A Great Big Bear with Wings?

Cafe Society
1

There’s a poem by A A Milne called “At the Zoo”. It begins:

*There are lions and roaring tigers
And enormous camels and things
There are biffalo-buffalo-bison
And a great big bear with wings
There’s a sort of a tiny potamus
And a tiny noserus too
But I give buns to the elephant
When I go down to the zoo
*

Many of the animal names in the poem are mangled in some way, but it’s generally easy to guess what they are in reality (eg hippopotamus,rhinoceros). But I can’t for the life of me figure out what he means by “a great big bear with wings”

Any ideas?

2

It fit the rhyme scheme, & added to the whimsey.

No flying bears needed.

3

Considering that the theme of the poem (like many others of his) is about interpreting actual reality through a child’s eyes, I’d be kind of disappointed in him.