The eyes of Homer’s goddesses must not be judged too literally by the animal model in the standing epithets by which he loves to describe them. Γλαυχῶπις Ἀθήνη was the “bright-eyed” goddess; and the owl probably had its Greek name from the brightness of its eyes. So Hera was ox-eyed—that is, with round dark eyes—fine to look at, but if we may judge from her character, perhaps equally without expression, with those of the animal which they resembled. Helen, when restored to Menelaus, and playing the part of hostess to Ulysses, artlessly apologizes for the trouble which the Greeks had incurred on her account,—
“κυνώπιδος εἵνεκα κούρης,”
in which the word κυνώπιδος, “with dog’s eyes,” may be taken to mean what would now be described as “rather a forward young person.” Yet in the recognition of Ulysses by the old dog Argus, there is a feeling for the pathos of animal expression which finds adequate interpretation in the beautiful picture in which Mr. Briton Riviere has depicted the longing look of recognition in the eyes of the dog, and of pity in those of the hero, who sees in the first the sole signal of welcome to his island home. The charm of this picture lies in the truth that in the eyes of the dog and in the eyes of the King the same emotion is actually present, and exhibited naturally and spontaneously by the organ of sight, without transgressing the limits of expression in the animal, which one of the greatest animal-painters not unfrequently ventured to do, by transferring to it modifications of feature only possible in the human eye. The expression which is associated with the most beautiful of animal eyes, those of the horse, the stag, and the eagle, is so dependent upon particular differences of shade and setting, in creatures whose emotions and intelligence cannot greatly differ in degree,—that its common interpretation must be due rather to analogy than to any appreciation of its meaning.
LONDON BEARS.
“Never make a pet of a bear,” is the advice given by the experienced “bear-ward” at the Zoo. But though his conclusions are the result of longer and closer experience of the animals than is possessed by any one person in Europe, there is something so attractive in the apparent simplicity and bonhomie of the comfortable, warmly-clad, deliberate ursine race which appeals irresistibly to animal-loving Englishmen. Ever since the early middle ages the performing bear has been a favourite; and to this day there is in Turkey and Bulgaria a wandering race of gipsies who are known by the common name of “bear-tamers,” from their traditional occupation of catching the young cubs in the forests of the Carpathians, and leading them through the villages as performers in all the feasts, whether Christian or Mussulman, of the ancient land of Thrace.
The tame bear, which for the greater part of 1891 and 1892 was exhibited in the London streets, and ultimately had an audience from her Majesty at Windsor Castle, was also a familiar acquaintance of most of the London police magistrates. Its popularity was such, that whenever exhibited it instantly became the centre of a crowd, which increased until the police constable on duty felt it incompatible with his position not to take it into custody. Then came the scene in the dock next morning, and the “dismissal with a caution” as a sequence. Meantime the bear had usually held a reception in the police-station the night before; and so much did its endearing ways win the hearts of the “force,” that on one occasion the constable who had run it in made a collection for its benefit the moment the case was dismissed.
This was a small Pyrenean bear, about three years old, with a rough coat the colour of a dusty cocoa-nut fibre door-mat, and though it had a strong steel muzzle of apparently needless severity fixed round the base of its nose, the genial Provençal who owned it, and whose bed it usually shared at night in the quarters of the foreign artists in street music and ice-creams in which he dwelt when not employed in exhibiting his pet before royalty, or elsewhere, declared that it was a “brave bête, doux comme un enfant, et doué de traits de caractère tout à fait remarquables.” The behaviour of the street urchins to the brave bête was perhaps a reminiscence of the days when bear-baiting was looked upon as an exhibition calculated to maintain the pugnacious character of the true-bred Englishman; for, once assured that it would not hurt them, they stamped on its toes as occasion offered, until the bear rose on its hind legs and assumed an attitude of defence, which drove the malicious tribe to a safe distance. “Pauvre bête, il a peur,” said his owner; and it was evident not only that the bear was afraid of the brutal children of the street, but that it looked to the “grown-ups” for protection.
