But while they were talking about the way they would do the work, they heard the beaver's tail go "B-a-n-g, b-a-n-g!" and they all looked up, and what do you think they saw? The queerest kind of an animal.
He looked like a small bear, but he had very long hair on his back and hind legs, and his front legs were much shorter than his hind legs. But that was not the queerest thing.
The little Cub Bear said, "Oh, see his nose! It looks as if he had caught the end of his nose in a trap, and had pulled and pulled until he had stretched his nose like a piece of taffy, and had made it as long as my leg. Did you ever see such a long nose in the whole world?"
The elephant said that he had a very long nose. But the little Cub Bear said that he wasn't talking about trunks that had fingers and thumbs on the end of them, but that he was talking about real noses. Then the Papa Bear and Mamma Bear said they never, never in the world thought that any animal would have such a nose. The Papa Bear asked the Circus Bear what the animal was?
The Circus Bear said, "That is a bear. He is called an ant-bear."
"Oh!" said the Cub Bear, "I have two aunt-bears, and they don't look a bit like that."
"Please don't interrupt me when I am talking," said the Circus Bear. "This is an 'a-n-t'-bear, not an 'a-u-n-t'-bear. He is called an ant-bear because he eats ants."
"Oh, I want to see him eat some of these ants that got into the honey, that papa brought home the other day."
As soon as the ant-bear came near, the little Cub Bear ran to him and asked him to show how he ate the ants. The ant-bear said that he would be very glad to do so, because he had not had a good meal of ants for the longest while. In the circus he said they fed him on meat. The ant-bear said that he liked the taste of ants ever so much better. I would not, would you? Well, the little Cub Bear showed the ant-bear where the ants lived in a hole in the ground. Then he saw why the ant-bear had such strong claws, for he dug into the ground very quickly. Then what do you suppose that ant-bear did? He ran the point of his long nose into the hole where the ants lived, and then stuck out the longest tongue you ever saw, way, way down in the hole, until it was covered with ants that had stuck to it. Then the little Cub Bear saw why the ant-bear had such a long nose, and a long tongue that looked like a pink rope. Do you see why?
As soon as the ant-bear had eaten all of the ants, the little Cub Bear said, "The ants are such little things, I should think you would not get enough to eat."