A WALK ROUND THE ZOO 261 



I can vouch for the child who said when going 

 home in the train from the Zoo, ' Mother, what a 

 job God must have had to make an elephant.' 

 There is that other story of the child who thought 

 the making of grasshoppers must have been 

 ' niggling work.' What, we wonder, would those 

 two have said if they had seen the Tasmanian wolf ? 



We will not go home just yet. Some of our 

 beasts are of twilight habit, and the best time to 

 see them is rather late on a winter afternoon. 

 Then will the kinkajou come forth from its possum- 

 like slumber and peer about and even climb about 

 its cage. Then will that even more interesting 

 animal, the aye -aye, timidly show itself, and 

 exhibit the marvellous adaptation of its special 

 finger by extracting its supper from a marrow 

 bone. Marrow is not a bad substitute for the 

 wood-boring insects which it extracts with its 

 astonishingly specialized finger from their auger- 

 holes in the trees of Madagascar. There would be 

 many other interesting things to see at the Zoo 

 if one could stay after the gardens are closed on 

 the departing public. What an experience it 

 would be to spend the night there when lions, 

 wolves, owls, and other fearsome and uncanny 

 night marauders really feel their pristine instincts ! 



