Zoo

“ But in a zoo, food is brought daily, with facility for drinking, and laid right in front of hoofs, paws or bills. For small animals, roofs and thick walls ward off cold winds and rain; and so, days of calm inactivity, daily naps without worrying about attack; and a carting away of all rubbish and filth soon puts a zoo animal in bodily form which has no comparison with its wild condition. ”

“ A sea-lion that lived for a good many years in the London Zoo was exceedingly clever, for it would climb up and down a ladder, with either its head or its tail first, fire off a gun, kiss its keeper, and catch fishes in its mouth if they were thrown to it, just as a dog will catch a piece of biscuit. ”

“ In the Zoo we spread the black pad and the white paper in a narrow, temporary lane, and one by one drove, or tried to drive, the captives over them, securing a series of tracks that are life-size, properly spaced, absolutely authentic, and capable of yielding more facts as the observer learns more about the subject. ”

“ No day could be better for the purpose than this sunny one; for the Zoo has its home in the Vatican, and we need all the sunshine we can get to counteract its chill. Besides, no matter with how definite a purpose we set out, once within that marble world we are sure to linger—so many are the objects that claim the eye. It is only after a lingering stroll that we at last reach the Sala degli Animali, or Hall of the Animals. ”

“ Whenever, at the Zoo, I have stared at lions I have always been conscious of the indignity towards them, and to stare into the eyes of caged humans is almost more than one dare. In one cell lying on the bare wood floor, in a contorted position, almost standing on his head, one man lay half dazed, and seemingly in great distress. ”

“ There is something about a Zoo that always makes one hungry, so we sat on a bench in the sun, watched the stately swans ruffling like square-rigged ships on the sparkling pond, and ate biscuits, while the Urchin was given a mandate over some very small morsels. ”

“ If it could be only given sufficient space for flight it would be one of the most interesting of our guests in the Zoo, for the little creature sails from tree to tree supported by the membrane which stretches between its legs, launching itself upon the air with such unerring aim that it never fails to make the point it started for, and judging its initial velocity with such a nice precision as never to fall short of or overshoot its mark. ”

“ But in my zoo the doors open from the inside, not from the out. The locks are only there so the animals can go and shut themselves in any time they want to get away from the annoyance of other animals or from people who might come here. Every animal in this zoo stays here because he likes it, not because he is made to. ”

“ Never were the lions in the Zoo more eagerly and impertinently watched at feeding time than were we, and certainly never by such an ill-looking set as the owners of the shifting eyes and high cheek-bones who surged round us. ”

“ A lamp is no sooner lighted than a perfect zoo appears. Great beetles three and four inches long go banging around in their crazy fashion, occasionally taking a header down the back of the unwary. The friendly yellow lizards with their queer little squeaks dart about the vails and ceilings catching flies and small bugs. I have counted a dozen of them in my apartments at one time. ”

“ Her litsome heart by day or night;
An’ zoo, if we could teäke it right,
Do show He’ll meäke his burdens light
To weaker souls, an’ that his smile
Is sweet upon a harmless chile,
When they be dead that lov’d it. ”

“ Just beyond the town the hillside takes a gentler slope, dipping a lawn of sea-grass into the water; and it was upon this charming spot, enclosed with a double fence, that the prisoners were quartered. We pressed our faces against the wires and stared, much as one stares in the Zoo at a cageful of newly-arrived animals that have cost a great deal of money and maybe a life or two. Fine, big men, stalwart and burned brown by the sun; stern-looking, but with that air of large contentment they wear who live much alone and out of doors ”

“ Let kangaroos leap for others, the ant-eater runkle its mouthless way through life, the Wise Man of the Woods distract the world of science—Bobby hadn't seen the little cat. By and bye, when he had watched the lions fed and the sea-lion catch fish, and had had a ride on the elephant and on the camel, and had given buns to the bears and his handkerchief to a baboon, he confessed, and generously enough, that the Zoo was not without attractions. ”

