242 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES. 



escaped from the convents and mingled with the lowest 

 rabble to enter the arena unperceived, paupers pawned 

 their last coat to raise the requisite real. A similar en- 

 thusiasm often gathers round a victorious bull. The 

 chief advantage of the torero is not the clumsiness or 

 the good nature but the stupidity of the average toro. 

 A Catalan bull can dodge and turn like a cat, but, for all 

 that, can be taken in by tricks that would not fool a pig. 

 Practice, however, makes him a ticklish customer, and a 

 bull who has killed his man is in a fair way to become 

 himself a matador. " If bulls could be trained," says 

 the naturalist Azara, " they could be made as dangerous 

 as a horseman armed with a pitchfork. But some toros 

 contrive to train themselves, and the public love of ex- 

 citement is then gratified with a vengeance. In 1835, in 

 the midst of the civil war, a Barcelona bull became a 

 municipal idol, the object of a regular Apis-worship. 

 When he had killed five men and ten or twelve horses, 

 the yard around his stable was thronged with devotees, 

 though his keeper, fearing foul play, would admit no 

 stranger to the interior of the sanctuary. After his last 

 victory on the festival of San Antonio, the crowd went 

 almost crazy with excitement, under deafening cheers 

 and a continual shout of " Bollos por el toro /" — " Cakes 

 for the bull ;" a libation of reals came down like a shower, 



suspended, and the population of Birmingham formed a ring, while the 

 mayor held the stakes. The cat won in two rounds." (JVew York Weekly 

 Herald.) 



