FOUND AT THE ZOO 307 



answer to a question, " Oh yes, it is always the right 

 claw that is bigger." He is roughly right, yet of his 

 four crabs there is one left-handed. " Why, so it is," 

 he says ; " I never noticed it before." 



Some have gone to the Zoo many times without 

 seeing the Tasmanian Devil. A short time ago the 

 label said there were three. As we passed then, there 

 came from within the shed blood-curling howls as the 

 Devils played together or quarrelled over their meal 

 of live babies or what not. Now the three is crossed 

 out, and a two put in its place, while one stiff-jointed, 

 big-headed, blear-eyed, bored, dog-like creature totters 

 out from the shed and stretches himself in the sun 

 that flecks his yard. Poor Tasmanian Devil ! How 

 fallen from the picture we had of him when, out of 

 sight, he contributed to that chorus of really horrible 

 howls. 



After such disillusionment we hardly dare go and 

 see the Tasmanian wolf. He is asleep as usual, but a 

 keeper consents to call him. Gasping a shriek of pro- 

 test, he bounds out. That monosyllabic yelp is ten 

 times more thrilling than even the howls of the Devils. 

 It hangs in the memory like the last cry of a drowning 

 man. And this time the creature matches his howl 

 uncommonly well. He might be the caricature of a 

 wolf executed in clay by some artist of India whose 

 art we know leans towards the horrible. He is a 

 gaunt wolf, a long-bodied wolf, with long sharp jaws, 

 large eyes whose mildness instead of detracting from 

 his fierceness adds to it. Then, having made this 

 wolf in the likeness of Chiche-vache for lean voracity, 

 the artist has added the cruel treachery of the hyena 

 by painting stripes across its loins. Only take care, 



