^6 ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



hangers-on are less often sought than found. Young 

 animals are naturally submissive. The " myth-making 

 propensity" of Monsieur Du Chaillu has perhaps been 

 exaggerated, but I cannot help thinking that the stories 

 about the uncompromising ferocity of his gorilla-babies 

 must be apocryphal. The one that died last year in 

 the Berlin aquarium-building was as playful as a child, 

 and far more long-suffering and resigned, — "placid as a 

 Hindoo," as Herr Behrens expressed it, and as, indeed, 

 all analogies would lead one to expect in an animal 

 whose anatomy, diet, and habitat are those of the vege- 

 tarian chimpanzee. Old orangs and chacma-baboons 

 are churlish customers, but their young ones make most 

 amiable pets ; young tapirs, in spite of their pig-like 

 stupidity, are by no means intractable; and I have often 

 wished to try my luck with a young grizzly, for I am 

 sure that jaguar-cubs can be made as tame as kittens. 

 I raised one whose diet had certainly nothing to do with 

 his gentleness, for I had nothing to give him but rats 

 and beef; but I kept him nearly a year and a half before 

 I ever knew him to hurt anybody intentionally; children 

 and strangers could tease him with impunity, and I 

 noticed that he always retracted his claws when the 

 house-dog engaged him in a sham fight. The young 

 of many animals, and especially of the feline species, 

 have a curious way of parading their submissiveness 

 by crawling to their master's feet, purring, and rubbing 

 against his knees, or turning over on their backs, — a 



