A WALK ROUND THE ZOO 255 



enough. We pass next to the wolves, a neglected 

 section which signifies its indignation at neglect 

 by frequent combined howlings. It requires a 

 little imagination to appreciate the wolves. They 

 look amiable and harmless enough with their 

 doggy faces and gently retrousse noses as they 

 trot rather prettily round their cages. Imagination 

 has been helped somewhat by the christening of the 

 finest pair of timber wolves Lobo and Blanca, 

 after the famous heroes of Mr. Thompson Seton. 

 Somehow it is the rough, long hair of the back 

 near the shoulder that makes me see in the captive 

 wolf all at once a bolt of terror with jaws like a 

 steel trap, as those who have fought wild wolves 

 declare they are. When I look at that roughly 

 parted coarse hair on the shoulder, I can see the 

 muscles play under it as the beast hunches itself 

 in constantly accelerated speed and hurls itself 

 open- jawed on its prey. 



In the lion house hard by is a swifter animal 

 than the wolf, the cheetah. It is a perfect 

 caricature of speed the head no bigger than the 

 neck, the forearm inordinately long and straight, 

 a hump above the clavicle as though when the 

 animal was extended that portion of the leg 

 would telescope out and add further to the length 

 of stride. There is not nearly room for the cheetah 

 to stretch its limbs. It stands and looks out, with 

 its queer baby face marked with big black tear- 

 stains down the side of its nose, waiting for feeding- 

 time. When its joint is pushed through the bars 



