The wonders of the animal kingdom. Exhibiting delineations of the most distinguished wild animals in the various menageries of this country / By Robert Huish.

  • Huish, Robert, 1777-1850.
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The wonders of the animal kingdom. Exhibiting delineations of the most distinguished wild animals in the various menageries of this country / By Robert Huish. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    but very rarely, three. They follow their dams a very long time, and grow to a large size before they quit them. During winter they retire, and bed themselves beneath the snow, or else beneath the fixed ice of some eminence, where they pass, in a state of torpidity, the long and dismal arctic winter, appearing only with the return of the sun. Tlie flesh of the polar bear is eatable, and is said to have some resemblance to the taste of mutton, but the fat of it partakes strongly of a fishy odour. Its skin is valued for coverings of various kinds, and, according to Billing, a skin generally sells for a ruble. The liver is considered by the Siberians as a remedy for venereal diseases and inflammation of the throat; but, according to the report of some Dutch sailors, who lived for some time in the countries inhabited by these animals, and who ate of the liver, the effects produced were of the most disagreeable and painful kind. One of the most peculiar characteristics of this animal is the almost continual motion of the head and neck, moving them up and down, and then sideways, and appearing on the whole less reconciled to its confinement than any other animal in the Gardens. It is, however, so far tamed as to accept of food from the hands of the visitors, and, having greedily devoured it, it resumes immediately its restless motion. The following anecdote of the sagacity of these animals, in searching for prey, is extracted from the works of the Honourable Robert Boyle. “ An old sea-captain told me that the white bears in or about Greenland, notwithstanding the coldness of the climate, have an excellent nose, and that sometimes when the fishermen had dismissed tlie carcass of a whale, and left it floating on the waves, three or four leagues from the shore, from which it could not be seen, these animals would stand as near the water as they could, and, raising themselves on their hind legs, would loudly snuff in the air, and with two paws of their fore-legs drive it, as it were, against their snouts, and when they were satisfied whence the odour came, would cast themselves into the sea and swim directly towards the whale. ’ The polar bear has a great dread of heat. An animal of this species, described by Professor Pallas, would not stay in its house in the winter, although it was at Krasnojarsk, in Siberia, where the climate is very cold, and it seemed to experience great pleasure in rolling itself in the snow. We believe the subject of the present sketch to be a very recent importation into this country, and, therefore, it is impossible to say in what manner it will bear the heat of our summer, but the animal that was kept in the Museum of Natural History at Paris suffered excessively during the hot weather. The keepers, throughout the year, were obliged to throw upon it sixty or seventy pails of water a day to refresh it. Tills animal was fed only with bread, of which it daily consumed no more than about six pounds, notwithstanding which it became very fat. Above one hundred pounds of fat have been taken from one of these animals. ■White bears are sometimes found in Iceland, but not being natives of that island they are supposed to float thither from the opposite coast of Greenland, on some of the huge masses of ice that are detached from those shores. After so long an abstinence as they must necessarily undergo on the voyage, they arc reduced by hunger to attack even men if they should come in their way. But we are informed by Mr. Horrebow that the natives are always able to escape their fury, if they can only tlirow in their way something wherewith to amuse them. A glove, he says, is sufficient for this purpose, for the bear will not stir till he has turned every finger of it inside out, and as these animals are not very dexterous with their paws, this takes up some time, and in the mean time the person makes his escape. Since writing the above, we have paid another visit to the Gardens, and we observe that a pond lias been made for the bear, in which he recreates himself at pleasure, and which aflbrds him ample protection from the summer heat.