10 RECREATION. 
had not come in at that moment. There 
was a scrimmage, howls, tears, swears, 
etc. 
Another time, Mishka broke loose with 
his chain, under laughable circumstances. 
One of the carriage horses had escaped 
from the stables, and was cantering along 
the road, quite forgetful of Mishka’s where- 
abouts. Mishka was enjoying his after- 
noon nap, from which the sound of the 
horse’s hoofs roused him rather suddenly. 
He reared up and emitted the peculiar 
hissing, or spitting, sound, which bears, at 
least young ones, utter when scared. The 
horse was at that moment emerging from 
behind a bush in the bend af the road. The 
sound of Mishka’s hissing, and the sight 
of his chubby body standing erect with 
outstretched paws, was too much _ for 
the horse. It gave a terrified snort and 
started back for the stables as if it were 
chased by a pack of wolves. Mishka’s 
digestive apparatus could not stand the 
shock. We call this kind of sudden indi- 
gestion “a bear’s fit” or “a bear’s attack.” 
Neither could the peg to which the end of 
the chain was fastened stand the sudden 
wrench Mishka gave it, and off went the 
whole show like a streak of lightning. Up 
the trunk of a tall willow Mishka tcre 
along, leaving unpleasant tracks behind, till 
he reached the upper fork of the tree, 
where he took a rest and tried to compose 
himself. The whole affair had taken place 
under my eyes, and it was so utterly and 
irresistibly funny that I nearly burst my 
sides laughing. My wife hearing me 
roar with laughter, came out, and to- 
gether we tried to persuade Mishka to 
come down. After considerable coaxing, 
he began his descent; but that proved by 
far the more difficult part of the perfor- 
mance. He had not descended more than 
a few yards, when the end ring of the 
chain caught in a fork. Mishka was an- 
noyed at this, and began to pull for all he 
was worth, with the result that he lost his 
footing and swung out into space, some 75 
or 80 feet above the ground! Luckily, he 
managed to grasp a small bough which 
gave him a temporary support, but it was 
evident this would not last long. It began 
giving way under his weight, almost as 
soon as he got hold of it. You can ima- 
gine we did not enjoy the situation! For- 
tunately the boy who looked after Mishka 
happened to come along just then. He 
manfully ascended the tree, dodging Mish- 
ka’s tracks, and rescued him from death. 
Some days after this incident, this same 
boy John, noticing that Mishka enjoyed 
sucking his fingers, hit on the brilliant idea 
of giving him the tin of his tongue to suck. 
At first it tickled John, then it began to 
hurt. He tried to rescue his tongue, but 
Mishka did not approve of it, and a scrim- 
mage ensued, in which John was sorely 
handicapped. He set up a_ howl that 
brought us all to the scene of action, where 
we found Mishka firmly fixed to John’s 
tongue. It took some manceuvring to sep- 
arate them, and poor John had a sore time 
of it for 2 or 3 days. His tongue was 
swollen to such an extent that he was un- 
able to stow it away comfortably in its 
proper place! 
In October, when my family were about 
to return to town, Mishka was sent back to 
Mr. A. He spent the winter there quietly, 
but in the spring he began his tricks. Be- 
ing allowed to roam about the premises, he 
began to appropriate articles of food 
which were not intended for him. One 
day the housekeeper caught him in the act 
of diving under the table with a choice 
melon to which he had helped himself 
while there was no one in the dining room. 
The result was a sound whipping for 
Mishka. 
Some days later, the housekeeper was 
walking in the orchard, when a big apple 
hit her hard on the right eye. The lan- 
guage she used was, I am told, forcible, 
flowery and to the point, when she discov- 
ered Mishka sitting in a large apple tree, 
from which he had hurled the apple at 
her, with a wicked grin on his ursine mug. 
After that performance, followed by sev- 
eral others of a similar character, it was 
deemed best to lock Mishka up, and a 
roomy compartment was allotted him in 
the stables. At first there was some un- 
easiness among the horses, but they soon 
became accustomed to their new compan- 
ion, and all went well for a while. Then 
something went wrong with the horses. 
They would suddenly start kicking, and 
plunging, and snorting, several times a day, 
as if something had scared them; but when 
the stable boy went to see what was the 
matter he never found anything suspicious. 
Mishka was in bed, looking so sweetly 
innocent that it would have been a shame 
to suspect him of having caused the com- 
motion. One day, however, the groom no- 
ticed that the tails of some of the horses 
were looking thin. He suspected Mishka, 
and eventually caught him in the act of 
pulling the hairs out of the horses’ tails! 
After this discovery Mishka was kept 
chained, and his temper grew rapidly 
worse, until finally he had to be killed be- 
fore he attained the age of 3 years. 
I am afraid that such is the fate of fully 
75 per cent of the bear cubs kept by private 
parties, and that is-why I always energeti- 
cally protest against any attempts to make 
pets of them. Ben, Baby Sylvester, our 
Mishka, are a small percentage only of the 
number of cubs that have been petted and 
