96 NATURR STUDY. 



soon begin to show a tendency to tighten around the 

 heart. 



In our next lesson we will learn something about the 

 families of beetles that live in the streams and ponds, and 

 then we must put away beetles, or Coleoptera, for the 

 present, and take up the bugs, or Hemiptera, for, unless we 

 are diligent, we shall scarcely have finished with our seven 

 boxes when spring and the insects have come again. 



How Animals Sleep. 



The writer, who received permission to visit the Central 

 Park zoo late at night, in order to note the different posi- 

 tions in which animals and birds rest, observed some curi- 

 ous things. To anyone fond of natural history, such a 

 visit is most interesting. In the lion-house the lioness 

 was lying on her left side at full length, while the lion, 

 couchant, rested his head on his crossed forepaws, his 

 hindlegs being half drawn under him, and the tail curled 

 in toward the body 



The pumas, tigers and leopards were all resting on their 

 sides, in nearly every case lying on the right side. The 

 hyenas — pariahs and scavengers of the forest — rested with 

 their hindlegs drawn under them, the forelegs stretched 

 out, with heads slightly bent to the right. Nearby the 

 two-horned rhinoceros was lying at full length on his left 

 side, gently snoring. The hippopotami showed only their 

 heads and backs above the water. 



No longer looking for peanuts, the elephants lay stretched 

 out on the floor, their huge legs lying out at full length 

 and the trunk curved under the body. They were all rest- 

 ing on their right side. Close by, in the deer-house, the 

 different deer had all crouched low for their rest, with fore- 

 legs bent under them and the hind ones drawn up, while 



