208 
LONDON BEARS 
are bad mothers in confinement, though when wild 
they are most devoted to their pretty little cubs. 
It must be admitted that they are almost the least 
well-housed of any creatures in the Gardens, as their 
dens, though dry, are cold and small. The most 
remarkable cubs ever born in the Gardens were a 
cross between the Polar and American black bear, 
born in 1853. In the spring of 1894, one of the 
she-bears in the pit gave birth to a litter of two, but 
one of these was killed by the male bear, and the 
other fatally injured. 
Their place was, however, more than filled by a 
pair of tiny cubs which arrived at the Gardens on 
Easter Monday, a gift from Mr. Arnold Pike. They 
are of the grey Syrian breed, which is found from 
the Lebanon, across the high lands of Asia Minor, 
as far as the Caucasus, in which mountains these cubs 
were found when only a few days’ old. Though in 
a sense they are distant relations of the bears that ate 
the bad children who mocked the prophet Elisha, 
these little fellows were extremely tame and friendly. 
They were about the size of a large Skye terrier when 
they arrived, with sawdust-coloured heads, white 
collars, brown bodies, and sharp noses. They fed 
heartily on bread-and-milk and treacle, and their little 
stomachs stuck out roundly in evidence of their 
appreciation of their diet. 
They were extremely [sociable, and never quite 
happy unless people were near them or within sight. 
When they had human company they sat up, 
