82 FLESH-EATERS 



THE BADGER is an animal of strange form, its body being 

 very broad and flat and its legs very short. In size it stands 

 midway between the common skunk and the wolverine. It 

 has a savage and sullen disposition, and as a pet is one of 

 the worst imaginable. It lives in burrows, and feeds on 

 ground-squirrels, prairie-" dogs," and ground game of every 

 description. Often Badgers will be*found living in deserts 

 where it would seem an impossibility for any carnivorous 

 animal to find a supply of food. Its home is the Great 

 Plains, the Rocky Mountains, and westward thereof to the 

 Pacific coast, from Mexico to Manitoba and Alaska. 



THE BEAR FAMILY 



Ursidae 



That nearly all young people, the whole world over, are 

 greatly interested in bears, is no cause for wonder. Under 

 proper conditions, young bears are the most merry-hearted 

 wild animals that come into captivity, not even excepting 

 monkeys, and in some respects the most interesting. Of all 

 wild animals kept in zoological parks, there are none that 

 more fully repay the care bestowed upon them and, except- 

 ing apes and monkeys, none that furnish more amusement. 

 With plenty of sun-lit space in which to romp and play, good 

 bathing pools, and no stone walls to depress their spirits, 

 bears, if not fed by visitors, are more playful and mirth- 

 provoking than most monkeys. If immured in gloomy "bear- 

 pits," or confined in small cages, their spirits are corre- 

 spondingly depressed. They are then like unhappy prisoners, 

 rather than care-free wild creatures. If tantalized with bits 



