Reporter and farmer. [volume] (Webster, Day County, Dakota [S.D.]) 188?-1946, 1898-10-13
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: ...Cbe Great polar Bear...
4 A Few Facts About the Life and Habits of the =
Seal Eater of the Northern Shows.
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The aquatic member OF the bear FAM
ily. the Thalassarctos maritimus OF
naturallsts, is also the strongest, larg-
sst and most interesting species, writes
General A. w. Greedy. of the United
States Army. While it's shutting gait
leaves its broad trails along the north
crn continental coasts of Asia and
America, yet this animals favorite
hunting fields are rather among the
drifting ice-iields or open water-holes
or the Parry. S~pitzberger and Franz
JOSEF archipclagoes, and the bordering
islands of continental Greenland.
The polar bear is an animal of strik-
ing contrasts. The snowy Wilderness Of
It's fur LIS sharply set off by the black
ness or its snout and claws; its short,
und ears make its long head and
neck most pronounced; it's tiny tail
seems a most lndrlcous ending of it's
immense launches, which are in keep
ing only with the enormous teeth and
ponderous claws. Some of these con-
trasts are but faint in the specimens
IN captivity. whose abnormal methods
Of life naturally modify their character
re most northern latitude in which
the track OF a bear has been observed
is that noted by Lieutenant Lockwood,
OF my expedition, in eighty-three de-
grees, three minutes north, near Cape
Benet: and strangely enough this ami
nal was travelling to the northeast.
Occasionally a polar bear, luxuriating
in rich hunting afforded by an ice-peak,
is carried by drift far into southern lat
itudes, and thus this species sometimes
reaches the coasts of Labrador and the
southern shores of Hudson Bay or
meets Its fate in the North Atlantic as
the disintegrating foes finally dissolve.
IL was long asserted that these bears
could swim neither very far nor fast
an opinion arising. doubtless, from the
aw~kwardncss that marks their move
ments-but it is now held that the
animal is almost amphibious. Payer
says that four men, on one occasion,
could not pull a boat fast enough to
catch either OF two swimming bears.
captain ouUkUG WullC WIFI II dIAy , ~
petition. midway in Barrow Strait, for
~ miles wide. saw a bear swimming
strongly; no ice was visible from the
ship, and the circumstances seemed to
indicate that the animal was crossing
the strait from shore to shore.
No systematic effort appears to have
been made to obtain data as to the
largest animals killed by hunters, but
Sir John Ross measured sixteen bears
killed in Boothia Felix, North America.
OF which nine were males and seven
females. The average length from snout
10 end OF tail was n~inety-four inches
for the males and seventy-eight and
seven-tenths for the females. The larg-
est bear measured one hundred and
one and a half inches. and weighed ten
hundred and twenty-eight pounds, the
animal being in poor condition.
Tie largest specimen OF which | have
personal knowledge is one killed in
Z Sea. whose skin is owned by
49, u William p. Frye. of Maine. 1t
measures nine feet seven inches, ex-
csusive OF the tail OF two inches, and
it's girth around the body just back of
the forelegs Is ten feet.
The largest specimen recorded by a
scientific observer was one of the many
bears killed by the expedition of Leigh
Smith. which was shipwrecked on the
southwest part OF Franz Josef archi-
pelago. 1882. DR.. w. III. Neale, the
naturalist OF the expedition, says that
some of the bears were very large, that
one measured eleven feet exclusive of
the tail. There Is then. no reasonable
ground % question the veracity OF the
statement of CERT De Veer, a compan-
ion Of Barentz in his third voyage. that
there was killed in Nova Zembla, in
1897. a bear which was twelve feet
long. possibly including the tail.
While the polar bear is by prefer
ence non-vegetarian. living upon fish
and the flesh OF the seal, when he can
procure 1t, nevertheless he will occa-
sionally eat seaweeds, and in cases of
necessity has been known to subsist
for some time on land vegetation. Nor
denskiold relates that Doctor Theel
shot at Port Dickson an exceedingly
fat old bear which had evidently been
living on grass for some time. The
skill and caution with which bruin
does his sea-hunting are described by
the Eskimos as follows: The bear
slips quietly into the water and swims
TO the leeward of the seal. from whence