354 AN AMERICAN HUNTER 



he hissed like a teakettle as the little boy carried him 

 about, usually tightly clasped round where his waist 

 would have been if he had had one. 



At different times I have been given a fairly appalling 

 number of animals, from known and unknown friends; in 

 one year the list included besides a lion, a hyena, and a 

 zebra from the Emperor of Ethiopia five bears, a wild- 

 cat, a coyote, two macaws, an eagle, a barn owl, and sev- 

 eral snakes and lizards. Most of these went to the Zoo, 

 but a few were kept by the children. Those thus kept 

 numbered at one end of the scale gentle, trustful, pretty 

 things, like kangaroo rats and flying squirrels ; and at the 

 other end a queer-tempered young black bear, which the 

 children named Jonathan Edwards, partly because of cer- 

 tain well-marked Calvinistic tendencies in his disposition, 

 partly out of compliment to their mother, whose ances- 

 tors included that Puritan divine. The kangaroo rats and 

 flying squirrels slept in their pockets and blouses, went to 

 school with them, and sometimes unexpectedly appeared 

 at breakfast or dinner. The bear added zest to life in 

 more ways than one. When we took him to walk, it was 

 always with a chain and club ; and when at last he went 

 to the Zoo, the entire household breathed a sigh of relief, 

 although I think the dogs missed him, as he had occa- 

 sionally yielded them the pleasure of the chase in its 

 strongest form. 



As a steady thing, the children found rabbits and 

 guinea pigs the most satisfactory pets. The guinea pigs 

 usually rejoiced in the names of the local or national 

 celebrities of the moment; at one time there were five, 



