The Bears 119 wandering through the woods to gather this harvest, not forgetting to rob every tree which it comes across."

THE INDIAN SLOTH-BEAR.

Few people would believe that this awkward and ugly beast is so formidable as it is. It is the commonest Indian species, seldom eats flesh, prefers sucking up the contents of a white ants' nest to any other meal, and is not very large; from 200 Ibs. to 300 Ibs. is the weight of a male. But the skull and jaws are very strong, and the claws long and curved. As they are used almost like a pickaxe when the bear wishes to dig in the hardest soil, their effect upon the human body can be imagined.

Sir Samuel Baker says that there are more accidents to natives of India and Ceylon from this species than from any other animal.

Mr. Watts Jones writes an interesting account of his sensations while being bitten by

Photo ly C. Reid] _Wishaw, N.B.

A BROWN BEAR IN SEARCH OF INSECTS.

The photograph shows a bear feeding on insects, possibly large ants, which he licks up from the ground, after scratching them out with his claws.

I had wounded, and rashly went to theone of these bears: " I was following up a bear which it. I do not knowmouth of a cave to which it had got. It charged. I shot, but failed to stop ; but I believe, from theexactly what happened next, neither does my hunter who was with me marks in the snow, that in his rush the bear knocked me over backwards in fact, knocked me bear's weight was on me, andthree or four feet away. When next I remember anything, the bit two or three times. I felt the flesh crush, but I felt no painhe was biting my leg. He at all. It was rather like having a tooth out with gas. I felt no particular terror, though I thought the bear had got me; but in a hazy sort of way I wondered when he would kill me, and thought what a fool I was to get killed by a stupid beast like a bear. The shikari then very pluckily came up and fired a shot into the bear, and he left me. I felt the weight lift N... The main wound was a flap ofoff me, and got up. I did not think I was much hurt. flesh torn out of the inside of my left thigh and left hanging. It was fairly deep, and I could it up to clean the wound." This anecdotesee all the muscles working underneath when I lifted

12O The Living Animals of the World

was sent to Mr. J. Growth er Hirst to illustrate a theory of his, that the killing of wild animals by other animals is not a painful one. Rustem Pasha, once Turkish Ambassador in England, had an accident when brown bear shooting in Russia, and writes of it in the same sense: " When I met the accident alluded to, the bear injured both my hands, but did not tear off part of the arm or shoulder. In the moment of desperate struggle, the intense excitement and anger did, in fact, render me insensible to the feeling of actual pain as the bear gnawed my left hand, which was badly torn and perforated with holes, most of the bones being broken." There is good reason to believe that when large carnivora, or beasts large in proportion to the size of their victims, strike and kill them with a great previous shock, the sense of pain is deadened. Not so if the person or animal is seized quietly. Then the pain is intense, though sometimes only momentary. A tigress seized Mr. J. Hansard, a forest officer in Ceylon, by the neck. In describing his sensations afterwards, he

Photo by Fratelli Alinari] [Florence. said: " The agony I felt was something frightful. POLAR BEAES. if it as whole skull crushed seemed were being Arctic can heat. My endure animals, polar bears Though great a " heat wave Herr in the C. of to atoms found I the brute. During " at Hamburg, Hagenbeck jaws great of two his leopards suffering from heat apoplexy, but the polar bears were certainly felt the most awful pain as she was biting the sun. enjoying ; but not afterwards, if I can remember." my neck Sir Samuel Baker says he has twice seen the sloth-bear attack a howdah-elephant. Lord Edward St. Maur, son of the Duke of Somerset, was killed by one. Mr. Sanderson, the head of the Government Elephant-catching Department, used to hunt bears in the jungle with bull-terriers. it by the nose; andAgainst these the bear was unable to make a good fight. They seized off.as its claws were not sharp like those of the leopard, the bear could not get them

This bear seldom produces more than two or three young at a birth. The young cub is very ugly, but very strong, especially in the claws and legs. A six weeks' old cub has been turned upside-down in a basket, which was shaken violently, without dislodging the little animal clinging inside.

THE ISABELLINE BEAR AND HIMALAYAN BLACK BEAR.

