A DAY IN THE LONDON ZOO. 



During my stay in London, I used to 

 spend a great part of my spare time at 

 the Zoo, watching the different animals 

 and their queer ways. It was while 

 there one warm spring day that the 

 events I am about to relate occurred. 



My cousin took particular delight in 

 the duck pond and no visit was com- 

 plete unless we at once went to say 

 good-morning to the, ducks. It was an 

 odd sight to watch Dick. He would lie 

 flat on his face, his great length of limb 

 stretched out on the soft grass, and 

 there he would stay and talk to the 

 ducks — regular baby-talk it was, too. 

 We came to know all the little web- 

 footed kingdom very well and one old 

 drake would eat out of our hands, which 

 we considered quite a compliment and 

 were duly proud thereof. 



On this particular morning the har- 

 mony of the beautiful sunshiny day was 

 rudely broken in upon by the discordant 

 jar of human voices quarreling. Dick 

 groaned. ''What a fine old world it 

 would be if it weren't for the people 

 in it!" he exclaimed. We looked up to 

 see a man and his wife wrangling over 

 their small son, a boy of some four years. 

 Possibly the child was used tO' it, for he 

 improved the opportunity to scare every 

 duck he came near. But when he 

 came to our drake and cried "shoo !" at 

 him, Mr. Drake flapped his great wings 

 and uttered a most terrifying ''hiss-s-s." 

 With a frightened cry the child turned 

 to run away but the drake pursued the 

 flying white figure, and by chance, 

 caught the end of his beautiful red sash. 

 The change from their seriousness to 

 the ridiculous, was too much for the 

 boy's parents and they burst into laugh- 

 ter as they saw their young hopeful with 

 the drake in tow at the end of a yard 

 or more of streaming red ribbon. 



Dick laughed. "Well," he said, "we 

 seem to have been the cause of averting 

 a family volcano though with no malice 

 aforethought, I am sure." "Come," he 

 added, "I suppose as you came to see 



the ducks with me I must go to see the 

 monkeys with you." 



I never tired of playing with the 

 monkeys. Dick made uncomplimen- 

 tary remarks about "the missing link 

 at last being discovered" for, he af- 

 firmed, the monkeys regarded me as 

 quite one of themselves. 



On this day I handed my pencil to a 

 particularly bright little monkey who 

 very carelessly dropped it, and when I 

 stooped to pick it up for him he grabbed 

 my hair and pulled it hard and gleefully. 

 I didn't mind a bit as my hair has the 

 peculiarity of not hurting when pulled, 

 but I concluded that "he laughs best 

 who laughs last," and waited my turn 

 patiently. I was well amused with the 

 antics of my little friend, who, the pen- 

 cil recovered, had sprung into the top- 

 most branches of the tree (which was in 

 the cage), and was hugging his new- 

 found plaything to his heart, or holding 

 it up, critically regarding it with his wise 

 little head on one side. After some 

 time he jumped down from limb to limb, 

 and held out the pencil for me to take, 

 but seeing I made no effort to take it, 

 he dropped it outside of the cage ex- 

 pecting to have the fun of again pulling 

 my hair. This was my opportunity. So, 

 pretending I had quite forgotten his 

 trick, I leaned forward stretching out 

 my left hand; but as the monkey 

 grabbed at my hair, my right hand shot 

 out and I caught his forearm in a tight 

 hold. I had expected to hear him cry 

 out, but not a bit of it. He sat there 

 regarding me with his bright eyes in the 

 funniest way imaginable. "Now, I've 

 got you," I said, and began to smooth 

 his paw and talk to him as I did so. And 

 there that monkey sat, perfectly happy 

 and content, his eyes half shut, blinking 

 sleepily at me. And when at last I had 

 smoothed him long enough, to my mind, 

 the monkey thought differently and 

 stuck out his paw for more. But he 

 saw it was of no use. I was just turn- 

 ing away when he pulled the pencil in 



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