A mother bear, with two cubs, came too near a whaler, and was shot. The cubs not trying to escape, were taken alive. The little creatures, though at first seeming quite unhappy, at length became in some measure reconciled to their fate, and being quite tame, were allowed sometimes to go at large about the deck.

While the ship was moored to a floe a few days after they were taken, one of them having a rope fastened round his neck, was thrown overboard. It at once swam to the ice, got upon it, and tried to escape. Finding itself, however, held by the rope, it tried to free itself in the following clever way.

Near the edge of the floe was a crack in the ice. It was of considerable length, but only eighteen inches or two feet wide, and three or four feet deep. To this spot the bear turned; and when, on crossing the chasm, the bight of the rope fell into it, he placed himself across the opening; then suspending himself by his hind feet, with a leg on each side, he dropped his head and most all of his body into the chasm; and with a foot applied to each side of the neck, tried for some minutes to push the rope over his head.

Finding that this scheme did not work, he moved to the main ice, and running with great force from the ship, gave a strong put on the rope; then going backward a few steps, he repeated the jerk. At length, after repeated attempts to make his escape in this way, every failure of which he announced with an angry growl, he gave himself up to his hard fate, and lay down on the ice in angry and sullen silence.