Arthur Morrison

“ And although Toby and the Policeman are very useful as seconds at the later boxing matches, very few buns get past Judy. Punch, the henpecked and wily, waits good-humouredly at the foot of the pole, and has been known to catch many a bun that Judy climbed for.
Through all the bear-dens you may see bears in attitudes sufficiently human to be quaint and grotesque. A squat like that of an Indian idol, an oddly human looking out of window, or a lounge at the bars, clumsily suggestive of a lounge at a bar in the Strand; and of all the attitudes those of the gentle little Malays are quaintest. ”

“ Then there is a proverb which aids the fraud—most proverbs, by-the-bye, aid a fraud of some sort—a proverb about the last straw breaking the camel's back. What a glamour of oppressed, uncomplaining patience that proverb sets about the camel! You imagine the picturesque but inconsiderate Bedouin, having piled his faithful camel with everything he possesses, looking about for something else to crown the structure. ”

“ The keeper always appears with the beef, but although the beef comes between the bars, he is always defrauded of the keeper. Wherefore the keeper is a bête-noir, a constant reminder of a good meal put under his nose and taken away again. Perhaps it may be hinted to those nobly ambitious of attracting the notice of a lion or tiger, that the hat-trick may be expensive if tried upon a young and frolicsome animal. A sudden temptation, such as the offer of a new hat, may cause a young lion or tiger to forget his dignity for some little time—as long as the hat lasts. ”

“ Certainly if one bear can have less shape than another, which has none, Billy has. He is more than shapeless; he approaches the nebulous. A sort of vast, indefinite, black mop, with certain very long and ill-kept claws observable in odd places, and now and again a dissolute, confused muzzle, in which a double allowance of lip and a half-allowance of lip mingle indistinguishably. Billy is usually asleep. He is as fond of eating as any other bear, but fonder still of sleeping. ”

“ When at last he is persuaded to stand upon his legs he devotes himself to rushing about and scattering his load far and wide—and biting. The unhappy Bedouin's household furniture, hat-boxes, and wooden horse are scattered all over the Syrian Desert, and the unhappy Bedouin himself is worse off than at the beginning; and still the insatiate creature bites. The Bedouin swears—in his own way—hopes that jackals may sit upon the grave of the camel's grandfather, and so forth—and gathers his belongings together preparatory to beginning afresh. ”

“ As a bluebottle, I think I should have enjoyed life—as a young one certainly; an elderly bluebottle gets bloated, slow, and gouty, losing his sense of humour. He grows infirm of purpose, too, and forgets to return to the same spot on a bald head after the eighteenth time of chasing off—the eighteenth time being really just when the fun begins. Sometimes he passes over a red nose altogether, probably from a fear of aggravating the gout in his feet. I am a little more doubtful about the giraffe. ”

“ The tiger's superiority to the lion consists chiefly in his candour. He is a wicked, vicious rascal, a thief and a murderer, and he owns it. He would always rather run away than be bothered with fighting, unless he happen to be hungry, and so would the lion. But the lion will attitudinize if he thinks you have observed him, and try to make his running away look like magnanimity. The tiger simply bundles off, without any false pride. ”

“ A tiger, we say, will not look a man in the face. He won't, but fear is not his motive. It is superciliousness—a lofty affectation of indifference, and nothing else. Every cat is the same in this respect—lion, tiger, leopard, panther, Tom or tabby. It is only another expression of the cat's native vanity. Loving to be stared at and admired, he makes a great show of the most contemptuous indifference to everybody. Before you reach the cage you may now and again detect, from the corner of your eye, the cat observing you with some interest ”

“ King Sam, with all his majesty, must take exercise sometimes—usually after the royal bath. Whereat all other birds avoid his path, and hide in unconsidered corners. Sam's exercise is a devastating rush, comprehending all this inclosure, without consideration for trees, or shrubs, or birds, or rocks, or water. He merely sweeps through all, in strides of many yards, with outstretched neck, and wings a-spread and gorgeous in black and scarlet. ”

