LIVING BALLS. 



33 



The largest animal known to assume the ball 

 shape for safety is the black bear of the Him- 

 alayas, called also the Tibetan sun-bear, and 

 about the size and color of our American black 

 bear. When pursued by hunters in his moun- 

 tain home, he will draw himself up into a large 

 ball of fur, and deliberately roll down the steep 

 hillsides, bounding off the rocks, and of course 

 reaching the valley much more quickly than any 

 hunter who cannot follow his short cut. At the 

 bottom he simply unrolls, shakes himself, and 

 walks off at his leisure. 



The strangest animal in the world, perhaps, is 

 the duck-bill platypus of Australia, and rolling 

 himself into a ball is one of his dearest delights. 

 An English naturalist who kept a pair of these 

 curious fellows alive, to study their ways, made 

 drawings of the different shapes they put them- 

 selves into, and their common sleeping position 

 he found to be that of a ball. To get himself 

 into this form, the animal placed the fore paws 

 under the beak, bending its head downward ; it 

 then laid the hind paws over the mandibles and 

 lastly turned the tail up over all, to make the 

 whole complete, when it looked like a well-made 

 fur ball. The naturalist was able to draw down 

 the tail, and thus disclose the method of pack- 

 ing ; but unless the creature was sound asleep 

 it would growl like a savage puppy. 



