Modern Whaling & Bear-Hunting / A record of present-day whaling with up-to-date appliances in many parts of the world, and of bear and seal hunting in the Arctic regions

by W. G. Burn Murdoch

Perhaps I may here be allowed to put down some notes on the protective coloration of the Arctic fauna.

Evening of the 2nd August. We thought we were in for another bear this evening, because a young man on watch probably mistook a piece of yellow ice for a bear, and we went back on our tracks, but found no bear. We hunted round the floe on which he vowed he had seen it, but did not find even spoor, so I fear his cry of “Wolf” will not be listened to for many a day. Naturalists tell us that the yellowish tint of the bear’s skin is given to it by Nature to allow the bear to secure its prey, the seal—that the seal is green enough to mistake the bear’s skin for a piece of yellow ice, and thus the fittest survives. As these yellow pieces of ice are few and far between, and as there are far more pieces of blue ice, and as the predominating colour of the snow is white, I’d have painted the bear blue and white if I had been Nature, with only a touch perhaps of yellow here and there.

Naturalists have also told me that whilst waiting for a seal at its breathing-hole in the ice, the bear covers its nose with its paws to prevent the seal seeing the conspicuous black of its nostrils. I should think myself this is to keep his hands warm. Five black claws on each foot must be as conspicuous to the seal as the black nose. Again, sometimes a bear covers itself completely with snow, all but its nose! This allows man in his turn to have a chance of proving himself to be the fittest. A case in point was when two men I know up here encountered a bear. It took careful stock of them and did not like their protective smell or the checks of their tweeds, so it did not immediately attempt to eat them (possibly it was not hungry), but it retired, as it thought, out of sight, and with a few grand sweeps of its great forearms and hands covered itself up with snow, only leaving its black nose exposed. But for this wonderful foresight on the part of Nature in making the bear’s nose black, the order of evolution might have been reversed. Man strolling along and seeing nothing but white snow might have slipped out of existence in the warm embrace of Ursus Maritimus. The protective coloration of the black nose, from the man’s point of view, surely proved that Nature originally intended the bear to be cooked with onions for our dinner.

When they spotted the black nose, the two men proceeded to guess in which direction lay the neck and body. (I think only an artist who has studied the drawing of a bear’s nose and head could have told for certain.) So when they did hit it in the neck, it must have been rather a fluke! It was a fighting bear, and came out of the eruption of snow with fearful roars, and in a great hurry, for a bear. But Nature insisted on the evolution and survival of the higher species and wiped out the bear with two 475 decimal bullets, nickel covered, and added, very incidentally, vermilion to the general colour scheme of the floe, tempting one to drag in the trite quotation: “Nature red of tooth and claw.”

We are inclined to dwell at some length on the theory of the protective coloration of the fauna of the Arctic and the Antarctic regions. For in these frost-bound portions of our sphere there is frequently so much fog, or nebulous condition of the atmosphere, of such density that the naturalist observer is compelled either to evolve theories or play cards.

Another of the carnivoræ of these high latitudes, Vulpes lagopus or Arctic fox, has also by Nature been given a remarkable skin as protective colouring of perfect whiteness (value to-day about £12). Beyond doubt, as with the bear, this resemblance of the colour of this skin to the surroundings is in order to allow the fox to secure its prey—namely, the Lagopus hemilencurus or Arctic grouse, of which it is particularly fond, as also of the Lagopus glacialis or white hare of the polar Arctic regions.

Now, seeing that the fox is singularly gifted with cunning, a fact which has been universally admitted by naturalists of all times, Nature, to prevent the complete extinction of the smaller fauna, such as the hare, which has neither wings to fly with nor fins to swim with, has also gifted the hare with a white coat, and so the balance of Nature is preserved. In the case of this Lagopus hemilencurus or Arctic grouse, which, unlike the fox or bear, is unprovided with teeth with which to protect itself, Nature, with its unstinted bounty, has provided it with lateral appendages, one on either side, with which it is enabled to fly; thus it has, besides its protective coloration, another means by which it can escape its natural enemy, so the preservation of the less cunning but more edible species is preserved. We might perhaps have thought that, being provided with wings with which to take flight, the protective coloration for this bird would have been unnecessary, but we must remember that the fogs of these high latitudes, which have already been alluded to as affecting the actions of the higher animal homo, put this bird to a disadvantage. For it has been stated (the writer need hardly quote his authority here) the nebulous conditions referred to in these high latitudes are sometimes of such density that they may actually prevent this bird from seeking safety in flight. This being so, we can the more readily understand the necessity of the protective coloration for this succulent bird.

As an example of how very thick such a fog can be up here, it is related by an explorer (an American, I believe) that the men on watch on a certain occasion on his vessel were sitting on the bulwarks smoking their pipes and were leaning against the mist, when suddenly it rose and they all fell backwards into the sea.

What may seem unaccountable when you consider the bear’s protective coloration is that seals of various kinds in the Arctic regions should have apparently no protective colouring. Whilst lying on the ice beside their holes they form quite conspicuous objects, even at a distance of a mile on a clear day, and less if it is foggy or on a dark night. But the reason for this apparent contradiction is not far to find; for, as we have already explained, owing to the colour of the bear’s coat being of a yellowish tint and occasional pieces of ice being also of a yellowish tint, with a far-away resemblance to the bear’s coat, the seal takes the bear for a lump of ice walking, so Nature here has stepped in and said to the seal: “If you are such a silly fool as to mistake a bear for a piece of yellow ice, why, have a dark brown coat and be blowed to you,” so everyone is pleased—and so on.

The bear, or supposed bear, of last night, interrupted a quiet, misty evening we were spending alongside a small floe of a quarter of a mile in diameter of hard, smooth, frosted ice. Our men were occupied drawing fresh water from the blue pools. Eastward lay mist, north and west a pale orange band just showed beyond the violet-coloured floes and soft grey sky, just the quiet effect for decoration of a silk fan.