What a dreadful creature is the bear! We mean nothing personal, never having been at St. Petersburg, but allude merely to the great, shaggy, broad footed, strong-tusked, hugging animal, hunted by Mr. Lloyd. There seems to be only a single species of bear (Ursos arctos) in Scandinavia, and we daresay it is quite sufficient. In consequence of the increase of cultivation, he is now confined very much to the northern portions of the peninsula, that is, from about latitude 58° to the North Cape. But to those districts in which he is wanting in quantity, he makes amends in quality, the bear of Lapland being inferior in size and prowess to those of Wermeland and the Dalecarlian forests. He sometimes weighs eight hundred pounds. Mr. Lloyd is very diffuse on the subject of bears, and in addi tion to his own actual observation and adven ture, he quotes from all and sundry. We shall confine ourselves to the narration of a single expedition, which was attended by a tragical result. A faithful follower of the name of Svensson had ascertained the whereabouts of a bear, in a wild forest track between the rivers Dal and Clara, where the woods extend about ten miles almost without a break. The party started long before dawn on a winter morning. The snow was deep and loose, and the track bad, but about ten o'clock they reached a wooded knoll, where bruin was presumed to be ensconced. The atmosphere was thick and hazy, and the sleet falling fast. Svensson was left on the look out, and cautioned not to leave his post, while the others moved onwards and around, threading their sinuous way through tangled breaks, and peering under mighty boulders. at once across my mind, and I exclaimed, 'It is Svensson and not the dog that is killed! And such was the dreadful fact! On proceeding to his length, and stone dead! It was a piteous the spot, there lay the poor fellow stretched at sight to look on; a grey-headed old man,-he was then in his sixty-fifth year,-thus weltering in his own blood; and to me a doubly heart-rending spectacle, as it was my own hand that had sped the fatal bullet. We were all horror-stricken. For my own part, what with reflecting on myself for having been the cause of the calamity, and grief for the loss of an old and tried comrade my feelings are not to be conveyed by words."— P. 338. turous hunter should himself escape uninjured It can scarcely be expected that our advenfrom all the fearful frays on which he entered. On one occasion he observes a bear lying near the summit of a little knoll, at the outer edge of a thick brake. What picturesque elements the rocky height, the tangled wood, and old bruin at the mouth of his den, and rough enough to please Sir Uvedale sunning a weather-stained garment, shaggy Price! When eight or ten paces off, and just bolted from his lair, and made straight at his as the trigger was being pulled, the bear assailant. The latter had just time to fire his second barrel, and with effect so far as inflicting a severe wound without staying progress was concerned, but the brute almost at the same instant laid him prostrate. His only resource now was to bury his face in the snow to prevent mutilation of the most obvious portion of the outer man, and then lie motionless,-the notion being that if a bear believes his victim dead, he inflicts no further damage. But in this case, although Mr. Lloyd played the defunct extremely well, he was sadly mauled, especially about the head. "While cautiously looking around us, our expectations of seeing the bear constantly on the stretch, and my gun at the time being on the fullcock, I suddenly caught an indistinct glimpse of "My body also suffered greatly from his fua large dark object amongst the trees on the ris-rious attacks, which extended from the neck and ing ground above us. It was at a distance, as it shoulder down to the hip. But he did not atseemed to me through the sleet and mist, of a tempt in any manner to hug or embrace me, as good gun-shot, and though stationary so to say, we in England seem to imagine his custom to be it moved. Not doubting that it was the bear, I when carrying on offensive operations; nor did he in almost the twinkling of an eye, raised and dis- seemingly molest me in any way with his claws. charged my gun, when the object at which I All my wounds were, to the best of my belief, inaimed at once sunk to the ground. Though Elg flicted with his fangs. Neither at the and the soldier were standing immediately behind time of receiving my first fire, nor whilst making me, neither of them saw it. But this was not to his rush, did the bear, as is usually the case when be wondered at, as owing to the denseness of the enraged, utter his usual half roar half growl. cover, it was only from time to time that even a Even when I was lying at his mercy, no other transient view could be obtained of any thing in than a sort of subdued growl, similar to that of a the distance. dog when disturbed whilst gnawing a bone, was made by the beast; and so far from coming at me with open jaws, as one would suppose to be the case with a wild beast when making his onset, his mouth at the time was altogether closed. The pain I suffered from his long-continued attacks was bearable. When he had my limbs in his jaws, it more resembled their being stuck in a huge vice than anything else; but when his jaws "Almost at the instant of firing, and at the very spot to which my aim was directed, the dog became visible, and began to bark loudly; on seeing which I cried out in great alarm:-Elg! is it