Behind Iron Bars 



well the dignity of the forest monarchs 

 there interned. The savage Bengal 

 brutes with grinning mouths are lead- 

 ing the sad parade of all the demons of 

 unrest. The lions now grown quarrel- 

 some, snap at a keeper as he passes by. 

 The panthers, too, reveal their fangs 

 and call defiantly, and leopards swell 

 the rising and falling fanfare of feline 

 infelicity. 



I have studied also that giraffe in 

 his endless travels round and round 

 his narrow stall. It is a "one-way 

 street" with him. At least he is always 

 going in the same direction; never re- 

 versing his course. As he makes his 

 rounds he chews his cud, and now and 

 then stops, with his head of course up 

 there somewhere near the roof, to con- 

 template the scene below. Aviators 

 of the upper air haven't much on him 

 as observaticnists. He hasn't a great 

 big brain box, and so far as I have been 

 able to diagnose his mental state, does 

 not seem to be worrying whether he is 

 [i3Sl 