“ Folks bring all kinds of animals to my back yard, if sick or hurt. Want to walk around my zoo?”
“No!! No zoos for Councilman Simpkins! Animals ain’t worth so much fuss!”
“Pshaw, Bill! You talk ridiculously! ”

“ She is a very great swell. Hasn't arrived yet of course. And there are a few others, foreign birds from the tropics mostly, who drop in on me in the course of the summer months. But come, I must show you the zoo. ”

“ Now, we have seen the living animals at the Zoo, and we do not care to see the dead ones here so much, though we can just glance around it. But there is one animal you must see, because there is no living animal like it in the Zoo. ”

“ If you go to the Zoological Gardens you ought to be a good walker and not easily tired. The animals are in cages, but they are not all close together; there are long stretches of green grass and trees and beautiful flower-beds between, and to go over the Zoo thoroughly takes a very long time. ”

“ Branton Hills kids could bring any kind of a hurt or sick animal or bird; and Sarah had long known that that back yard was, actually, a small zoo, anyway; with dogs, cats, poultry, two robins too young to fly, four sparrows and a canary, almost bald. Sarah thought that any woman, loving animals as Lady Standish did, might just thrill at having a big zoo-ful right at hand. ”

“ There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning, called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there. ”

“ I want to say a special word of appreciation for the people who run this petting zoo and who give, therefore, a lot of children the opportunity to see animals and to touch them in a way that they never would. ”

“ The animals at Jamrach’s are not the half-domesticated creatures of the Lion House at the Zoo, but the wild and savage denizens of tropical jungles, captured but not yet cowed, or even reconciled to the proximity of man. ”

“ You see, the spaceship in which we came to this planet is a prison ship, with a crew consisting of malefactors—thieves, murderers, defrauders—dispatched to the remote fastnesses of the Galaxy to fetch back zoological specimens. Our zoo, I must say, is the finest and most interesting in the Universe. ”

“ He lies on the bank of a stream waiting, as pussy waits at a mouse hole, for some timid antelope, whose only safety is in his heels, to come down to drink. Then he springs with a roar. The way he roars in a zoo isn't anything to what he can do in the roaring line at home. ”

“ Yet the economy of the Lion House so far differs from the ordinary life of the other inmates of the Zoo that, for an undiscerning public which wants excitement and has no time for observation, there is every inducement to confine its visits to a particular hour. The cattle-sheds, the Antelope House, the Monkey Palace, or the Aviaries, present much the same appearance at any time of the day. The pleasant round of comfort—eating, drinking, playing, or sleeping—goes on without variety or long cessation. But the life of the great carnivora is ordered differently, and with greater exactness. ”

“ The gardens being so large, and the extent of the domain of each class of animals so spacious, it has been found necessary to arrange a means for the visitors to see all the beauties of the Zoo without undue fatigue. ”

“ In the big cities, hot in summer and cold in winter and crowded always, there are hundreds of thousands of children who would never know what a woodchuck, a monkey, a beaver or a bear looked like if they didn’t see them in a zoo. ”

“ A large aquarium and a zoo contribute equally to the pleasure of the children and the grown-ups. The buildings are in oriental style and are fitted with arrangements for thousands of colored electric lights, which are turned on only upon special festive occasions. The night of our visit was just an ordinary occasion, but the park was thronged with great crowds. ”

“ As the howling of the wolves in their distant cages is heard by the lions, excitement breaks beyond control, and the roars of the hungry beasts only cease as the truck of food is emptied. As a spectacle, the sight has a certain interest. But 67except for those whose imagination can picture no other side of animal life in daily contact with man, it is, perhaps, the worst moment to select in order to appreciate the real character of those most friendly beasts, the lions and tigers at the Zoo. ”

“ But it must be obvious that none of these studies can be made in a zoo. The zoo animals, to begin with, provide no material for the biologist; he can find out no more about their insides than what he discerns from a safe distance and through the bars. ”

“ A snake at the Zoo has even been known to live eighteen months in a voluntary fast, refusing all the most tempting offers of birds and rabbits, merely out of pique at her forcible confinement in a strange cage. ”

