ON THE PRA1K 2O i 



ing the last half century lias been precisely 

 ! by the change in the characters of 



^ northern cousin, the polar bear, and of 

 the South African lion. When the Dutch 

 and Scandinavian sailors first penetrated the 

 Arctic seas, they were kept in constant dread 

 of the white bear, who regarded a man as 

 simply an erect variety of seal, quite as 

 good eating as the common kind. The rec- 

 ords of these early explorers are filled with 



umples of the ferocious and man-eating 

 propensities of the polar bears; but in the 

 accounts of most of the later Arctic expe- 

 ditions they are portrayed as having learned 

 loin, and being now most anxious to keep 

 out of the way of the hunters. A number of 

 my sporting friends have killed white bears, 

 and none of them were ever even charged. 

 And in South Africa the English sportsmen 

 and Dutch Boers have taught the lion to be a 

 very different creature from what it was 

 when the first white man reached that con- 

 tinent. If the Indian tiger had been a native 

 of the United States, it would now be one 



