ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN. 



719 



HE WOULD BITE AT THE ROPE. 



made up his mind to get out. The construction 

 of the cage was much too light, and on a dozen 

 different occasions he very nearly succeeded in 

 escaping. It was terrifying to see him grab 

 hold of the smooth side of the cage with his 

 teeth and tear out splinters a foot long. This 

 we finally overcame by nailing a board over each 

 hole, with large spikes through it; but "Silver 

 King" was very clever about biting around those 

 spikes, and never, to my knowledge, did he 

 scratch himself. 



One night during a terrible storm the cage 

 broke loose, and, as the water was running free 

 of the decks, it looked as if he was surely going 

 overboard. The alarm was sounded, and the en- 

 tire crew turne'J out to help secure the cage. 

 After heaving lio ship to and slowing her down 

 a bit, they succeeded in getting on the well- 

 deck, and making the cage fast. Another time. 

 while we were at supper, a sailor put his head 

 in at the door and with a respectful salute said, 

 "Sir, the bear is out !" Someone said, very sen- 

 sibly, "Please close the door !" 



It seemed rather dangerous to go down on the 

 well-deck, as it was a very dark night. How- 

 ever, we got some lanterns, and hurrying down 

 to the cage we found that the bear realh- had 

 his head and shoulders out. With the aid of a 

 stout boat-hook, we succeeded, however, in driv- 

 ing him back in, and soon had the hole boarded 

 up. After this we alwaj's kept a sailor watching 

 the bear, day and night; and I believe we must 

 have driven several thousand nails into the sides 

 of that cage. After our arrival at City Island 



I always kept my big lOl Winchester handy in 

 case of an emergency. 



After Dr. Hornaday and his men unloaded the 

 bear at City Island, an amusing incident hap- 

 pened. The police captain of the precinct 

 through which they were going to take the bear, 

 got very much worried for fear he would get 

 out, esjjecially after I explained to him that the 

 32 calibre revolvers his officers were carrying 

 would only serve to get him well stirred up. He 

 asked me if I would loan him a real gun, which 

 I was very willing to do; and after lie had 

 called in one of his officers, I gave him a long 

 discourse on how to load and fire a -iOl Win- 

 chester. A half-hour afterwards, seeing the 

 officer parading uj) and down the dock with the 

 iOI, much to the admiration of several hundred 

 men and boys, I decided to see if he still remem- 

 bered his instructions. I said to him: "Supposing 

 the bear got out, and you wanted to shoot him, 

 how would you go about it.''" Pointing to the 

 safety catch on the side, he said: "I would push 

 the jigger over, and pull the trigger." As I had 

 purposely not placed any cartridges in the bar- 

 rel, he could not have done any great execution. 



I ask indulgence of my readers for this some- 

 what lengthy article on catching my bear. I 

 am not an author, and probably never will be 

 one, so I hope they will look ujion my article 

 with the greatest indulgence. 



WE SWUNG HIM OVER THE SHIP'S SIDE. 



