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Great Polar Bear
N ACQUAINT- reigns eternal frost, and of those coasts ance with this ani- which are rarely free from ice, this Bear, mal may be traced in a state of nature, is almost entirely to a remote period carnivorous. Animals of the land and of English his of the sea, birds and their eggs, the dead tory. It is known, and the living, are alike eagerly made its for instance, that prey. Well adapted to swim and dive, and Henry III direct- of great strength, it chases the seal with ed a precept to the success, and will even attack the walrus Sheriffs of London, ordering them to itself. A recent explorer saw a Polar Bear allow fourpence a day for supporting the dive after a salmon, and it killed the fish. The Bear, on seeing a seal, gets quietly into the water, and swims until to leeward of him, whence, by frequent short White Bear, with his keeper, in the Tower; and they were also enjoined to provide a muzzle and an iron chain to hold the Bear out of the water, and also a dives, it silently makes its approaches, long and strong cord to hold him while and so arranges its distance that, at the he washed himself in the Thames. The last dive, it reaches the spot where the urging people to go and "see the lions seal is lying. If the poor animal attempts washed" at the Tower-an April fool's to escape by rolling in the water, it falls trick, which was common half a century into the Bear's clutches; if, on the conago-may have originated in the washing trary, he lies still, his enemy makes a of the White Bear. powerful spring, kills him on the ice, and devours him at leisure.
In April, 1559, Queen Elizabeth went in great state from St. Mary Spital, sit- A seal, lying in the middle of a large uated on the east side of Bishopsgate piece of ice, with a hole just before it, Street, with fields in the rear, which has was marked out by a Bear for its prey, long formed the suburb called Spital- and secured by the artifice of diving fields, attended by a thousand men in under the ice, and making its way to the harness, with shirts of mail and corslets, hole by which the seal was prepared to and morris pikes, and ten great pieces retreat. The seal, however, observed its carried through London unto the court, approach, and plunged into the water, with drums, flutes and trumpets sound- but the Bear instantly sprang upon it, ing, and two morris dancers, and two and appeared in about a minute after- White Bears in a cart. wards with the seal in its mouth.
An inhabitant of the dreary regions Not only does the Bear swim, but it is which surround the North Pole, where able to make long springs in the water.
