“On my arrival at his den, I found the poor brute in a most furious state, tearing the wooden floor with his claws, and gnawing the barricaded front with his teeth. I had no sooner opened the door than he sprang furiously at me, and struck me repeated blows with his powerful paws. As, however, I had reared him from a cub, we had too often measured our strength together for me to fear him now; and I soon made him retreat into the corner of his prison, where he remained howling in the most heartrending manner. It was a most sickening sight to behold the poor creature, with his eyes bloodshot and protruding from the sockets, his mouth and chest white with foam, and his body crusted with dirt. I am not ashamed to confess that at one time I felt my own eyes moistened. Neither blows nor kind words were of any effect: they only served to irritate and infuriate him; and I saw clearly that the only remedy would be either to shoot him or to restore him to his brother’s companionship. I chose the latter alternative; and the purchaser of the other Bear, my kind friend, Sir Henry Hunloke, on being informed of the circumstance, consented to take this one also.” A more curious case is related by Brehm, who tells us of a little boy who crept one night for warmth and shelter into the cage of an extremely savage Bear. The latter, instead of devouring the child, took him under its protection, kept him warm with the heat of its body, and allowed him to return every night to its cage. The poor boy soon died of small-pox, and the Bear from henceforth refused all food, and soon followed its little _protégé_ to the grave. In former times, the Bear was in great requisition in England for the noble sport of Bear-baiting. Bear gardens existed in many parts of the metropolis, in which the unlucky animals were baited to death with Dogs, for the delectation of our most religious and gracious sovereign, good Queen Bess, and “his sowship,” her successor. The office of keeper of the Bear Ward was considered quite an honourable post, and was usually held by one of “Her Majesty’s Servants,” the players--by such men, for instance, as Betterton and Alleyn the founder of Dulwich College. It has always been the custom, too, to train Bears to walk on their hind legs and dance. This they do much more easily than a Dog or a Cat, on account of their broad soles. The Brown Bear, like most animals, differs more or less in minor characters according to the country in which it is found. The Bear of the Pyrenees and of Austria, for instance, is described as having, in the young condition, yellowish-white fur and black feet. Sir J. Richardson describes a well-marked variety as occurring in North America; this, which is quite distinct from the Grizzly and Black Bears, he calls the Barren-ground Bear. THE AMERICAN BLACK BEAR.[141]