“I don’t quite comprehend you, Alexis. How far?”
“Why, simply into the courtyard of our palace. It would have been only necessary to kill and skin one of the great bears chained by the gate, and that would have fulfilled all the conditions papa has imposed upon us.”
“And yet, I don’t understand you,” rejoined Ivan, with a puzzled look.
“How obtuse you are, brother! Read the letter again; note well its terms!”
“Well, I understand them. We are to travel on, and not come home again till we have killed a bear of every variety known.”
“There—just so. Of course papa means every variety known to naturalists,—that is, to the ‘scientific world,’ as it is termed. Now you comprehend my meaning?”
“Oh, yes!” answered Ivan; “you mean that when Linnaeus published his ‘System of Nature,’ only our own brown bear of Europe was known to naturalists?”
“Precisely so—only the ursus arctos; and consequently we should have had but a very short journey to make, compared with what is before us now. It is true that previous to his death, the Swedish naturalist had made the acquaintance of the ‘Polar’ bear (ursus maritimus); but, strange enough, he regarded this as a mere variety of the ursus arctos—an error that one may wonder Linnaeus could have made.
“Oh, they are very different. I could tell that myself. To say nothing of the colour, they are unlike in shape; and, as everybody knows, their habits are very dissimilar. Why, one lives in forests, and feeds chiefly upon fruits; while the other dwells amidst fields of snow and ice, and subsists almost exclusively on flesh, or fish. Variety, indeed! no, they are surely different species.”
“Undoubtedly,” answered Alexis; “but we shall have an opportunity of comparing them hereafter. For the present we must drop the subject, and find out the route of travel which papa has traced out for us.”