8 
THE ZOO IN A FROST 
in Europe. In form it is almost like a large gazelle, 
with lyre-shaped horns, a golden fawn-coloured skin, 
of perfectly uniform tone, set off by large and brilliant 
black eyes. This antelope was unusually active and 
friendly, standing on its slender hind feet, and reaching 
its head up to be caressed and fed. 
In the open paddocks and runs of the smaller deer 
and wild-fowl, there was great good-temper and con- 
tent. The Japanese deer were all curled up sleeping 
in the cold air round their food-box, which was filled 
with chopped straw, bran, and oats, and swarming 
with impudent Zoo sparrows. These little robbers, 
as also the Zoo starlings, are in such good case from 
the abundance of food left at their disposal by the 
fastidious strangers in the cages and paddocks, that, 
like the owls during the plagues of mice on the 
Pampas, they defy the weather and the seasons, and 
marry and bring up irregular families irrespective 
of the almanac. Dozens of them, as well as many of 
the starlings, had selected this particular cold, morning 
of all others to take a bath. The gradually sloping 
drinking-pools in most of the runs, especially the 
tortoises’ baths, which have a wide shallow entrance, 
exactly suit their wants. Many were washing and 
splashing in the pools in the swine runs, while others 
were drying themselves in rows on the sunny wall 
above the styes, with an immense amount of fuss and 
vulgarly loud conversation. 
The gulls were particularly noisy, and playing at a 
new game with bits of ice, which they picked up from 
