TAME BEARS 12? SWEDEN. 



479 



peculiarities of the Saturaian ring system would 

 one day be found to afford " a key to the law of 

 development under which the solar system has 

 reached its present development." The same 

 may now confidently be said respecting the ring 

 of worlds traveling between the orbits of Mars 

 and Jupiter. It has already enabled us to weigh 

 the giant Jupiter afresh ; it has given excellent 

 measures, and promises to give yet better meas- 



ures, of the dimensions of the solar system ; and 

 we venture to predict that before long this zone 

 of worlds will have placed beyond shadow of 

 doubt or question the general theory of the de- 

 velopment of our solar system of which La- 

 place's nebular hypothesis presents only a few 

 details, or rather suggests only a few possibil- 

 ities. 



— Cornhill Magazine. 



TAME BEAES IN SWEDEN. 



Br JOHN WAGEK. 



IT is well known that the bear, by a course of 

 severe discipline, can be taught to carry a 

 long pole in his paws or a pert monkey upon his 

 back, to dance to the music of pipe and drum, 

 and to perform tricks which the solemn gravity 

 of his demeanor, his clumsy motions, and shaggy 

 hide, render the more amusingly grotesque. He 

 may also be seen, in the den of a menagerie, to 

 leap through a comparatively small ring encir- 

 cled with flame, associated, during the perform- 

 ance only, with leopards and a hyena; though 

 the uncouthness and reluctance with which he 

 accomplishes the feat, contrasted with the grace- 

 ful and ready spring of the leopards, is enough to 

 make the hyena laugh; while, of all the perform- 

 ers, he has evidently the most intractable temper, 

 and is least trusted by the spangled damsel who 

 presides with the whip. 



Yet, when young, the bear is not altogether 

 devoid of amiable qualities, as the following nar- 

 rative will prove. The account was communi- 

 cated to the present writer in 1867, by a Swedish 

 acquaintance residing at Mora, in Dalecarlia, the 

 bear being then living, and the property of a 

 gentleman at Siknas, in Venjan, an adjoining 

 parish, having been taken when about three 

 weeks old, from the adjacent forest, in February, 

 1865. Being fed with warm milk, young Bruin 

 throve satisfactorily, and, when large enough to 

 enjoy liberty, he usually sojourned in the yard 

 with the bear-dog " Jeppe," playing and spring- 

 ing about his companion like a cat. He was 

 also much attached to his master, delighting to 

 accompany him, not only to the forest, where he 

 often clambered up trees, but also into the house, 

 where removing chairs and tables from one room 

 into another appeared to be his favorite occupa- 



tion. Strangers who visited Siknas always re- 

 ceived his attentions ; but as these were some- 

 what brusque, and expressed in a surly tone, they 

 tended rather to repel than attract. 



To Swedish punch (a luscious compound of 

 arrack and sugar) he was extremely partial, and 

 partook of it, whenever invited, out of a glass, 

 like a well-bred gentleman, but afterward show- 

 ing his loutish and lumpish nature in a drunken 

 fit, concluding with heavy sleep and loud snores. 



One day, while Bruin was yet of tender years, 

 a kitten came into the yard and immediately drew 

 his surprised attention upon herself; but young 

 Puss, not admiring his looks, first cast upon him 

 an angry glance, and then sprang up and fixed 

 her claws in his head, exciting such alarm that 

 he trotted off in a nervous perspiration, and en- 

 sconced himself in an out-house. Subsequently 

 he always fled at the sight of this cat, though 

 she was the only one of which he showed fear. 



Bruin took a daily bath in the river, which 

 flows within a stone's-throw of the house ; swim- 

 ming across and back again. He then trotted to 

 an ice-cellar, the roof of which was easily acces- 

 sible and covered with deal boards, one of which 

 projected considerably beyond the rest : toward 

 the end of this he used to creep warily, to enjoy 

 the swinging motion that resulted. It was a mode 

 of recreation of which he frequently availed him- 

 self. 



Whenever he could intrude into the kitchen 

 he bemeaned himself like an officious and med- 

 dlesome husband, disordering affairs, greatly to 

 the vexation of the domestics, to whose castiga- 

 tions with a stout knob-stick he payed little re- 

 gard. One day he laid hold of a coffee-pan that 

 stood on the hearth, and was conveying it in his 



