266 ANIMAL ARTISANS 



funny or amusing, and is as uncomfortable as a 

 Chinese lady trying to walk across a rice-field. 

 Puffins rank high among the comic birds. Their 

 " make-up," which is that of a City waiter, is enhanced 

 by the big red and yellow bill, which is set on like a 

 Guy Fawkes mask. Young puffins, which have not 

 developed this adjunct to " facial expression," are far 

 less ludicrous to look upon, and have none of the 

 exaggerated inspector-like air of their seniors. 



The Japanese artists, who have a fine sense of the 

 ludicrous in Nature, but usually read in some portion 

 of human wit into their studies of animal life, show 

 a proper appreciation of the comicality of the crab. 

 They cast bronze crabs in all attitudes, the most 

 effective being the enraged crab sticking up his 

 pinching claws in a position of defence. If their 

 mechanical skill also allowed of a clockwork move- 

 ment by which the crab could be depicted retreating 

 sideways, with his claws raised and snapping, these 

 works of art would be perfect illustrations of the 

 comic side of submarine life. 



The element of comicality is distributed among 

 animals of the same species in a curiously arbitrary 

 fashion. All the bears, for instance, are comic except 

 the polar bear, which is only amusing when taking 

 its bath. No grown-up dogs, on the other hand, are 

 comical except the Dutch pug, which, being fat, 

 goggle-eyed, asthmatic, and consequential, caricatures 

 the pig, and suggests a human being of similar 

 tendencies. But comicality depends quite as much 

 on action or on demeanour as on shape. The giraffe's 



