76 
THE LION HOUSE AT THE ZOO 
though assured that the animal could not move, he 
would not see it or have the door unclosed. A year 
later he himself was dead, by no one more regretted 
than by the keepers of the Zoo. 
The paragon of the Lion House at the present 
moment is the snow leopard. It is a most lovely 
creature, and deserves all the praises lavished on it. 
It is exactly like a grey but spotted Angora cat, six 
feet long from its pink nose to the tip of its bushy 
tail, and of an exquisite pearly tint, just dashed and 
spotted with black. Its eyes, liquid and large, with 
swimming black pupils, are the colour of a greenish- 
grey aqua-marine, and its expression as gentle as its 
ways. It was a lady’s pet in India, and still remains 
the same gentle, aristocratic, languid creature that it 
was when the favourite of the cc Mem Sahib’s ” drawing- 
room. Its neighbour, the pure black leopard from 
Singapore, sent to England by the Duke of New- 
castle, is a strange contrast in colour and character. 
It is so ferocious, that when let loose in the cage it 
sprang at the bars with such force as to bulge the 
steel netting with which they had been covered, by 
the mere shock of contact with its head. It sulks day 
and night, and is no more admirable in appearance 
than a morose and gigantic black tom-cat. 
