by a shower of pewter musket-balls. One, a cub, was nearly caught uninjured in attempting to follow its mother, who, galled to desperation, was endeavouring to escape through the land-party; but as soon as the affectionate brute perceived her offspring falling into the hands of her enemies, forgetting her fears she rushed furiously at the offenders, when they in their turn were obliged to retreat. But again they contrived to separate them, and had almost secured the prize, when the angry mother, regardless of their close and almost fatal fire, succeeded in redeeming it from their grasp and bearing it off, although herself in a state of great exhaustion. With the flood this sport ended.
RUSSIAN POLAR EXPEDITIONS.
While English enterprise in the Polar Regions has chiefly been confined to the northern coast of America, the Russians have been diligent explorers of these regions lying nearer to the wild and inhospitable coasts of Siberia. These explorations are comparatively but little known, although the Russian narratives of them are extremely interesting. Up to a recent period the great islands of Nova Zembla, in the Frozen Ocean, were comparatively unexplored, and were visited only by occasional fishermen and hunters in search of seals, bears, otters, reindeer, and foxes. Believed to be in circuit about two thousand miles, none had ever made