“ Now, this may be the way of the Bedouin, but it isn't the way of the camel. He doesn't wait for the last straw—he won't have the first if he can help it. There's no living thing in the universe that he wouldn't like to bite or kick; and when he isn't engaged in active warfare with creation in general, he is sulking and planning it. ”

“ The Zig-zag—though possibly suggestive of a beast with stripes—is not a newly-captured wild animal lately added to the great London collection; it is merely the ordinary commonplace, charming, and delightful Zig-zag of everyday existence. For variety is the spice of life, and every man taking ease and joy of his life shall go through it in zig-zags. ”

“ The sudden appearance of a man in the inclosure may cause what seems to be a temporary upset of the general dignity—that of all the birds, big or little. All join in a tempestuous swirl, filling the air with flappings and small shrieks. But, the shock over, the swirl becomes nothing but the collective fly round, by way of exercise, which is a regular part of the day's enjoyment at the Night Herons' Pond. ”

“ A TIGER is not a lion. This will be understood, though I treat of tigers in a leonine chapter. For neither is a leopard a lion nor a cheetah, nor a puma, yet all these live in the lion-house. Wherefore must the title be held to refer to the locality, and not to a section of its inhabitants. This is probably called the lion-house in a formal survival of the spirit which gives the lion a kingship among the lower animals. But the lion really is a fraud—as much so, at any rate, as the camel. ”

“ If he find nothing, his first expression is one of unbounded surprise. The laws of Nature, it would seem, are being defied. So he looks again, to make quite sure. But there is really nothing. He thinks for a second, and then glares with sharp suspicion in the direction of the retreating creature. It can't be a human being, after all. It is a mere fraud; some conceited thing trying to look like one. ”

“ But when the hammer-head takes to flying, the low comedy goes, and, with his broad brown wings and swooping flight, he is rather a professional beauty than otherwise. Nothing but the flap of the hammer-head's wings will disturb the sulky heron—the solitary misanthrope whose place is the right-hand upper corner of the great cage, and whom nothing will tempt down. ”

“ The cheetah.
In the early morning, before the gardens are opened, Sutton, Dodger, and the cheetah go out for a walk about the grounds, amid a shower of envy. Michael, the big bear, in particular, looks from behind his window blinds in much displeasure. I should like to take Michael out for a stroll—say along the Strand; there would be a deal to amuse him.
It is a pity that some of the leopards are not as good-humoured as Dodger and the cheetahs. One particular pair live in a perpetual mutual threat to bite off each other's heads. Anything is a sufficient provocation. ”

“ It is a pity that the theory of our evolution from the primordial protoplasm in an inclusive line through every living species should now be considered old-fashioned. I like to imagine that among my remote ancestors every living thing is represented—it gives them a family interest. And if, further, I can persuade myself that I have been everything, at one time or another, from a bluebottle to a giraffe—why, then I can brown-study for ever. ”

“ But there is an inferiority in the lion's yawn. The tiger opens his head frankly and fully, baring his gums and exposing his teeth in all their vicious pointedness. It is a fierce yawn, a downright yawn, such a yawn as could be no yawn but a tiger's. The lion's might almost be a sheep's. ”

“ The poor relation is a mere low caricature of Sam in neck and legs; and a thing which, in its own ridiculous way, makes a preposterous showing off and posing of its burlesque neck.
Ruff amenities.
Which reflection leads us to another—that the birds in this inclosure may be classified into two sorts: those who are proud of their necks—as the ruffs and flamingoes; and those who are ashamed of them—as the herons, who bury them between their shoulders, until, from the back, you shall judge one a humpbacked old witch and a thing of evil. ”

“ It is noticeable that a lion—any lion, every lion—likes to take his ease with his nose stuffed out between the bars—by way, probably, of sniffing the air of freedom, and feeling as much at liberty as possible in the circumstances, regardless of contact with the iron of the cage. I am not sure that this muzzle-exposure is always good for Felis Leo; I have a suspicion that it may be responsible for some of the toothaches wherewith he now and again is afflicted, and ascribes, probably, to Sutton's partiality for open windows. A lion with a toothache is a pitiable thing ”

