Cup & Saucer

Chained up for five years outside the Hunter's Inn on Montauk Highway near Brookhaven, L. I. have been two black bears called Cup and Saucer. Their master, Gardner Murdock, is a grizzled oldtimer, gruff but kindly, locally famed as a duck-shooters' guide on Great South Bay.

One day last week eleven-year-old Grant Taylor Jr. had saved some apples from his school lunch. Going by the Hunter's Inn he went into the yard and tossed an apple to Saucer, the she bear. He tossed another to Cup. In hunger or jealousy, Saucer lunged to get Cup's apple too. Her worn chain snapped.

A five-year-old black bear far outweighs and can easily outrun an eleven-year-old boy. Grant Taylor's schoolmate fled but he, nearest the charging animal, became confused. He bumped into a nearby raccoon cage, and Saucer was on him, hugging him around the neck, clawing and biting at his shrieking face. Passing motorists stopped to watch the frightful scuffle which sent dead leaves flying in the autumn wind. But they did not get out of their cars. A neighbor with a shotgun was too late to do anything but kill Saucer, and Cup too. Little Grant Taylor was dead, mangled so badly that they did not let his parents see him.

"Mr. Murdock is no more to blame than the rest of us. It would break our hearts if the authorities should punish Mr. Murdock. He was always kind to the children," said the dead child's mother. But Murdock was put under $1,500 bail, held for the grand jury on a charge of second-degree manslaughter on the strength of a report that he had not fed his bears for two days. When an autopsy disproved this he was cleared by a coroner's jury.

When a pet black bear near Albion. N. Y. killed a child last year (TIME, Oct. 24, 1932), a New York law, effective last month, made lack of "due care" in protecting the public from animals a misdemeanor. In 1923 Connecticut outlawed the use of wild animals for soliciting alms or contributions. A 1927 amendment forbade roadside animal exhibits for commercial purposes.

Ogopogo Dwarfed

Fantastic monsters unknown to natural science seem to have a predilection for the waters of British Columbia. Thence, with almost convincing regularity, have come tales of Okanagan Lake's "Ogopogo"--a mighty serpent "with the face of a sheep, the head of a bulldog" (TIME, Aug. 15, 1932). And thence last week came two descriptions of a phantasmagoric sea serpent big enough to dwarf the 30-foot Ogopogo.

F. W. Kemp, a member of the provincial archives staff, said he and his family sighted the beast last year, but kept it a secret for fear of not being believed. When Major W. H. Langley, clerk of British Columbia's Legislature, told last week of having seen the beast too, Archivist Kemp told his story as follows:

"I was picnicking with my wife and 16-year-old son on Chatham Island. I observed a heavy wash coming down the Gulf [of Georgia] from the north. I thought at first it was just a tide rip. Then I was amazed to see huge coils come out of the top of the water like a snake. . . . The total length of these coils must have been at least 80 ft. and they were five feet thick, I should think. They came twisting out of the water so high that I could see light under them.

"They seemed a bluish green color, but shone in the sun like aluminum. The rear part of the creature was serrated with protuberances like dorsal fins. The extreme end thrashed about in the water like a propeller.

"My wife and son both saw it and stood dumb with amazement; then to our horror the thing rushed up to a high rock and thrust its great head and neck a full ten feet out of the water and waved it about as if it were getting its bearings. It was some 500 yards away and I could not see the exact shape of its head, but it was much thicker than the body. Then it sank down into the water again and sped away, making a great wash of white foam."

Major Langley also put the creature's length at 80 ft., and likewise saw it waving its head near a rock. It was, in fact, said Major Langley, scratching its neck on the barnacles--after which, with something like a grin of gratification, it swashed off toward Chatham Island. It had, said Major Langley, a shaggy head with a long prognathous jaw and a face like a camel's.

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