286 Wild Beasts 



mental development, was an unusually prominent trait in 

 his character. There were numbers of things to which he 

 paid no attention, but when an act attracted his notice 

 and was constantly performed, it appeared to require inves- 

 tigation, and he applied himself to the subject in a manner 

 quite different from that superior air with which ordinary 

 matters were regarded. Books amazed Gato. Nothing 

 could be made out with regard to them by means of scent 

 or sight : they were dead apparently, and not fit to eat. 

 What was in them that never came out ? Why should 

 they be watched so closely ? This -question he never 

 found any satisfactory answer to, and one might see that 

 it often perplexed him. When he was little, reading made 

 him jealous, and he put his paws on the page and invited 

 his friend to play. This mysterious occupation lost its 

 novelty in time, and the desire to romp passed away, but 

 frequently in after days when he observed his companion 

 turn towards the bookcase and get up, he escorted him to 

 the shelves, scrutinized the way in which he looked for a 

 volume, or turned over the leaves of several, and went back 

 to see if anything was at last coming to light about this 

 strange and constant occupation. 



Gato resolutely refused to learn English. Why he pre- 

 ferred Spanish, no one knows, but he did, and would only 

 respond to communications made in that tongue. Habit 

 and association had much to do with this, no doubt, but 

 there is reason to think that a distaste for our vernacular 

 was one of the many prejudices which, in a measure, de- 

 tracted from those qualities which embellished his char- 

 acter. His guardian discoursed to him at length ; taught 