“ Deer fight more fiercely than wolves, and wild sheep than lions; and though there is, or was, an eagle in the Zoo which was caught locked in the talons of another eagle when fighting in the spring, the fiercest birds are usually friendly with their own species, and while ruffs and black-game fight like gladiators for their wives, the eagles and the peregrines as a rule mate in peace. ”

“ Zoo while there’s neither wet nor mud,
’S the time to run an’ warm your blood,
In winds a-cuttèn keen.
Vor young men’s hearts an’ maïden’s eyes
Don’t vreeze below the cwoldest skies,
While they in twice so keen a blast
Can wag their brisk lim’s twice so vast! ”

“ Esquimaux puppies, which are often born at the Zoo, are amusing little creatures, ready to eat boiled tripe from a dish until their little stomachs resemble a cricket-ball, an instance of heredity no doubt transmitted by generations of half-starved ancestors. Young marmosets and gerbilles, Angora goats, ibexes, mountain sheep and wapiti deer, gazelles and opossums, with a brood of young puff-adders, young seagulls, and wild geese, hardly complete the list of the year’s increase at the Zoo. ”

“ The true wildlife picture is not one of a deer eating from a visitor’s hand; that is scarcely more natural than seeing the animal within the fenced enclosure of a zoo. The artificial feeding of any form of wildlife is objectionable for several other reasons. ”

“ When thirsty, they go to the stone water troughs set in the runs and drink, standing on all fours, sucking up the water as a horse does. The elephant in this Zoo has had to sacrifice his dignity and come down to playing tricks. ”

“ No scientific discovery of any value whatsoever, even to the animals themselves, has ever come out of a zoo. The zoo scientist is the old woman of zoology, and his alleged wisdom is usually exhibited, not in the groves of actual learning, but in the yellow journals. ”

“ In the park zoo the prairie dog village is in a deep cement-lined pit filled with earth, so these clever little animals cannot tunnel and spread over the park.You can dig the woodchuck, or ground-hog, out. ”

“ Parker Takes Notes A man was taken to the Zoo and shown the giraffe. After gazing at it a little in silence: "I don't believe it," he said. ”

“ KEEPEN UP O’ CHRIS’MAS.
An’ zoo you didden come athirt,
To have zome fun last night: how wer’t?
Vor we’d a-work’d wi’ all our might
To scour the iron things up bright,
An’ brush’d an’ scrubb’d the house all drough ”

“ Later, when they have to be satisfied with the food provided in the troughs, they become the most amusing and importunate beggars in the Zoo, the old sow and boar setting the example, well supported by the little pigs. ”

“ All this likewise applies most forcibly to the nature classes we occasionally see at the Zoo,—the sculptor in search of correct poses of animals for his art; the scientific taxidermist; the artist and the biologist, and an hundred others of the classes that make up the great scientific, artistic and learned body of people of the country. ”

“ Zoo ’n country-store is de lievelingsplek van de meeste jongens uit den omtrek, als ’s avonds het werk aan kant is. Enkele loafers maken zoo’n store hun home. Heel gezelling is men’s avonds soms bij elkaar. ”

“ In those which spend their lives at ease in the elephant palaces at the Zoological Gardens the rate of growth is surprising, and they soon develop into magnificent animals, not surpassed in size by the finest creatures in the stables of Indian rajahs. ”

“ C.J. Cornish gives some interesting particulars as to "How Animals come to the Zoo." We can only give the following extract:—"The readiest source from which to fill up lacunae in the 'Zoo' is the stock-in-hand of the wild beast dealers, such as the Jamrachs, Cross of Liverpool, or the surplus stock of foreign menageries, or of men like Mr. ”

“ But I gave buns to the elephant when I went down to the Zoo!
[47]
If you try to talk to the bison, he never quite understands;
You can’t shake hands with a mingo—he doesn’t like shaking hands.
And lions and roaring tigers hate saying, “How do you do?”—
But I give buns to the elephant when I go down to the Zoo!
[48]
RICE PUDDING
What is the matter with Mary Jane? ”