140 BEASTS AND MEN 
Hazardous experiments like this do not always end so 
well. Of this I have from time to time seen not a few ins- 
tances, though I myself have survived whole and sound. 
About the time of the incident with Delmonico which | 
have just related, I had offered a number of young bears, | 
hyzenas, and lions to a French animal trainer. These he — 
had accepted on the condition that I first made the animals 
thoroughly accustomed to one another's society. It was 
in my efforts to carry out this provision that the trouble arose. 
The first thing to do was to place the animals in contiguous — 
cages, separated from one another, not by a solid partition, 
but merely by bars through which they could see one another. . 
When they had thus become accustomed to one another’s 
proximity, I removed the bars between the bears and hyznas, 
and was glad to find that they took very kindly to one 
‘another. After a little time longer, I took the final step of 
removing the bars which separated the lions on the one hand | 
from the bears and hyznas on the other hand. At first all 
was peace and happiness: but, alas! it was only the calm 
before the storm. To the present day I cannot, for the life 
of me, conceive what it was that suddenly brought about 
a violent misunderstanding. The bears trotted up to the 
lions, whether with the intention of provoking a quarrel or . 
merely in playful greeting I cannot say. But if they intended 
it to be playful, the fun fell flat. The lions failed to perceive 
— it in that light, and in a moment the whole collection, lions, | 
bears and hyenas, degenerated into a savage throng of snarl- » 
ing beasts. My position now was anything but pleasant. I 
could not venture personally among the infuriated animals, 
as I should almost certainly have been severely injured ; so 
I made a hasty exit from the cage and with considerable . 
difficulty we managed to separate the ill-tempered creatures 
before much harm was done. 
My first troupe of heterogeneous animals was organised 
in the seventies. It consisted of two striped hyzenas, two 
dogs, two brown bears and a young Indian sloth-bear. These 
