WILD BEASTS BEHIND THE BARS 
221 
back and forth ; will note how one animal 
makes an observation and how the others 
take it up until every cranny of the build- 
ing is echoing with hollow, full-throated 
roars which shake the very roof, and have 
the same effect upon the ear drums as the 
thunder of heavy guns. This is a thing 
they never do unless they fancy themselves 
to be alone. You will learn to distinguish 
between the voices of the animals. The 
reverberant rolling chest-notes of one, more 
like the bellow of an ocean liner's siren 
than anything else, given with head lowered 
to let the sound carry and all the force of 
the mighty lungs from which, as one keeper 
remarked, an opera singer could get many 
points worth studying. The deep grunting 
bark of another, which comes in as a finale 
to his particular solo and which is never 
uttered unless a certain tawny beauty has 
spoken first. The harsh mew of the tiger, 
like the mew of a very hoarse cat, several 
times magnified and with all the plaintive- 
ness left out, which expresses a desire for 
sympathy and something to eat, but which 
sounds to a casual audience more like a 
menace and a warning. 
But no matter to what pass a lion is 
brought in solitary confinement, with how- 
ever little exercise, you will never see him 
act as does a bear in like condition. Watch 
one of these latter for half an hour ; note 
the side-to-side rocking of the heavy body, 
moving only from the shoulders, the swing 
of the hanging head. You will first get to 
understand what it means, and then realize 
that it is no very pleasant sight. An ele- 
phant is the only other animal possessing 
this peculiarity of action ; but then an ele- 
phant has another reason for it. For a lion 
is too proud to so display his feelings be- 
EXASPERATION. 
fore the world. He is a stoic : what Fate 
sends he accepts as best he may, without 
cringing — until his limit is reached ; until 
mutinous nerves are keyed too tight. Then 
he revolts against that Fate ; and then his 
keepers say he has gone bad. But before 
his time — which perhaps does not arrive 
for many years — the lion plays his part of 
a noble captive well. One cannot beat one's 
head always against the bars ; the process 
becomes wearisome. So he acquires phi- 
losophy. Yet under it, all his old instincts 
are ever with him ; dormant it may be, 
lulled to sleep by the stagnation of his ex- 
istence, but ready to wake to savage life 
on smallest provocation. 
All captive wild beasts may be divided 
into two classes : those who make the best 
of life as they find it and those who do not. 
Generally speaking, of the former class are 
most lions; of the latter, all tigers. A 
— AND HOW THE OTHERS TAKE IT UP. 