possible? can I have shot my dog? But observing by the way in which the animal pulled at his tether, that he was uninjured, and recollecting that he was with Svensson, the truth flashed The account of the lynx, as of the other animals, is greatly made up of extracts from the good Bishop, and some more recent writers. It would seem to be a sanguinary as well as a carnivorous creature; that is it often slavs M. far more than its necessities require. Skoldberg mentions that a female and her two cubs, killed in a single day no less than twentythree sheep, of some of which the necks were partially eaten, but all the bodies were untouched. Although the cat tribe to which the lynx is so nearly allied, are usually regarded as the worst of carrion, this animal forms an exception, its flesh being palatable, and in ap grasped, as they did, the whole crown of my head, during which I distinctly felt the fleshy part of his mouth to overlap my forehead, and his fangs very deliberately scored my head, my sufferings were intense. The sensations of his fangs slowly grating over the bare skull, was not at all that of a sharp blow, as is often the case when a wound is inflicted, but rather, though very much more protracted, the craunch one feels during the extraction of a tooth. From certain circumstances I have reason to believe the bear continued to maltreat me for nearly three minutes. As I perfectly retained my senses the whole time, my feelings, whilst in this horrible situation, are beyond the power of description. But at length the incessant attacks of my gallant little dog drew the beast's attention from me, and I had the satisfac-pearance resembling veal. The glutton (Gulo tion to see him retreat, though at a very slow pace, into the adjoining thicket, when he was at once lost to view. Immediately after he left me I arose, and applied snow by the handful to my head to stanch the blood which was flowing from it in streams. I lost a very large quantity, and the bear not a little, so that the snow all around the scene of conflict was literally deluged with gore."-Pp. 422, 423. This is good, and to the purpose in hand. Far better, surely, than the maukish and unnecessary extracts from Pontoppidan, a most excellent man in his way, and whose works when we were ourselves young and innocent, which is a long time ago, we were quite willing to swallow, cracken, sea-serpent, and all. But had we spent as Mr. Lloyd has done, twenty of the best years of our life in Sweden and Norway, we should not have thought of making up our book by much quoting from the good old Bishop of Bergen. Then comes a chapter on cholera, which we shall leave for the consideration of the Board of Health. The first volume ends with an account of wolves, and their various modes of capture, all rather tiresome in the telling. Mr. Lloyd's second volume contains the sporting history of the fox, lynx, and glutton, among beasts of prey, of the lemming and hare among the rodent tribes, (the beaver, which is their glory, being not so much as even named,) and of the elk and rein-deer, as representing the antlered ruminants. But between the two latter we find interpolated a long and inappropriate history of Gustavus Vasa, a well-known and rather pugnacious person on the whole, but who was by no means so wild a creature as to deserve such a position, and whose sayings and doings have no possible connexion with the subject-matter of the present volumes. It is, in truth, this unnecessary amplification of irrelevant topics which forms their great defect, by increasing their size and price, and adding nothing to what any reasonable reader, on taking them up, expects and desires to know. The concluding fifteen chapters are devoted to ornithology. borealis) is now found only in the northern parts of Scandinavia. He subsists almost wholly on what is fresh, and so usually kills his own meat, which ranges from the young of the gigantic elk, to rats and lemmings. However, his favorite food is the hare, of which he is almost constantly in pursuit. He also angles a good deal in summer, being very fond of fish. Laestadius tells us that on one occasion he saw four full-grown gluttons on a stone in the midst of a rapid, occupied in catching grayling. It is often shot during winter in the Gulf of Bothnia, on the ice, at a great distance from any land, having probably roamed away from terra firma in pursuit of seals. The Lapps use the glutton's flesh as food. The chapter on the fox offers nothing new. In his former work Mr. Lloyd had given the black-fox as a native of Scandinavia, and he now modifies that opinion in favor of Professor Nilsson's view, which is, "that the blackfox, as a species, does not exist in the peninsula." As a species it does not exist anywhere. Several kinds of fox are subject to that darkened condition called melanism, in the completed state of which the fur is black and glossy, and of very high value. De Capell Brooke informs us that a few are taken in the Lafodden islands, but these are merely varieties of the common fox of Europe,Canis vulpes. In the northern parts of America, again, we meet, though rarely, with what Godman and other western writers call the black or silver fox, which La Hontan told us long ago was worth its weight in gold. Pennant has remarked that "the more desirable the fur is, the more cunning and difficult to be taken is the fox that owns it," and Mr. Hutchins adds, that "the blacker the fur the lesser the fox." Sir John Richardson does not confirm either of the last two