As we have said, the bear dives well, and is nearly as much at home in the water as upon the ice. If it catches sight of a seal upon a drifting floe, it will slide quietly into the sea, swim with only the tip of its nose above the water, and, diving under the floe, reach the very spot which the hapless seal has regarded as an oasis of safety. It is this stratagem of its enemy which has taught the seal to watch its hole so warily. Even on extensive ice-fields fast to the land, where the bear cannot conceal its approach by taking advantage of hummocks or other inequalities, the seal is not safe; for then Bruin drops down a hole, and swims along under the ice-crust until it reaches the one where the poor seal is all unwittingly enjoying its last rays of sunshine. The bear’s season of plenty begins with the coming of the spring. In February and March the seal is giving birth to her young, who are born blind and helpless, and for ten days are unable to take to the water. The poor mothers use every effort to protect them, but, in spite of their affectionate exertions, a perfect massacre of the innocents takes place, in which, not improbably, the Arctic wolf is not less guilty than the Arctic bear. Voracity, however, frequently proves its own Nemesis, and the bear, in its eager pursuit of prey, often involves itself in serious disaster. The seal instinctively breeds as close as possible to the open water. But the ice-floes, during the early equinoctial gales, will sometimes break up and drift away in the form of pack-ice; a matter of indifference, says Osborn, to the seal, but a question of life and death to the bear. Borne afar on their little islets of ice, rocked by tempestuous waters, buffeted by icy gales, numbers of these castaways are lost along the whole area of the Polar Sea. It is said that when the gales blow down from the north, bears are sometimes stranded in such numbers on the shores of Iceland as to endanger the safety of the flocks and herds of the Icelandic peasants; and they have been known to reach the coasts of Norway.