A JANUARY DAY AT REGENTS PARK. 27 



exciting circumstances, with their dinners in their sight, 

 they displayed none of the fierce eagerness so common 

 among the feline race when they see or smell their 

 food, and they took the meat with even less haste than 

 my own pet cat exhibits when the food is to his taste, 

 and he happens to feel hungry. 



Should, however, the animal be of a vicious and 

 impracticable disposition, the keeper only seems to be 

 amused at the various exhibitions of cross-grained 

 temper, and laughs good-humouredly at every growl, 

 or attempted assault. 



Perhaps the reader may have remarked in the 

 course of this slight sketch of a very wide subject, the 

 apparent absence of all rule regarding the capability of 

 any animal to resist the effects of cold weather and a 

 strange climate. It is easy enough to understand 

 that the beaver and the polar bear could be quite 

 happy on a frosty day, and that the lions, tigers, and 

 leopards would need protection against the chilling 

 atmosphere. But it was hardly to be expected that the 

 camel, which is essentially the 'ship of the desert,' 

 made to endure long thirst and to pace for weeks over 

 the burning sand, should walk about quite at its ease 

 upon frozen soil, and drink from a trough in which 

 the ice was thickly gathered. This phenomenon will 

 perhaps give some idea of the difficulties attendant 

 upon acclimatizing the denizen of a strange soil, inas- 

 much as it is quite impossible to treat one animal on 

 a system derived from the management of another 



