, that, at the last dive, he comes to the
spot where the seal is lying. If the poor animal attempts to escape by rolling
into the water, he falls into the Bear’s clutches; if, on the contrary, he lies still,
his destroyer makes a powerful spring, kills him on the ice, and devours him at
Jeisure.” The same writer describes the pace of the Polar Bear, at full speed, as
“ a kind of shuffle, as quick as the sharp gallop of a horse.” |
The principal residence of the Polar Bear is on fields of ice, with which he
frequently drives to a great distance from the land, In this way they are often
carried from the coast of Greenland to Iceland, where they commit such ravages
on the flocks, that the inhabitants rise in a body to destroy them, Captain Sabine
mentions that he saw one about mid-way between the north and south shores of
Barrow’s Straits, which are forty miles apart, although there was no ice in sight to
which he could resort to rest himself upon; and Captain Lyons informs us, that
the Polar Bears not only swim with rapidity, but are capable of making long
springs in the water. They are not known to travel far inland. They have been
found in higher latitudes than any other quadruped, having been seen by Captain
Parry in his most adventurous boat-voyage beyond 32 degrees of north latitude.
The limit of their incursions southward on the shores of Hudson’s Bay, and of
Labrador, may be stated to be about the 55th parallel. They are often seen
about York Factory in the autumn, having most probably drifted from the northward
on the ice during the summer. Pennant, who has collected, from good
authorities, much information relative to their range, states, that they are frequent
on all the Asiatic coasts of the Frozen Ocean, from the mouth of the Obi eastward,
and abound in Nova Zembla, Cherry Island, Spitzbergen, Greenland,
Labrador, and the coasts of Baffin’s and Hudson’s Bays. They were seen by
Captain Parry within Barrow’s Straits as far as Melville Island; and the Esquimaux,
to the westward of Mackenzie’s river, told Captain Franklin that they occasionally,
though very rarely, visited that coast. The exact limit of their range to the
westward is uncertain, but they are said not to be known on the islands in
Behring’s Straits, nor on the coast of Siberia to the eastward of Tchutskoinoss.
They are not mentioned by Langsdorff and other visiters of the north-west coast
of America ; nor did Captain Beechey meet with any in his late voyage to Icy
Cape. None were seen on the coast between the Mackenzie and Copper Mine
River; and Pennant informs us, that they are unknown along the shores of the
White Sea, which is an inlet of a similar character.
The Polar Bear being able to procure its food in the depth of even an Arctic
winter, there is not the same necessity for its hibernating that exists in the case of
the Black Bear, which feeds chiefly on vegetable matters; and it is probable, that,
although they may all retire occasionally to caverns in the snow, the pregnant
females alone seclude themselves for the entire winter. It is mentioned in
L'e Roy’s narrative of the residence of four Russian seamen for six winters in
Spitzbergen, and also in thé account of Barentz’s winter in Nova Zembla, that thé
Bears disappéared with the sun, and returned again with that luminary, after an
absènce in the one case of four months, and in the other of three. Their retirement
has beén considered by somé as a proof of their hibernation; but, I think, the
móst probablé explanation of it is that they went out to sea in search of food.
Polar Bears were seen in the course of the two winters that Captain Parry
remained oil the coast of Melville Peninsula; and the Esquimaux of that quarter
derive a considerable portion of their subsistence not Only from the flesh of the
female Bears, which they dig togethér with their cubs from under the snow, but
also from the males that they kill when roaming at largè at all periods óf the
winter. Hearné states with more precision, and, I believe, from actual observation,
that the males leave thé land in the winter time and go out on the ice to the
edge of the open water in search of seals, whilst the females burrow in deep snowdrifts
from the end of December to the end of March, remaining without food, and
bringing forth thëir young during that period ; That when they leave their dens
in March, their young, which are generally two in number, are not larger than
rabbits, and make a foot-mark in the snow no bigger than a crown piece. He
also informs us that the males are found in company with the females in August,
and then exhibit great attachment to them. Mr. Andrew Graham’s observations,
written before the publication of Hearne’s Narrative, confirm the account given by
that traveller. “ In winter,” says he, “ the White Bear sleeps like other species of