Probably the most easily tamed of the tribe are the small Malayan bears, five of which are at present in the collection of the Zoological Society. These are true honey-eating bears, provided with long elastic tongues, and covered with short close fur of the most beautiful dark and glossy brown, of the tint to which seal-skins are dyed. The largest is a perfect beauty in the eyes of bear connoisseurs, sleek and glossy, its coat fitting it like a well-made suit of felt, and when walking upright, as it prefers to do when about to be fed, it is “just like a person,” as we once heard a small girl remark. It has a cream-coloured face, and a beautiful orange “bib.” The oldest of the family has been twenty years in the Gardens, and is so stiff and decrepit, that when on the ground it moves like a rheumatic old man. But it can still climb, and will exhibit most amusing feats upon the bars in return for a lump of sugar. Sugar is the greatest luxury which can be given to these “sweet-toothed” animals except honey, and their rations of this are carefully regulated, as it does not agree with their constitutions when in confinement. When a lump of sugar is shown to the old bear it climbs the bars with great deliberation, and then holding on by all four feet waits for the visitor to go through his part of the performance. Unless this is carried out according to rule, the bear descends and sits on the floor, waiting until it gets the sugar thrown to it without further trouble. But if the lump is slowly waved round in circles from right to left—the opposite direction is not considered fair, and the animal “won’t play” if it is persisted in—the bear also turns “coach wheels” slowly on the bars. His old elbows stick out and his paws turn in, but he still feels equal to almost any number of turns if the visitor is exacting. When rewarded with the sugar the bear “makes it last,” like a nasty little boy with a sugar-plum, only far more ingeniously. “That was a white sugar-plum I gave you,” says the horrible child in Mr. Du Maurier’s picture—“it was pink once.” The bear is not really nasty, but it has discovered an ingenious process by which loaf-sugar can be converted into honey. It first wets its fore-paws, and then cracks the sugar into two pieces, and puts one on to each paw. It then rubs the bits on with its nose, and next picking each up again cracks it, and lays two well-moistened pieces on to each paw, as before. It then licks these off again, and if any is left again deposits them on the backs of its well-moistened sticky knuckles. Finally it licks them quite clean, and turns slowly head over heals, as an acknowledgment of the treat.
A regiment of Life Guards recently owned a large brown bear, which ultimately found a home in the Zoo after giving proof of the wisdom of the keeper’s opinion. It was a pet of the regiment, and was taken from Knightsbridge to Windsor, and later to the Albany Street barracks, where it was kept chained up like a big dog, and treated with all the consideration due to a non-combatant member of the corps. A boy who was rather a favourite with the men, and used to run errands, and make himself useful about the barracks, took a fancy to the bear, and was employed to bring it its daily rations. One day, when the animal was asleep, the boy woke it by pulling the chain, at the same time laying the food before it. The experience of all those employed in the care of animals, whether wild or domesticated, forbids any approach without speaking to the creature first. In this case the bear, sulky at being wakened, and tethered only by a very long chain, seized the lad, and bit and clawed him so seriously that he was for some time an inmate of the Middlesex Hospital. The bear was “dismissed from the service,” and condemned to solitary confinement in a cage in the terrace in the Gardens. The ungrateful behaviour of the Guards’ bear must not be taken as a reflection on military treatment of wild animals, for an almost similar instance of the innate surliness of its species occurred many years ago in the establishment of one of those retired East India civilians whose Oriental habits were such a puzzle to the country squires, in the country seats in which the retired “Nabobs” often chose to spend their latter days. The gentleman in question had bought an estate in Devonshire; but it was his pleasure always to be waited upon by a “black man” at dinner, and in the later parts of the evening to sit at table with a pair of black bears, each adorned with a silver collar, seated in a large arm-chair on either side of him. An old Devonshire woman, who had been a servant in his family, took the bears under her charge, and fed them daily, until one of them bit three of the fingers off her hand. This was too much even for her master’s partiality for his pets, and the bears were slaughtered, and their bodies duly boiled down into “bears’ grease,” under the superintendence of their former owner and the attached domestic, who, though approving of the measure, like John Gilpin’s wife, “had still a frugal mind,” and felt that the unexpected supply of an expensive cosmetic should not be wasted.