LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC TASTE. 139 



after one or two retreats, he at last came fairly up to the 

 tin dish, not a move from the baboon. Crow gobbled 

 down a bit, and looked suspiciously round, still all was 

 safe. Again a mouthful was bolted ; then, as if satisfied 

 that it had entirely mistaken the character of the hairy 

 little creature about whom he had been suspicious, but 

 Avho was really at heart a very generous fellow, the bird 

 dived its beak well amongst the good things. An attentive 

 observer might now see the hair on the back of the baboon 

 rising up in a very curious way, while his body seemed to 

 be slightly writhing. Suddenly, with one spring, he was 

 upon the bird, who had scarcely time to open its wings. 

 With a chorus of triumphant barks he held the crow by 

 the neck, while he swung it about at arm's length, so that 

 any expostulating " caw " that might have been uttered 

 was strangled before it could be circulated, like a disloyal 

 article in a continental newspaper. No one could say of 

 this bird that it carried out the corvine principle, and 



" died as slow, 



As the morning mists down the hill that go." 



For the whole business was over in half a minute, after 

 which several feathers were pulled out, and the carrion 

 then flung away, as a scare and warning to all other 

 hungry crows. The baboon then finished his dinner with 

 a very satisfied air. 



His literary taste was the cause of his being a chained 

 prisoner, as, rambling one day into a hut near, he drank 

 a bottle of ink, ate a box of wafers, and was found by 

 the owner studying the watch-making practised by " Dent, 

 London." When we consider that this baboon was not 



