caused by the encroachments of their own proprium; and when they recognize it, and look to the Lord for deliverance, they feel His power in them like that of a lion; and He gives them the ardent desire for good as of young lions. As a fierce and terrible lion the Lord appears to the wicked, because their loves are like fierce animals, and He who opposes them seems to them like themselves, only more fierce and powerful. Yet the Lion of the Lord's presence must be noble and magnanimous, and their lions fierce and relentless. Not from the Lord's zeal to save and protect do their lions spring; but from their own lust of claiming to themselves, and ruling over all things. It is an intense and self-confident love of dominion, which tolerates no rival, when excited fears no danger, and crushes every one who will not submit to its control, preferring death itself to divided authority. THE BEAR. UFFON states that the black bear, which is BUFFON our American species, lives altogether upon fruits, vegetables, and roots, never eating flesh; and that he is altogether mild and harmless. Our New England farmers would modify this statement, so far as concerns the autumn season, and the mother with cubs. During the summer, the bears live in the woods, as Buffon says, shunning the abodes of man, and escaping from him so shyly that it is difficult for hunters to find them at all. At this season they feed upon the leaves and tender twigs of trees, upon roots, ants which they lap greedily out of the ant-hills, the larvæ of beetles, which they dig out of decaying stumps and logs, and very largely upon berries, of which they are extremely fond. But when berries fail, in the autumn, the bears come down to the orchards and corn-fields, not unfrequently making havoc among the sheep also. Then they are frequently seen, and are easily taken in traps. At all seasons, if one come suddenly upon a mother with cubs, he will find her fierce, brave, and dangerous. "A bear bereaved of her whelps " is a Scripture symbol for desperate courage. The brown bear of Europe and Asia, Buffon describes as a fiercer animal, who attacks rather than avoids man, though finding his food and his home among the mountains and in the forests. He proceeds : "The bear is not only wild, but solitary. He shuns all society by instinct. He removes from places to which men have access. He finds himself at his ease only in the places which still belong to Nature. An old cave among inaccessible rocks, a hollow formed by time in the trunk of an old tree, in the midst of a thick forest, serves him for a home. He retires thither alone, passes a part of the winter there without provisions, without going out from it for several weeks. . . . "The mother takes the greatest care of her little ones. She makes for them a bed of moss and leaves in the bottom of her cave, and nourishes them with milk till they can go out with her. She brings forth in winter, and her little ones begin to follow her in the spring. The male and the female never live together. They have their separate retreats, and often far apart. . . . "The bear has good powers of sight, of hearing, and of touch; although his eye is very small compared with the size of his body, his ears are short, his skin thick, and his hair plentifully tufted. He has an excellent sense of smell, perhaps more exquisite than any other animal.” The same naturalist describes the anatomical structure of the bear, but the only point which we can notice is that instead of walking upon the toes, like most other quadrupeds, the bear lays his whole foot upon the ground, so that what is commonly called the "hock joint" becomes in him the heel. Mr. Wood writes: “As is the case with many animals, the Syrian bear changes its color as it grows older. When a cub, it is of a darkish brown, which becomes a light brown as it approaches maturity. But, when it has attained its full growth, it becomes creamcolored, and each succeeding year seems to lighten its coat, so that a very old bear is nearly as white as its relative of the Arctic regions.1... "The bear is one of the omnivorous animals, and is able to feed on vegetable as well as animal substances, preferring the former when they can be found. There is nothing that the bear likes better than strawberries and similar fruits, among which. it will revel throughout the whole fruit season, daintily picking the ripest berries, and becoming wonderfully fat by the constant banquet. Sometimes, when the fruits fail, it makes incursions among the cultivated grounds, and is noted for the ravages which it makes among the chick-peas. But during the colder months in the year the bear changes its diet, and becomes carnivorous. Sometimes it contents itself with the various wild animals which it can secure, but sometimes it descends to the lower plains, and seizes upon the goats and sheep in their pastures. . . . As the bear is not swift of foot, but rather clumsy in its movements, it cannot hope to take the nimbler animals in open chase. It prefers to lie in wait for them in the bushes, and to strike them down with a sudden blow of its paw, a terrible weapon, which it can wield as effectively as a lion uses its claws." ... 1 Bible Animals. |