The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1875-05-21
Some Bears who Kept House.

some Bears who Kept House.
In the beautiful gardens in the Re
gents Park, the Royal Geological So
ciety entertains crowd of distinguished
guests, trying, with true hospitality, to
make them all feel at their ease, and to
give each one, as nearly as possible, what
he has been used to at home.
All the world is represented here; hot
countries and cold; the arctic regions
and the tropics; African deserts and
polar SHOWS; Indian jungles and South
American forests, and our own temper
ate zone, all send their strange inhabit-
ants to the gardens of the Royal Zoologi-
cal Society.
a flight of steps at the end of the
broad walk leads up to wide stone ter
race, and at the top of the steps you look
down on your right into n square, paved
court, with high pole in the middle,
and little sleeping rooms on each side.
Three or four fat, clumsy bears are tumb-
ling about on the pavement in rough,
good-natured play, keeping each an eye on
the parapet above to see il there is any
chance for buns; and the minute they
spy visitor it Is race which shall get
to the pole first, and then the lucky one
climbs up, and, drawing his four feet
together, plants himself on the ball at
the top, and stretches his head out as far
as possible with wide-open mouth, ready
to catch the bun or cake, which some
body on the parapet holds out tempting
ly over the railing. 1t looks as if he
could jump off the pole into the midst of
the visitors and gobble them up, buns
and all, if he chose but this kind of
bear can't jump he can only climb, so
it is really quite safe, and he is obliged
to wait till the bun is thrown to him, and
If the aim isn't good the coveted morsel
falls down and is eagerly snatched up by
the bears who sit on their hind legs
round the foot of the pole, casting COM
ical, imploring glances at the people
above. And then how disappointed the
poor fellow on the top looks but he
waits patiently for better luck, and pres
emily somebody puts cake on the end
of a long stick, which is always at
hand, and pokes it safely across into his
great red cavern of mouth. Bears are
excessively fond of sweets of all sorts,
and in their native woods like to
steal the. honey the wild bees have
otOlCu up III llOIlOW UTtcS,
sometimes they get well stung for their
pains.
A pretty, winding path through the
shrubbery at the left of the terrace
brings us down slope to the place
where the pair of white bears live. They
have beautiful stone house, covered
with towering vines, and in fronts pond
with tagged path round it, on which,
as we approach, the huge creatures are
pacing up and down, waiting for dinner,
growing savagely every now and then at
the visitors who stand tantalizingly near
them, just out of their reach. Their
whole domain-house, garden and pond
is not only fenced in, but rooted over
with the thickest iron bars. Once, they
say, 1t was only fenced; but though the
| top of the fence was made of pointed
| spikes, turned inward, one of the bears
got out early one morning and nearly
killed a blacksmith who happened to
cross his path; and after that they were
rooted in. The white bear and his wife
, once had two little ones-soft, pinky
creatures-but the unnatural mother ac-
tually killed her two children, much
to everybody's disappointment. The
mother bears fur is purer, softer white
than the fathers, whose hair looks
rather yellowish when he stands close tc
his great SNOWFALL of wife, and she
seems to be generally in a fit of sulks,
while he tramps about in chronic state
of active fury. They suffer terribly
from the heat of an English summer
and great blocks of ice are constantly
kept in the pond, to make the water COO
enough for their bath.-lSt. Nicholas.