EXPLANATION OF THE FRONTISPIECE. 



Upon the Surrey side of the Waterloo Bridge, 

 London, may be daily seen a cage, about five feet 

 square, containing the Quadrupeds and Birds which 

 are represented in the Frontispiece. The keeper of 

 this collection, John Austin, states that he has employ- 

 ed seventeen years in this business of training creatures 

 of opposite natures to live together in content and 

 affection. And those years have not been unprofitably 

 employed. It is not too much to believe that many a 

 person who has given his half-penny to look upon this 

 shew, may have had his mind awakened to the extra- 

 ordinary effects of habit and of gentle discipline, when 

 he has thus seen the cat, the rat, the mouse, the hawk, 

 the rabbit, the guinea-pig, the owl, the pigeon, the 

 starling, the sparrow, the rook, and the fox, each en- 

 joying, as far as can be enjoyed in confinement, its 

 respective mode of life, in the company of the others 

 ^j-the weak without fear, and the strong without the 

 desire to injure. It is impossible to imagine any 

 prettier exhibition of kindness than is here shewn ; 

 the rabbit and the pigeon playfully contending for a 

 lock of hay to make up their nests ; the sparrow 

 sometimes perched on the head of the cat, and some- 

 times on that of the owl ; and the mice playing 

 about with perfect indifference to the presence of the 

 cat, hawk, or owl. See Library of Entertaining 

 Knowledge. 



