THE BROWN BEAR. 57 



former cubs to share her den next winter, but prepares quarters 

 for them in the neighbourhood, within an easy walk. The suc- 

 ceeding summer, however, she is followed by both litters, who 

 pass the ensuing winter altogether in the mother's den. Some 

 people have talked of seeing thirty bears in one " squad" scam- 

 pering through the Swedish woods ; but, as they are not 

 gregarious, such tales are either altogether false, or are over- 

 estimated accounts of two litters, amounting, perhaps, to some 

 half-dozen individuals, which have been seen together and with 

 their mother at their head. 



Falk says the brown bear continues to grow until its twentieth, 

 and lives until its fiftieth year. 



This species formerly inhabited Great Britain. Martial tells 

 us, that the Scotch bears were used to increase the torture of the 

 unhappy sufferers on the cross ; and Plutarch says, that bears 

 used to be exported from Britain to Rome, where they were 

 much admired. In some old Welch manuscripts relating to 

 hunting, we not only learn that the bear was included among 

 our beasts of chase, but that its flesh was as much esteemed as 

 that of the boar or the hare. Another evidence of their former 

 existence in Wales, is the fact that from an early period many 

 places in that country have been known by the name of Pen- 

 narth, or the bear's head. But long after their extirpation from 

 this kingdom, they were imported to gratify the cruel propen- 

 sities of our ancestors, who found pleasure in bear-baiting, We 

 learn from Stowe (1562), that bear-baiting was one of the sports 

 exhibited for the entertainment of an ambassador 5 and on 

 another occasion for the amusement of Queen Elizabeth at 

 Kenilworth. Those who love ancient customs only because they 

 are ancient, may deplore the discontinuance of bear-baiting, and 

 sigh for such Queens as Old Bess ; but we hail these changes as 

 proofs of a more humanized state of society 5 and we believe that 

 Victoria is quite contented with merely beholding the bears in 

 the Zoological Gardens and as a punster would say, she cannot 

 bear the bare idea of bear-baiting. 



