116 A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS 



across seas to the Zoo, allowed to live an almost 

 free and natural life (except that he sometimes had 

 treats of lemonade, and was occasionally experimented 

 on with a cigar) in a large garden. For food he had 

 fruit and vegetables and rice, and every evening as a 

 peculiar treat I gave him a few grasshoppers. Now 

 there is a grasshopper of this country whose colours 

 at once proclaim with emphasis that, like Socrates 

 among men, it is not like its fellows. Instead of being 

 green or brown as most grasshoppers are, so as to 

 avoid being seen, it is black, with lurid red crossbands 

 on its body and glaring yellow blotches on its fore- 

 wings, so that it is about as conspicuous an object as 

 a harlequin would be at a funeral. When you touch 

 it, it begins to dribble out a pungent evil-smelling 

 froth, and then you begin to suspect that its colours 

 are meant to advertise this unpleasant fact to all whom 

 it may concern. At anyrate, I resolved to see if my 

 little bear's interpretation of the matter accorded with 

 my own, so one evening I offered him one of these 

 blazer " grasshoppers, whose name I may mention 

 is Aularches miliaris. One smell was enough to 

 make him turn his upper lip inside out in the most 

 comical way. In a short time I again offered him the 

 insect, and then he stood up on his hind legs and 

 smacked it out of my hand with his paw in exactly 

 the same way as he used always to treat the offer 

 of a lighted cigar. I several times afterwards brought 



