234 WILD ANIMAL CELEBRITIES 



sea lions perform, and — what was much more 

 interesting and valuable to me — to see how 

 they were made to learn their tricks and obey 

 their instructor. 



Captain "Woodward taught these animals to 

 beat drums at certain moments, to play musi- 

 cal instruments of various kinds; to balance 

 billiard balls on the tops of cues, and to walk 

 across the floor while balancing them; to 

 catch and toss, and catch again, conical shaped 

 hats, and various other things; all of which 

 was truly wonderful. One sea lion was par- 

 ticularly quick in learning tricks, and an ex- 

 cellent performer, but the difficulty with him 

 was to make him understand which trick he 

 was wanted to perform. 



"With all performing wild animals, this is 

 always the most difficult thing to make the 

 animals understand. It is impossible to ex- 

 plain, or tell in words what one wants done to 

 a creature who does not even understand the 

 human language. The only thing to do is to 

 always perform one trick after the other in 

 regular rotation, never varying the perform- 