statements. This American variety belongs to Canis fulvus. The observation we have made regarding black foxes, applies equally to the crucigerous variety called the cross-fox. Among the various species known to naturalists, we find in each individuals more or less marked in a cruciform On the history of the lemming, (Lemmus Norvegicus,) and its multitudinus migrations, we need not here dilate, as they are given with more or less exaggeration, in almost all works on natural history. That this creature should form a favourite food on the part of a herbivorous animal like the rein-deer, is a curious but distinctly established fact. low and marshy grounds, with plenty of water, We shall conclude with a brief notice of the rein-deer, cervus tarandus, which like the We should like some precise and specific in last, is believed to be identical in Europe and formation regarding the hares of Scandinavia, America, although it continues an undomesbut this we fail to find. There seems to be ticated species in the western world. Like two sorts there, we cannot well say whether the elk also, it has become greatly restricted species or varieties. The Lepus borealis is in modern times, as it is seldom found south white and inhabits the higher and more north- of 59° or 60° in Norway, while in Sweden ern mountain ranges,-while the Lepus canes its boundary is about 61° or 62°. In a northcens is only hoary, and dwells in the south-erly direction, it ranges uncontrolled by acern districts. Our British hare is unknown.* The Elk (Cervus alces) is the largest and most remarkable of the antlered animals of Northern Europe. It was formerly abundant in all the wooded districts of Scandinavia, but, in consequence of constant persecution it has become greatly more restricted, both in distribution and amount, and has long ceased to be in use as a domesticated species. Legislative enactments, however, having been of late years passed in its favor, its numbers are This creature delights again on the increase. in the deepest recesses of the forests. During the summer season his favourite resorts are * In Britain it is well known that we have two kinds of hares,-the common sort, L. timidus, widely diffused over the island, and the alpine hare, L. variabilis, confined to the more mountainous districts of Scotland. In summer it is of a bluish grey colour, tinged with tawny, and becomes white in winter. As there are no white hares in Ireland, and those found there are distinct from our common kind, they were long supposed to constitute a The Irish third species. But this is not the case. hare is identical with the alpine hare of the Grampians, but its coat in winter undergoes no change, in consequence, we presume, of the greater mildness of the Sister Isle. We owe this observation to the late Mr. Thompson of Belfast. tual cold or fear of famine, as far as Greenland, Spitzbergen, and Melville Island It does not occur in Iceland. Professor Nilsson indulges He in some curious notions regarding the the geographical distribution of the reindeer. supposes that those which inhabit the province of Scania came from the southward immediately after the boulder formation, while that portion of Sweden was still united to Germany, and the North Sea had not thrown its waters into what we now call the Baltic; while on the other hand, those which at present inhabit the more northern parts of Scandinavia came into them at a much later period by the way of Finnish Lapland, and subsequently to the land which stretches between the Gulf of Bothnia, and the White Sea having risen from the deep. He deduces this view from the fact, that fossil remains of rein-deer are found abundantly in all the alluvial peat-bogs of Scania, but are unknown throughout the The elk was unknown to the Greeks both by name and nature. The word alce first occurs in the writings of Julius Cæsar, and is supposed to have been adopted by him from the Celts. The Celtic name is elch, the Swedish elg. The American title of Moose-deer is derived from the Cree-Indian term Moosoa. entire country which lies between it and Southern Lapland. The female rein-deer presents an exception to the rule which prevails among the antlered kinds, in having the head armed as in the male, a fact recorded by Julius Cæsar, who describes the species as an inhabitant of the Hercynian forest, that "boundless contiguity of shade," which extended even to the far Uralian Mountains. There is, indeed a remarkable inequality of polar distances in the distribution of this, as of several other species, in accordance with the difference of meridian. Humboldt has long since shewn that physical climates do not lie in parallel bands at equal distances from the equator, but that the isothermal lines recedefrom the pole in the interior of continents, and advance towards it as we approach the shores, so that the further any northern species is naturally removed from the ameliorating climatic influence of the sea, the more extended may be its range in a a southerly direction. Of this the species now under consideration affords a remarkable illustration. Pallas (writing towards the close of the preceding century) informs us, that herds of wild rein-deer were still found among the pine woods which extend from the banks of the Oufa, under 50°, to those of the Kama. They are known to proceed still further south, along the shady summits of that prolonged portion of the Uralian Mountains which stretches between the Don and Wolga, as far as 46°. Thus they advance almost to the base of the Caucasian Mountains, along the banks of the river Kouma, where at least in the days of Pallas, scarcely a winter passed without a few being shot by the Kalmucks, under a latitude more than a hundred miles to the south of Astracan.