The former animal is a medium-sized variety of the brown bear. The coat in winter is of a beautiful silver-tipped cinnamon colour. The HIMALAYAN BLACK BEAR has a half-moon of white on its throat. The habits of both do not differ markedly from those of the brown bear of Europe. Recently black bears have been most troublesome in Kashmir, attacking and killing and

:wounding the woodcutters with no provocation. Dr. E. T. Vere, writing from Srinagar, says "Every year we have about half a dozen patients who have been mauled by bears. Most of our people who are hurt are villagers or shepherds. Bears have been so shot at in Kashmir that, although not naturally very fierce, they have become truculent. When they attack men, they usually sit up and knock the victim over with a paw. They then make one or two bites at the arm or leg, and often finish up with a snap at the head. This is the most dangerous part of the attack. One of our fatal cases this year was a boy, the vault of whose skull was torn off and lacerated. Another man received a compound fracture of the cranium. A third

Photo ly Fratelli Alinari] [Florence.

TWO POLAR BEARS AND A BROWN BEAR.

Although this is a photograph from life, it is scarcely a very natural scene; as a matter of fact, all three animals belong to Herr Carl Hagenbeck's remarkable menagerie. 121 16

had the bones of his face smashed and lacerated. He had an axe, but said, ' When the bear sat up, failed me.' my courage "

THE MALAYAN SUN-BEAR.

These small, smooth-coated bears have a yellow throat-patch like a mustard plaster, and are altogether the most amusing and comical of all the tribe. They are almost as smooth as a pointer dog, and are devoted to all sweet substances which can be a substitute for honey, their main delicacy when wild. There are always a number of these

Photo by J. W. McLellan] (Highbury. bears at the Zoo incessantly POLAR BEAR. This beards the. most formidable of all aquatic mammals. It is almost as much at home begging for food. When one in the water as a seal. gets a piece of sugar, he cracks it into small pieces, sticks them on the back of his paw, and licks the mess until the paw is covered with sticky syrup, which he eats with great gusto. This bear is found in the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, and Java. It is only 4 feet high, or sometimes half a foot taller. It is more in the habit of walking upright than any other species.

THE POLAR BEAR.

ICE-BEAR is the better name for this, the most interesting in its habits of all the bears. It is an inhabitant of the lands of polar darkness and intense cold, and one of the very few land animals which never try to avoid the terrible ordeal of the long Arctic night, which rolls on from month to month. It can swim and dive nearly as well as a seal, climbs the icebergs, and goes voyages on the drifting ice, floating hundreds of miles on the polar currents, and feeding on the seals which surround it. Of the limits of size of the ice-bear it is impossible to speak with certainty. From the skins brought to this country the size of some of them must be enormous. One which lived for more than thirty years first discoverers went to the Arcticat the Zoo was of immense length and bulk. When the seals. On Bear Island,Seas, dressed in thick clothes and skins, the polar bears took them for bear walked up behindbelow Spitsbergen, a Dutch sailor sat down on the snow to rest. A him, and seized and crushed his head, evidently not in the least aware of what kind of animal it had got hold of. When the Jackson-Harmsworth Expedition was wintering in Franz-Josef Land, the bears were a positive nuisance. They were not afraid of man, and used to come round the huts at all hours. The men shot so many that they formed a valuable article of food for the dogs. The flesh is said to be unwholesome for men. The power of these bears in the water is wonderful; though so bulky, they are as light as a cork when swimming, and their strong, broad feet are first-class paddles. Whenever a dead whale is found near the shore, the it. In the various searches for the Franklin Expedition theypolar bears assemble to feed upon pulled to pieces nearly all the cabins erected to hold provisions for the sledge-parties. In one case it was found that the bears had amused themselves by mounting the roof of a half-buried hut, and sliding down the snowy, frozen slope. Cubs are often brought home in whaling-and sealing-ships, after the.mothers have been shot. There is a ready sale of them for Continental menageries. Herr Hagenbeck, of Hamburg, by purchasing them quite young, has induced bears to live on good terms with tigers, boar-hounds, and leopards.

The Bears 123 The manceuvres of an ice-bear in the water are marvellous to watch. Though so bulky a beast, it swims, dives, rolls over and over, catches seals or fish, or plays both on and under the water with an ease and evident enjoyment which show that it is in its favourite element. One favourite game of the ice-bear is to lie on its back in the water, and then to catch hold of its hind toes with its fore feet, when it resembles a half-rolled hedgehog of gigantic size It then rolls over and over in the water like a revolving cask. Its footsteps are absolutely noiseless, as the claws are shorter than in the land-bear’s, and more muffled in fur. This noiseless power of approach is very necessary when it has to catch such wary creatures as basking seals. A very large proportion of the food formerly eaten by ice-bears in summer was probably putrid, as they were always supplied with a quantity of the refuse carcases of whales and seals left by the whaling-ships. This may account for the bad results to the sailors who ate the bears’ flesh. Now the whaling industry is so little pursued that the bears have to catch their dinners for themselves, and eat fresh food. Lh = Photo by the New York Zoological Society.

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