werful agent;
wild beasts confined in cages show the same propensity. The lion
secluded in his den has often been known to foster and become strongly
attached to a dog thrown in to him to be devoured; but there never was
an instance of a lion or any other wild beast, which had a female in the
same den or even a companion of its own species, preserving the life of
any other living creature thrown in to him. This feeling occasions also
the production of Hybrids; which in a wild state could never take place.
There is not, probably, a more ferocious or ill-tempered animal than
the bear when it is grown up; it is subdued by fear, but shows no
attachment to its keeper; yet, the other day I fell in with a remarkable
narration proving the feeling I have referred to, actuating even this
animal. A proof of the bad feeling of a bear is fully established by
the fact that, although Martin, as the old bear is called in the Jardin
des Plantes, at Paris, had been confined in his fosse nearly twenty
years, during which time not a day passed that he was not well fed by
the people who amused themselves in the gardens, when a man fell into
his pit, he immediately destroyed him. It does, however, appear, that
all bears are not so ill-tempered as Monsieur Martin. Leopold, Duke of
Lorraine, had a bear confined by a long chain, near the palisades below
the glacis. Some poor Savoyard boys, who had emigrated as they still
do, with the hopes of picking up some money to take back with them, had
taken shelter in an out-house daring a severe snow storm. One of them
who was numbed with the cold, thought that he would try if he could not
find some warmer berth, and in seeking this, as the snow fell fast, he
at last crawled nearly exhausted into the kennel of the bear. Instead
of tearing the lad to pieces, the bear took him in his fore paws, and
pressed him to his shaggy warm coat till he was quite recovered. A bear
generally receives you with open arms, whatever may be his ultimate
decision; but in this instance it was favourable. The poor little boy
finding himself in good quarters, went fast asleep; the next morning he
sallied forth to obtain some victuals if he could, but without success.
Cold and hunger drove him again to the kennel of the bear, who not only
was delighted to see him, but had actually laid aside a portion of his
supper for the boy's use. The amicable arrangement continued for some
days, and the bear, at last, would not tou