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 observing, the young gentleman rushed for the door, upset the magnetometer, and had nearly lost his life in his precipitate haste to get over the dangerous ice-foot, while hurrying on board to give the alarm. We sallied out with our rifles; but while Starr was fleeing in one direction, the bear had been making off in the other. I had an adventure, about this time, which, like that of Starr's, shows that the Polar bear is not so ferocious as is generally supposed; indeed, they have never been known to attack man except when hotly pursued and driven to close quarters. Strolling one day along the shore, I was observing with much interest the effect of the recent spring tides upon the ice-foot, when, rounding a point of land, I suddenly found myself confronted in the faint moonlight by an enormous bear. He had just sprung down from the land-ice, and was meeting me at a full trot. We caught sight of each other at the same instant. Being without a rifle or other means of defence, I wheeled suddenly toward the ship, with, I fancy, much the same reflections about discretion and valor as those which crossed the mind of old Jack Falstaff when the Douglas set upon him; but finding, after a few lengthy strides, that I was not gobbled up, I looked back over my shoulder, when, as much to my surprise as gratification, I saw the bear tearing away toward the open water with a celerity which left no doubt as to the state of his mind. I suppose it would be difficult to determine which was the worst frightened--the bear or I.