22 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



yet curiosity prevailed over his surly temper, and 

 he would take occasional peeps from his hiding 

 place to see if he was alone. The keeper returning, 

 the serval ran to meet him with evident joy, 

 rubbing against his leg like a cat, and feeding 

 readily from his hand : indeed, the same animal 

 was coaxed a few moments later to stand for the 

 photograph reproduced in this book. The above 

 instance illustrates admirably the uselessness of 

 trying to estimate an animal's character from a 

 casual inspection of a single individual : had more 

 care been taken by the compilers of the older 

 Natural Histories, we should have had fewer 

 stories of the " savage " and " un tameable " nature 

 of many a score of animals. 



A very good-iempered and handsome serval 

 was, until recently, living in a well-known Zoo- 

 logical Garden ; he was delightfully tame, taking 

 notice of anybody, and showing every sign of 

 delight when stroked. This animal may be taken 

 as illustrating Felis serval at its best, a big, 

 good-natured playfellow, full of animal spirits, and 

 as anxious to be noticed and petted as any dog 

 could be. It seemed that this individual had had 

 his misfortunes, judging from the crumpled state 

 of one ear, which was either malformed or had 

 sustained some injury ; nothing, however, appeared 

 to ruffle his sunny disposition, or to bate his 

 unabashed friendliness. In contrast to the 



