SOME OF OUR PETS. 31 



secuting the poor prisoner, and on seeing it we no 

 longer wondered at the latter's careworn looks. Jacob 

 would come up to his box, and make defiant and 

 insulting noises at him — ^none could do this better than 

 he — until the imbecile curiosity of fowls prompted the 

 victim to protrude his head and neck through the bars ; 

 then, before he had time to draw back, Jacob's foot 

 would come down with a vicious dab on his head. The 

 foolish creature never seemed to learn wisdom by ex- 

 perience, though he must have been nearly stunned 

 many times, and his head all but knocked off by Jacob's 

 great powerful foot and leg ; yet as often as the foe 

 challenged him, his poor simple face would look in- 

 quiringly out, only to meet another buffet. As he 

 would not take care of himself, we had to move him 

 into a safe place ; where he no longer died daily, and 

 was able at last to fulfil his destiny by becoming respect- 

 ably fat. 



One day T returned from bathing, his Turkish 



towel, instead of being as usual filled with blue lotus 

 for the dining- table, showing very evident signs of 

 living contents ; and two of the queerest little birds 

 came tumbling out of it. They were young dikkops, 

 a little covey of which he had surprised near his 

 bathing-place. They possessed very foolish, vacant 

 faces ; and their large, round, bright yellow eyes were 

 utterly void of expression, just as if a bird-stuffer had 

 furnished them with two pairs of glass eyes many sizes 

 too large. Their great thick legs, on the enormously 

 swollen-looking knee-joints of which they squatted in 



