ZOOLOGICAL 
HE WOULD BITE AT THE ROPE. 
made up his mind to get out. The construction 
of the cage was much too light, and on a dozen 
different occasions he very nearly succeeded in 
escaping. It was terrifying to see him grab 
hold of the smooth side of the cage with his 
teeth and tear out splinters a foot long. ‘This 
we finally overcame by nailing a board over each 
hole, with large spikes through it; but “Silver 
King” was very clever about biting around those 
spikes, and never, to my knowledge, did he 
scratch himself. 
One night during a terrible storm the cage 
broke loose, and, as the water was running free 
of the decks, it looked as if he was surely going 
overboard. The alarm was sounded, and the en- 
tire crew turned out to help secure the cage. 
After heaving the ship to and slowing her down 
a bit, they succeeded in getting on the well- 
deck, and making the cage fast. Another time, 
while we were at supper, a sailor put his head 
in at the door and with a respectful salute said, 
“Sir, the bear is out!’ Someone said, very sen- 
sibly, “Please close the door!” 
It seemed rather dangerous to go down on the 
well-deck, as it was a very dark night. How- 
ever, we got some lanterns, and hurrying down 
to the cage we found that the bear really had 
his head and shoulders out. With the aid of a 
stout boat-hook, we succeeded, however, in driv- 
ing him back in, and soon had the hole boarded 
up. After this we always kept a sailor watching 
the bear, day and night; and I believe we must 
have driven several thousand nails into the sides 
of that cage. After our arrival at City Island 
SOCIETY 
BULLETIN. 719 
I always kept my big 401 Winchester handy in 
case of an emergency. 
After Dr. Hornaday and his men unloaded the 
bear at City Island, an amusing incident hap- 
pened. The police captain of the precinct 
through which they were going to take the bear, 
got very much worried for fear he would get 
out, especially after I explained to him that the 
32 calibre revolvers his officers were carrying 
would only serve to get him well stirred up. He 
asked me if I would loan him a real gun, which 
I was very willing to do; and after he had 
called in one of his officers, I gave him a long 
discourse on how to load and fire a 401 Win- 
chester. A half-hour afterwards, seeing the 
officer parading up and down the dock with the 
401, much to the admiration of several hundred 
men and boys, I decided to see if he still remem- 
bered his instructions. I said to him: “Supposing 
the bear got out, and you wanted to shoot him, 
how would you go about it?’ Pointing to the 
safety catch on the side, he said: “I would push 
the jigger over, and pull the trigger.” As I had 
purposely not placed any cartridges in the bar- 
rel, he could not have done any great execution. 
I ask indulgence of my readers for this some- 
what lengthy article on catching my bear. I 
am not an author, and probably never will be 
one, so I hope they will look upon my article 
with the greatest indulgence. 
WE SWUNG HIM OVER THE SHIP’S SIDE. 