“ Furious malice is native to his face, and a self-sufficient conceit and superciliousness comes with full feeding. Even in his least expressive slumber the camel is smugly complacent, although his inborn genius cannot teach him that a piece of cardboard is not a biscuit. ”

“ I fear Leo shagbagga is now an extinct species, but the Blue Lion, the White Lion, and the Red Lion we may see every day—although not here—and become intimately acquainted with. Also we may see the British Lion—the cartoon lion—who waves a Union Jack, wears a straw hat, and smokes a pipe. Familiarity with the lion has bred so much contempt for him that really we shall be going very little further in classing him a domestic animal. They keep him in a shed, whack him with a stick, and make him jump through a hoop—and a poor old sheep he seems, he who is treated thus in caravans. ”

“ To pay certain gold guineas a year is a good thing; but what human member of the society would live amiably behind bars for the cause, to be stared at and made the subject of personal impudences? Now, all these fine fellows have their individual characters, their little personal habits and crotchets, just as have those distinguished zoologists who walk upright and wear tail-coats. For instance, you may have come upon a row of three lions, or monkeys, or seals, as the case may be, and to you, a casual visitor, they shall be but three very similar seals or monkeys or lions. ”

“ A picture show, like everything else, should be taken on the zig-zag. The man who plans and cogitates the nearest way between two streets—that man is too busy, poor fellow, to know the sweets of the zig-zag. To go upon the zig-zag is to see more, and with greater entertainment. Who sees more stars, more lamp-posts, front-doors, and keyholes than other men—yea, even unto tenfold? He who goes home on the zig-zag. The zig-zag is the token, the mystic sign, of contentful ease and good fellowship the world over ”

“ Anybody who looks at the matter with the least care may see that in all things the lion has been accorded an elevation which is not his right. The superstition is long a-dying, even among the lower animals themselves. The puma here, for instance, puffed up that with a ridiculous vanity born of having been called the American lion by some naturalist who should have known better, rolls among his bed-straw until enough hangs about his ears to represent a mane, and then stalks forth to be admired. ”

“ Then, if Self be by, you shall find that he has imparted to Tom a certain polish of manner surprising in a camel. Self will tell Tom to beg, and Tom will beg immediately; the supplication consisting in standing on three legs and throwing the right fore-foot negligently across the left knee. Thereat you probably give him a biscuit. But if you remain obdurate, or have come biscuitless, Tom's politeness evaporates at once. He turns his back upon his visitor with a certain studied rudeness of manner—a contumelious nose-in-air tail-turning—and stalks disgustedly back to his boudoir. ”

“ Here, in contrast with the rest, you observe it as a miserably inactive and sulky little bird, who won't join anything else in a hopeless food-hunt, but is as greedy as all the rest together when the keeper brings a regular meal. Also it growls and fumes angrily at the friendly approach of any other bird—a bird probably who would make little trouble of eating it at a sitting, beak and all. ”

“ It seems a pity, having a camel, not to load it up enough, so he looks for something else, but can see nothing. Suddenly it strikes him that he has just used a straw to drink a gin-sling, and without for an instant considering what may be the result, he pops it on the top of the rest of the baggage. The patient, loving creature has barely time to give its master one pathetically reproachful look when its back goes with a bang. ”

“ The ruffs are small, but there is character about them. See two approach each other from opposite directions—looking, perhaps, for something to eat. They meet, stop, straddle wide their legs, and blow up their neck-feathers. Regarding each other fixedly, they rock solemnly to and fro. Then they let fall their collars and go off, each on his way, as though nothing had happened. It is a rude courtesy—a sort of ruff etiquette, in fact. Sometimes, however, this putting on of frills—as the same thing will do in other places—leads to fights. ”

“ BEAR is an adaptable creature, a philosopher every inch. He takes everything just as it comes—and doesn't readily part with it. He lives in all sorts of countries, in all manner of weather and climate, merely changing his coat a little to suit the prevailing weather. He will eat honey—when he can get it; when he can't he consoles himself with the reflection that it is bad for the teeth. He is largely a vegetarian, except when meat falls in his way, and although innocently fond of buns, will cheerfully put up with strawberries and cream if they stray in his direction. ”