en begins
to push down, with his paws, pieces of rock among the herd below. This
manoeuvre is not followed by any attempt to pursue, until he finds he
has maimed one of the flock, upon which a course immediately ensues,
that proves successful, or otherwise, according to the hurt the barein
has received.

The captain of a Greenland whaler, being anxious to procure a bear
without injuring the skin, made trial of a stratagem of laying the
noose of a rope in the snow, and placing a piece of kreng within it. A
bear, ranging the neighboring ice, was soon enticed to the spot by the
smell of burning meat. He perceived the bait, approached, and seized it
in his mouth; but his foot, at the same time, by a jerk of the rope,
being entangled in the noose, he pushed it off with his paw, and
deliberately retired. After having eaten the piece he had carried away
with him, he returned. The noose, with another piece of kreng, having
been replaced, he pushed the rope aside, and again walked triumphantly
off with the bait. A third time the noose was laid; but, excited to
caution by the evident observations of the bear, the sailors buried the
rope beneath the snow, and laid the bait in a deep hole dug in the
centre. The animal once more approached, and the sailors were assured
of their success. But bruin, more sagacious than they expected, after
snuffing about the place for a few moments, scraped the snow away with
his paw, threw the rope aside, and again escaped unhurt with his prize.

A Greenland bear, with two cubs under her protection, was pursued
across a field of ice by a party of armed sailors. At first, she seemed
to urge the young ones to an increase of speed, by running before them,
turning round, and manifesting, by a peculiar action and voice, her
anxiety for their progress; but, finding her pursuers gaining upon
them, she carried, or pushed, or pitched them alternately forward,
until she effected their escape. In throwing them before her, the
little creatures are said to have placed themselves across her path to
receive the impulse, and, when projected some yards in advance, they
ran onwards, until she overtook them, when they alternately adjusted
themselves for another throw.

In the month of June, 1812, a female bear, with two cubs, approached
near a whale ship, and was shot. The cubs, not attempting to escape,
were taken alive. These animals, though at first very unhappy, became,
at length, in some measure reconciled to t