Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/281

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and they may be seen at almost any time scampering over the ice, seeking the tracks of the bears, which they follow with the instinct of the jackal following the lion; not that they try their strength against these roving monarchs of the ice-fields, but, whenever the bear catches a seal, the little fox comes in for a share of the prey. Their food consists besides of an occasional ptarmigan, (the Arctic grouse,) and if quick in his spring he may be lucky enough to capture a hare. In the summer they congregate about the haunts of the birds, and luxuriate upon eggs. It is a popular belief in Greenland that they gather enormous stores of them for their winter provender, but I have never witnessed in them any such evidence of foresight.

The bears, wandering continually through the night, must needs have a hard struggle to live. During the summer, the seal, which furnish their only subsistence, crawl up on the ice, and are there easily caught; but in the winter they only resort to the cracks to breathe, and, in doing so, barely put their noses above the water, so that they are captured with difficulty. Driven to desperation by hunger, the bear will sometimes invade the haunts of men, in search of the food which their quick sense has detected. Our dogs, during the early winter, kept them from our vicinity; but, when the dogs were gone, several bears made their appearance. One of them came overland from the Fiord, and approached the store-house from behind the observatory, where Starr was engaged in reading the scale of the magnetometer. The heavy tread of the wild beast was heard through the stillness of the night, and, without much regard to the delicate organization of the instrument which he was