38 BOOK OF A HUNDRED BEARS 



In fact, hibernation is only an instinct of preser- 

 vation against winter, the deep snows, the star- 

 vation time. Bears in the South do not hiber- 

 nate, and, on the other hand, many tropical ani- 

 mals, and even reptiles, estivate : bury themselves 

 somewhere against the heat of summer and its 

 dangers. 



Mose, as I have said, ate everything, but always 

 retained his baby taste for milk. Every day a 

 fresh full pail was given him and he would lie for 

 hours slowly sipping it, licking his chops and 

 savoring it like a connoisseur. The pigs annoyed 

 him greatly by insisting on a share of his milk. 

 Well-aimed slaps, that sent them tumbling, failing 

 to repulse them, he would pick the pail up in his 

 front paws and handily carry it and set it down 

 in his house, where no pig dared approach. 



One day, in the summer, we heard an awful 

 row upstairs. Mose had climbed the veranda 

 and tried to enter the house by a chamber window 

 that had been lowered from the top. There he 

 was stuck, half in and half out, bawling for help. 

 He would not back out and it took four of us to 



