A BEAR AT PLAY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 132, 1 December 1938, Page 27

A BEAR AT PLAY

On the whole, animals do not play much by themselves, but chimpanzees

are a notable exception, says a "Man-

Chester Guardian" correspondent. Give

a chimpanzee something to play with, a basket, a pocket handkerchief, a

piece of sacking, anything outside his

normal experience, and he will play with'it fdr an hour at a time, especially if he has a gallery. Polar bears will

play in the water with a log, a tin, or anything else that will float, but it is unusual' for brown bears to play alone after they have grown up. Recently, however-, I came across an adult female bear at Whipsnade lying on her back, remote from all the others, and happily playing .with a long, fairly -thick stick. Bears cannot grip, like monkeys for instance, but this bear had mastered the trick of holding a s,tick between two toes or fingers, and she handled it very cleverly, both with her hind, feet —this was mainly a matter of balance—and with her fore feet or paws. . She passed the stick from hind to fore feet and vice versa, and, again using the fore feet, turned it end about and end about again, tossed it, balanced it. arid, in a rough-and-ready way, did a juggling turn. It was quite clear that she was doing all this entirely for her own amusement and without regard to the few. onlookers.