Tutored Bear.—XIV. Century
One great part of the joculator's profession was the teaching of bears, apes, horses, dogs, and other animals, to imitate the actions of men, to tumble, to dance, and to perform a variety of tricks, contrary to their nature; and sometimes he learned himself to counterfeit the gestures and articulations of the brutes.
Tutored Bear.—XIV. Century
One great part of the joculator's profession was the teaching of bears, apes, horses, dogs, and other animals, to imitate the actions of men, to tumble, to dance, and to perform a variety of tricks, contrary to their nature; and sometimes he learned himself to counterfeit the gestures and articulations of the brutes.
Black Bear
Black Bear
Polar bear and flip-up cap
The bear stops and looks at us
Catching a bear
Bear Cub
Bear Cub
Jugglers
At first, and down to the thirteenth century, the profession of a juggler was a most lucrative one. There was no public or private feast of any importance without the profession being represented. Their mimicry and acrobatic feats were less thought of than their long poems or lays of wars and adventures, which they recited in doggerel rhyme to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. The doors of the châteaux were always open to them, and they had a place assigned to them at all feasts. Jugglers exhibiting Monkeys and Bears.--Fac-simile of a Manuscript in the British Museum (Thirteenth Century).
A Bear standing on his Head
One great part of the joculator's profession was the teaching of bears, apes, horses, dogs, and other animals, to imitate the actions of men, to tumble, to dance, and to perform a variety of tricks, contrary to their nature; and sometimes he learned himself to counterfeit the gestures and articulations of the brutes.
Trapping a polar bear
Trapping a polar bear
Bears descending from the Hills. (Prov. xxviii. 15)
The Hebrew word is Dôb, and it is a remarkable fact that the name of this animal in the Arabic language is almost identical with the Hebrew term, namely, Dubh. The peculiar species of Bear which inhabits Palestine is the Syrian Bear (Ursus Isabellinu s), and, though it has been variously described by different eye-witnesses, there is no doubt that the same species was seen by them all.
The Polar, or great white bear
The Polar, or great white bear
Polar Bear cleaning itself
Polar Bear cleaning itself
Polar Bear coming out of hibernation
Polar Bear coming out of hibernation
Bear
Bear
Polar Bear in boat
Polar Bear in boat
Maternal affection
Whilst a ship on a voyage of discovery to the North Pole was locked in the ice, one morning the man at the masthead reported that three bears were making their way towards the ship. They had, no doubt, been invited by the scent of some blubber of a sea-horse which the crew was burning on the ice at the time of their approach. They proved to be a she bear and her two cubs; but the cubs were nearly as large as the dam. They ran eagerly to the fire, and drew out part of the flesh that remained unconsumed, and ate it voraciously. The crew threw great lumps of the flesh which they had still left upon the ice, which the old bear fetched away singly, laying every lump before the cubs as she brought it, and dividing it, gave each a share, reserving but a small portion to herself. As she was fetching away the last piece, they shot both the cubs dead, and wounded the dam, but not mortally. It would have drawn tears of pity from any but the most unfeeling to have marked the affectionate concern of this poor animal in the dying moments of her expiring young. Though sorely wounded, she crawled to the place where they lay, carrying a lump of flesh she had just fetched away, tore it in pieces, and laid it down before them; when she saw that they refused to eat, she laid her paws first upon one, then upon the other, and endeavoured to raise them up, making at the same time the most pitiable moans. Finding she could not stir them, she went off, and when she had got at some distance, looked back and moaned; and that not availing to entice them away, she returned, and smelling round them, began to lick their wounds. She went off a second time, and having crawled a few paces, looked again behind her, and for some time stood moaning. But her cubs not rising to follow her, she returned, and with signs of inexpressible fondness went round them, pawing them successively. Finding at last that they were cold and lifeless, she raised her head towards the ship, and growled a curse upon the destroyers, which they returned with a volley of musket-balls. She fell between her cubs, and died licking their wounds.
Grizzly Bear
Grizzly Bear
Polar Bear
Polar Bear
Zerolene Ad
Bear with cubs
Bear with cubs
Bear with two cubs
Bear with two cubs
Skeleton of the Bear
1. Cranium; 2, face; 3, atlas; 4, axis; 5, seventh cervical vertebra; 6, first dorsal vertebra; 7, fourteenth and last dorsal vertebra; 8, lumbar vertebræ; 9, sacrum; 10, coccygeal vertebræ; 11, sternum; 12, ninth and last sternal rib; 13, costal cartilages; 14, acromion process; 15, third fossa on the external surface of the scapula; 16, great tuberosity of the humerus; 17, musculo-spiral groove; 18, epicondyle; 19, radius; 20, ulna; 21, olecranon process; 22, carpus; 23, pisiform; 24, metacarpus; 25, phalanges; 26, ilium, external fossa; 27, pubis; 28, tuberosity of the ischium; 29, obturator foramen; 30, great trochanter of the femur; 31, condyles of the femur; 32, patella, or knee-cap; 33, anterior tuberosity of the tibia; 34, fibula; 35, tarsus; 36, calcaneum, or heel-bone; 37, metatarsus; 38, phalanges.
The Polar bear and her cubs
The monarch of the Arctic regions, the monstrous white bear there reigns supreme. Savage and ferocious as is his consort, as well as he, she shows the utmost affection for her young. I have a sad tale to tell. The crew of an exploring vessel in the Arctic Seas had killed a walrus, and set fire to part of the blubber. The steam of the flesh drew from afar towards it a she bear and her two cubs. Putting their noses to the tempting mess, they began to eat it eagerly. The seamen, seeing this, threw other pieces on the ice nearer to the ship. The bear incautiously approached, carrying off the pieces, which she bestowed on her cubs, and, though evidently famished, taking but a small portion herself. The thoughtless sailors shot the two cubs, and again firing, wounded the mother. Though she herself was barely able to crawl to the spot where they lay, she carried to them the last lump of blubber, endeavouring to make them eat it. Discovering that they were unable to do so, she endeavoured to raise first one, and then the other; but in vain. She now began to retreat; but her motherly feelings overcoming her, though conscious of the danger she was running, she returned to where they lay, moaning mournfully. Several times did she thus behave, when, seemingly convinced that her young ones were cold and helpless, she cast a reproachful glance towards the vessel whence the cruel bullets had proceeded, and uttered a low growl of angry despair which might have moved the hearts even of the most callous. A shower of musket bullets, however, laid her low between her two cubs, and she died licking their wounds.
Palæolithic Men Attacking Cave Bear
Dancing Bears in Costume
Little bears are intensely amusing, and they display a great fondness for romping and playing. We have known of hunters bringing cubs home, and adopting them, as it were, into their families, the bears becoming exceedingly familiar, sleeping with the children, and eating from their bowls of bread and milk, climbing into the hunter’s lap and licking his face, and, in fact, making themselves perfectly at home. As they grow old, however, they are liable to become enraged at teasing or other provocation and to be dangerous.
Bear Text frame
Bears are dangerous
Skull of Bear (Ursus), showing the dentition
Mother bear and cub
Polar Bear
Target Area
Polar Bear
Grizzly Bear
Bear hunting
Bear
Bear