174 WILD ANIMALS. 



The Romans were fond also of keeping tame bears which were 

 led about by their keepers, and upon some lamps of the period 

 they are depicted being exhibited by showmen; upon one the 

 bear is seen mounted upon a ladder. The great families among 

 them kept servants called Ursarii, who attended to the feeding, 

 breeding, and had general care of their bears. The English 

 nobility had also retainers of this kind, for it is recorded that the 

 Earl of Northumberland paid a salary of twenty shillings to one 

 of them. 



The taste for these amusements or shows has undergone very 

 little change, and bears are as much a delight to children and 

 even to grown-up people in the present day as they were in the 

 most remote periods. For the love of sight-seeing is inborn in 

 the human race, and any exhibition in which animals take a pro- 

 minent part will always prove attractive, probably for all time. 

 Bears have generally been popular beasts, and, as Down Piatt ^ says, 

 " Consult any number of boys as to the favourite animal, and nine 

 out of ten will cast their free suffrage in favour of Bruin. There 

 is something about the bear that fascinates a boy. The little 

 four-year-old, climbing upon your knee, will call for a story 

 about bears, and after hearing the thrilling recital, he will get 

 down behind a chair and act the part, to the mute amazement 

 of his little sister. This interest in the clumsy creatures seems 

 to be as instinctive as our horror of snakes." 



6 " Galaxy," 1871. 



