he wound with his fore-paws;
sometimes in his death struggles he scrapes with his fore-feet a
hole in the snow, in which he buries his head.

When a vessel lies at anchor, the bear sometimes swims out to it,
and if one encamps in distant regions one often finds on getting up
in the morning a Polar bear in the neighbourhood, who during the
night has gone and nosed round the tent, without daring to attack
it. I remember only one case of a bear venturing to look into an
inhabited tent; it was during Kane's journey. He was frightened on
that occasion by the lighting of some lucifers. I have myself with
my comrades encamped without a watch in regions where we were
certain that our encampment would be visited, while we lay in deep
sleep, by some bear, that seldom, when the cook rose to make coffee,
failed to come within range of shot.

[Illustration: POLAR BEARS. Drawn by G Muetzel of Berlin. ]

The bear on the other hand has a special fancy for taking an
inventory of depots of provisions, of abandoned vessels, or of boats
that have been left drawn up on the beach. Most Arctic travellers
have remarkable adventures to relate, which both men and bears have
gone through on such occasions. During our expedition in 1864, for
instance, a large bear came and closely examined the contents of a
boat covered with a tent, which we had left unwatched for a few
hours at the bottom of Stor Fjord. He ate up a carefully-cooked
reindeer roast, tore the reserve clothes, scattered about the
ship-biscuit, &c.; and after we had returned in the evening,
gathered our things together in a heap, closed the tent and lain
down to sleep, the same bear returned, and, while we slept,
appropriated all the reindeer beef we had cooked to be used, in
place of the roast we had lost, during the following day's journey.
During one of the English expeditions in search of Franklin, there
was killed on one occasion, a bear in whose stomach there was found,
among many other articles, the stock of sticking-plaster from a
neighbouring depot. The bear can also roll away very large stones,
but a layer of frozen sand is too much for him.

The Polar bear swims exceedingly well, but not so fast as that he
can escape in this way, if he be pursued in a boat; if a boat and
stout rowers are at hand he is accordingly done for, if, as often
happens, he in attempting to escape seeks his deliverance in the
sea. There, he is, as the hunters say, "as easy to kill as a sheep,"