Rensselaer Union, Volume 8, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 30 September 1875 — The Polar Bear’s Cunning. [ARTICLE]

The Polar Bear’s Cunning.

According to the Esquimaux the seal constructs its abode beneath the surface of the ice in such a manner that it can enter it from the water below; here the young seal passes its infancy, and when the returning heat of summer has destroyed its igloo or dwelling the young seal is old enough to take care of itself; but this mode of lodging its youth beneath the ice is well known to the bear, who, with his keen scent, soon detects the whereabouts of the seal’s nursery, and in order to gain entrance makes a spring and comes down heavily on the top of the igloo, crushes it in, and immediately seizes the young seal with its paw. Here it might be supposed the hungry bear at once devours its prey; but no. it is far too wary to do so; it knows full well that where a baby is theremustof necessity be a mother, and that she will be in search of her darling; therefore the bear scraps the snow away from the seal hole, and holding the young seal by the flippers allows it to flounder about, and when the mother approaches the bear slyly draws the young seal toward it until the old one is within reach, when he seizes her with the other paw, and thus captures both. The merriest place in the universe is just beyond the earth’s atmosphere, for there all bodies ibse their gravity.