r, and was shot. The
cubs not trying to escape, were taken alive. The little creatures,
though at first seeming quite unhappy, at length became in some measure
reconciled to their fate, and being quite tame, were allowed sometimes
to go at large about the deck.

While the ship was moored to a floe a few days after they were taken,
one of them having a rope fastened round his neck, was thrown overboard.
It at once swam to the ice, got upon it, and tried to escape. Finding
itself, however, held by the rope, it tried to free itself in the
following clever way.

Near the edge of the floe was a crack in the ice. It was of considerable
length, but only eighteen inches or two feet wide, and three or four
feet deep. To this spot the bear turned; and when, on crossing the
chasm, the bight of the rope fell into it, he placed himself across the
opening; then suspending himself by his hind feet, with a leg on each
side, he dropped his head and most all of his body into the chasm; and
with a foot applied to each side of the neck, tried for some minutes to
push the rope over his head.

Finding that this scheme did not work, he moved to the main ice, and
running with great force from the ship, gave a strong put on the rope;
then going backward a few steps, he repeated the jerk. At length, after
repeated attempts to make his escape in this way, every failure of which
he announced with an angry growl, he gave himself up to his hard fate,
and lay down on the ice in angry and sullen silence.

[Illustration]

LXXXIV

DECEIVING THE FOWLER

A young pointer, out with his master hunting, ran on a brood of very
small partridges. The old bird cried, fluttered, and ran trembling along
just before the dog's nose, till she had drawn him to a considerable
distance; when she took wing and flew farther off, but not out of the
field. At this the dog went back nearly to the place where the young
ones lay concealed in the grass. The old bird no sooner saw this than
she flew back again, settled first before the dog's nose, and a second
time acted the same part, rolling and tumbling about till she drew off
his attention from the brood, and thus succeeded in saving them.

[Illustration]

LXXXV

ASKING ASSISTANCE

A party of a ship's crew was sent ashore on a part of the coast of
India, for the purpose of cutting wood for the ship. One of the men,
having strayed from the rest, was greatly frightened by the appearance
of a larg