2 The Irish Naturalist. 



Johnnie was taught the gentle art of drinking-milk 

 through-a-straw by the keeper Supple, who relates that he 

 first tried him with the stem of a clay pipe, which soon got 

 broken ; then a quill was tried, but Johnnie hurt his gums 

 with it. Next Supple, taking a sound-looking straw, and 

 having removed the knots, presented it to Johnnie, who forth- 

 with sucked up a tumblerful of milk with it, and, moreover, 

 having watched the preparation of the straw, soon afterwards 

 began to prepare straws for himself by biting off the knots and 

 sucking through them to see if they were* free and drew well. 

 When he had thus prepared a good one, he would hide it away 

 till it was wanted. We have often seen him take a prepared 

 straw from its hiding-place, when he knew by the presence 

 of visitors, or other well-known indications, that he was about 

 to be given a glass of milk — or what he liked better, perhaps, 

 a glass of porter or of Parrish's food. 



His ordinary demeanour was grave and dignified, and he 

 often regarded his visitors with an air of condescending 

 patronage ; when suddenly with a wild whoop, as though he 

 felt that " dulce est desipere in loco" he would seem to fling his 

 dignity aside, like the legal or ecclesiastical personages of bur- 

 lesque, and proceed to execute a number of somersaults — a 

 performance by which poor Johnnie, like our street Arabs, 

 earned many a reward such as he loved. His tumbles were 

 accompanied by much thumping and noise, so as to ensure 

 proper attention being given to him by his audience. In fact 

 Johnnie was horribly jealous of attention being shewn to the 

 occupants of neighbouring cages. Often his thumps and in- 

 dignant protests might be heard — for instance, when on 

 Saturday a party of the Council remained, in his opinion, too 

 long in the outer room inspecting the lion cubs and cheetahs. 



For some months back Johnnie's gambols and light-hearted 

 manifestations of delight on the arrival of visitors have become 

 less and less ; and Supple has deplored his loss of appetite and 

 his consequent loss of flesh. Often has the writer been 

 invited to feel his spinal column, and to suggest some remedy 

 for the alarming loss of flesh which its sharpness indicated. 



Some said that one thing, some that another, was required to 

 restore him to health and strength, but one nostrum, shall we call 

 it, seemed to prevail beyond all others, and that was that Johnnie 

 should be supplied with a wife ; indeed several who had tried 



