That must have been one of the smaller black bears that used to be so common everywhere in American woods. The black bear is so bright that the Indians called him "brother." They never killed one purposely. The little Puritan boy was right in thinking that she would come down.backwards as did the brown bear in the woods of England. Both of these land bears do many things like boys. They can stand up on their hind legs and "box" with the fore paws, as if they were trained in a school gymnasium. They can walk on the hind legs and carry a cub or a squealing pig in their arms, as your mama carries the baby. They eat meat only if they can get nothing better. Really they prefer blackberries, honey and nuts, just as children do. And—they make tracks with the entire soles of their five-toed feet, that look like bare-footed men's tracks. The Indians were sometimes fooled by these tracks of Brother Bear. To the people of Northern Europe, who wondered over these human-looking foot-prints, the brown bear was called " the wise old man in the fur cloak."

Brown bear cubs always were easily tamed. In Northern Japan a people called Ainos fatten bear cubs for food. When small they play with the children, and are not shut up until they become big and rough. They are as playful as puppies. Hundreds of years ago trained bears were led by chains about the old walled cities of Europe, and made to dance and tumble and pull carts. Very likely bears, and many other wild animals, were tamer in the days when there were fewer people and bigger forests. In Yellowstone Park, in the Rocky Mountains, where hunters are not allowed to shoot or trap them, black and cinnamon bears come right up to the hotels in the woods to eat scraps from the table.

Mr. Thompson Seton tells all about these bears, and their bright and comical ways, in his story of "Johnny Bear." Johnny was a cub that worried his mama. He was an only child, and very much spoiled and peevish. He would poke his silly head into every sort of danger. He was so greedy he often had the stomachache, and he got his paws fast in tomato cans and jam pots. So, once she had to box his ears!

We can't all go to Yellowstone Park and take snap-shot pictures of bears from the hotel verandas, but nearly all of us can see them in menageries and city park zoos. There you can see black and brown, cinnamon, "grizzly" and polar bears. They all belong to one family, as you can easily see from their clumsy bodies, shuffling walk, shaggy coats and bear-y faces. But, in many ways, they are as different from each other as white, black, brown and yellow people.

The old world brown bear is the tamest of all. He will sit upon his haunches, cross his paws over his breast and catch peanuts in his mouth. Sometimes, when the band plays, he will dance and gambol about like a big, playful dog. The smaller, fine-coated black bear is friendly sometimes; but often he climbs the oak tree in his pit, folds his limp body across a big limb, like your mama's rug muff, and sulks or sleeps. You couldn't coax him down with a pot of honey! The big "grizzly" bear has an ugly temper. He sits back and snarls. Mr. Roosevelt says his real name is " Grisly, " or horrid, and you believe it. He is a huge, ugly beast with long teeth and long gray hair about his head. The big white polar bear, who weighs as much as an ox, doesn't pay any attention to anybody. He just prowls and prowls in an uneasy, lonesome way about his pit, until you feel sorry for him. His thick fur and fat body make him uncomfortable, very likely. When, on a hot day, a keeper gives him a ton of ice to lie on, he seems happier. If he turns his big paws up you can see that he is rough-shod, with hairy bristles all over the soles of his feet, for travelling on ice and snow.

Suddenly, for no cause that you can see, the bears in all the pits will shuffle over to the bars, rear upon their hind legs and " woof! " They smell the keeper coming with bread. Bears do not see very well out of their small eyes, and are rather dull of hearing, but they have wonderful noses for news, especially news of food and of enemies. If the wind is right, Mr. Wild Bear can smell a hunter and his gunpowder a mile away, and he gets out of a dangerous neighborhood as fast as he can travel.

He can travel fast, too. For all he is so clumsy he can run as well as he can climb. But he is not built for jumping, or for turning easily and quickly. Old hunters know this, so when a bear chases them they sometimes escape by turning sharp corners, or by zigzagging. This puzzles a bear and wears him out. Hunters never climb big trees, for the bear can go right up after them. When they climb small trees bears have been known to put their big arms around the trunk and try to shake them down. Or they sit at the foot of the tree and wait. As little Alex says: "That bear 'ist won't go 'way, 'ist growls 'round there, an' the Little Boy he haf to stay up in the tree all night." Bears are clever about getting out of tight places, too. Here is a story about a clever bear that is told by a naturalist.

A dozen men were in the Rocky Mountains of Canada laying out a route for a new railroad when they saw a big cinnamon bear in a tree. He had gone up for honey or a squirrel's store of nuts, or just for a nap, perhaps. The men had no guns, but they had axes and crowbars, so they thought they could manage Mr. Bear. They chopped the tree nearly down, the bear lying still and watching them. When the tree began to fall he put his forepaws over his head, rolled up into a big ball and dropped. He upset some of the men and surprised the others so that he had time to scramble to his feet and run away. I shouldn't wonder if that bear was still laughing at those men.

Bears will not run from danger and leave their cubs behind. A cub can never be captured unless papa and mama bear are dead, or far away from home. They hide their babies very cleverly in caves, hollow trees or under old logs where they make their winter dens. They keep the cubs hidden there for weeks and months after they are born, for bear babies are as blind as kittens, as naked as little birds, and perfectly helpless at first. They are fed with milk at their mother's breast, so she stays with the cubs while papa bear goes foraging for food for her. Mama Bear is as cross—as a bear. You know that's as cross as any one can be. She will try to kill anyone who comes near her babies.