* *The southern limits of the American rein-deer are by no means distinctly known, in consequence chiefly of the native name of caribou being vaguely applied to more than one species. Dr. Harlan, a recent writer (in his Fauna Americana, 1826), brings them as far south as the State of Maine, but he neither gives his authority, nor distinctly states his own personal knowledge of what he ought to have regarded as a singular circumstance, requiring circumstantial proof. Charlevoix, (Histoire de la Nouvelle France, 1777,) who probably died before Harlan was b rn, mentions that, in his time, so rare was the rein-deer in the latitude of Quebec, that he never knew of more than one having wandered thither, and this solitary sample, on being chased, precipitated itself from Cape Diamond, and, after swimming across the St. Lawrence, was killed by some Indians encamped on Point Levi. There are two well marked if not permanent varieties of this animal in North America. Those which pass their bright but fleeting summer in the "barren grounds," and along the shores of the Arctic Ocean, are small of stature, and consequently so light that a hunter can carry a full-grown doe across his shoulders. It is highly esteemed as food, and were it not for its We have never been able to satisfy ourselves regarding the precise period at which the important drocess of shedding the antlers is performed by rein-deer. "Though the male as well as the female," says Mr Lloyd, "shed their horns aunually, it is not at the same period, for the males lose theirs soon after the rutting season, in the autumn, whilst the females and the young males do not part with theirs until pretty late in spring." He afterwards indicates the rutting season more especially as being "about the end of September, or beginning of October." Winter must therefore be commenced both in Finmark and Lapland before these creatures cast their antlers, and unless their growth is more rapid than we can well suppose, the worst part of it must have passed before they have been effectively reformed. Yet we are often told that the portion called the brow antler, is of great service in scraping the snow from the lichens and other plants of lowly growth on which great abundance in the Barrens, the Chepewyans, Lake, would be unable to inhabit those desolate Copper, Dog-rib, and Hare Indians of Great-ber lands. The noted and almost indispensable pemmican is formed of its pounded flesh, incorporated with one third part of its melted fat. Sir John dition this variety is superior to the finest English Richardson was of opinion, that when in prime conmutton. We have elsewhere remarked that he was probably hungrier in the Arctic regions than he has ever been at home. The other variety, known as the woodland caribou, is of larger size, and much inferior flavour. One of its most remarkable peculiarities consists in its travelling southwards in the spring, crossing the Nelson and Severn rivers in vast numbers during the month of May, in order to spend the summer on the low marshy shores of James's Bay, from whence it returns inland, and in a northerly direction, in September. The stream of life, as constituted by the migratory movements of other animals, is usually the reverse of this. But we may well believe they are directed by One who cannot err. cies as it exists in the old world, conform to those Whether the varieties which constitute the speof the new, we cannot say. We shall state the facts domesticated tribes. The Lapland reindeer, though so far as known. They apply, however, only to the powerful in the sledge, are of small stature compared with those reared in the northern parts of Asia by the Tungusians, who ride upon them. There are two kinds of subjugated rein-deer in Lapland. The herded for the greater portion of the year on reone is the fall-ren, or mountain rein-deer, and is gions of such great elevation as to be nearly destitute of arborial vegetation. The other, called the in the forests all the year round. Neither variety scogs-ren, is the larger of the two, and is pastured equals the wild animal in size, and the principal reason assigned for this deterioration is, that the larger portion of the milk of the dam being reserved by the Lapps for their own subsistence, the fawns deer run they make a well-known "clattering" are stinted of their fair proportion. When reinthat Von Buch should attribute this to "the incessound with their closing hoofs. We are surprised sant crackling of the knee-joints, as if produced by a succession of electric shocks." 128 they feed. We dare not now enter upon the ornithology of Scandinavia, to which a large portion of Mr. Lloyd's second volume is devoted. We may take an after opportunity to discourse on the birds of the northern regions. ART. VIII.-1. Système de Politique Posi- 1844. 5. Discours sur l'Esprit Positif. Par Au- AUGUSTE COMTE, Ancien élève de l'Ecole 1830-1842. 7. Système de Politique Positive. Par M. 8. De la Philosophie Positive. Par E. LIT. 9. Conservation Révolution et Positivisme. 10. 11. 12. Philosophy of Mathematics. Translated Comte's Philosophy of the Sciences, being The Positive Philosophy of Auguste THE time seems to have arrived when the * Cours de Philosophie Positive, vol. i. p. 6, note. In 1822, according to vol. vi. p. 8. |