were foolish enough to fire a few shots among them, when the bears sprang furiously from the carcase and made for their boat. One succeeded in getting its paws on to the gunwale, and it was only by the vigorous application of an axe that they succeeded in relieving themselves of so unwelcome an addition to their crew. On the whole, the conclusion Brown comes to, is that the polar bear is not a very fierce animal when not enraged, and he thinks that a great deal of the impressions which we have imbibed regarding its ferocity are more due to old notions of what it ought to be rather than what it is, and that the tales related by Barentz, Edward Pelham, and other old navigators were a good deal exaggerated. When enraged or emboldened by hunger, it is easily understood that, in common with all wild and even domesticated animals, it may be dangerous to man. Though seemingly so unwieldy, the nennok runs with great speed, and being almost marine in its habits, it swims with perfect ease and dives with a natural grace almost as well as an ordinary seal.

It has been chased over the ice on many occasions, as every one is aware who has looked over the pages of the Arctic records, and the mother bear on many occasions has been observed to manifest the most tender solicitude for her offspring-helping them with

a display of reasoning powers one would hardly expect to find. When her cub begins to fail in its powers of locomotion, the old one has been seen to stop and encourage it, sometimes pushing it along before her; and when hard pressed lifting the little ones out of the water on to the edge of the ice floe as a cat lifts her kittens. Richardson, Parry, and others mention the fact of the white bear being found a long distance from land swimming in the open sea. Then there are the stories and traditions of the whalers, such as that one of the bear in hard times sucking at its own paws, to extract sustenance from its own system to support itself; as well as others to the effect that it builds for itself houses in the ice, and of their gambols therein; as well as encounters with the walrus, affording ample matter for whaling sailors' yarns whenever the subject crops up amongst them on sight of a "Farmer."

As for the question of the winter hybernation of the bear, there are many conflicting opinions. Those kept in confinement do not help in this inquiry, for the conditions of its life are entirely altered; but it is supposed that the female retires for some period of the winter, and the old males only partially hybernate. The young of the bear on making its first appearance in this world is the smallest infant we know of when

compared with the vast bulk of its parent; it hardly equals in size a spaniel puppy of a few days old.

The bear of the Arctic regions does not hug like other bears, but bites at his opponent; and he declines to eat his captive until life is quite extinct. Like a cat, he plays with the victim. Amongst the Eskimo of Greenland he plays strange pranks, often creeping upon the hunter whilst busily flencing a seal, and tapping him on the shoulder with his powerful paw. Then it is the unfortunate man's cue to "feign dead," so that when the Brownie retreats a few paces to enjoy the prospect of his intended meal, the gun can be got ready before he returns again to the attack.

Byers has not been idle. On the open water near the ship he has watched for a narwhal, and without much difficulty has fired the harpoon right through the "fish." It has no horn, and the men are hard to satisfy respecting this peculiarity in the individual captured. The oil is abundant, however, and this is some compensation in settling the obscure question as to the want of a horn; had it been a female there would have been no question raised.

The wind shifting brings down the ice upon us, and the threatened danger fills us with apprehension for the safety of the ship. Some smaller bits of ice come crunching and grating against her sides,

BEAR OUTWITTED.

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and we determine to push out into a more secure position.

The crow's-nest signal man, in the early morning, informs us of a bear being to windward, about four miles away, attracted probably by the odour of his grilled companions. Our friend, with his harpooneer

Byers, goes in pursuit, while we mount into the rigging to see their plan of operations. We see them mount a hillock, and look in all directions with their glasses for the grizzly monster; but in vain. They pull round to another point with similar result. Growing tired of the tedious delay, we get quietly below, and the men not knowing the moment when their energies will be tried to the utmost, creep back to finish their sleep, leaving the schooner deck a few minutes quite deserted. The bear steadily advancing, takes the water and gets upon the ice we are moored to. The look-out man, detecting the manoeuvre of the sly beast, again spoils our sport by yelling out the tidings; and before we can do anything the bear has galloped off into space. On the boat's return we are ashamed to recount our adventure; as the tables are turned, we laugh over the cunning generalship of the bear. Waiting behind some heap of snow which effectually concealed him from his pursuers, he must have slipped by them and so gained upon us without attracting attention. As an

other instance of the animal's cunning, we may men

tion that Byers once saw a seal upon the ice a short distance from the breathing hole it also uses as a means of escape in moments of danger. A bear, after seeming deliberation, dived under the ice, and thrusting its paw through the hole, struck the seal a blow which killed it.

All

We perceive our bear still lurking about at some distance, disappointed of a meal, and grown impatient at his failure. He runs hither and thither, dodging out of view behind every little inequality in the ice, and always coming nearer to the smouldering carcase. this time the aspect of affairs about us wears a threatening look, and the wind rises rapidly; the ice comes upon us at a pace that is certainly alarming. We are about fifteen miles from the outer edge. Our lake, in which we float, is rapidly contracting, and although we cannot complain of the action of the wind upon ourselves, the falling barometer warns us of a gale on the outer verge of the ice, whose force is rapidly increasing. Some ice presses towards us from the southwards a circumstance to be noted, as ice never comes in this direction unless driven by strong winds. The large pieces continue their course towards the south, heedless of the gale, drifting to certain destruction. Now the question grows serious-What shall