YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO 
215 
setter’s coat. The cow, like the bull, is white, with 
black points, but the horns curve upwards. Between 
the two stands the little bull-calf, a perfect miniature 
of its father, except that the horns are only budding. 
It has the same black muzzle and ear-tips ; even its 
tongue is black, and the black and lustrous eye is 
shaded by thick, straight white lashes, like rims of hoar- 
frost. Deer and antelopes breed freely at the Zoo. The 
eland calf has a short body, more like that of a young 
colt, with long legs, and the hump upon the back 
undeveloped. All the elands are in fine condition, and 
might be propagated to stock our English parks ; but 
as an ornament they cannot compare with the indi- 
genous wild cattle of the Chillingham or Chartley 
herds. Both the wild ass and the zebra had young 
ones. The young wild ass was a pretty, playful creature, 
with a coat like grey velvet ; but the infant zebra was 
perhaps the greater favourite with the visitors to the 
Zoo. It exactly resembled its mother in colour, and 
in the distinctness and arrangement of the stripes, but 
it was far lighter and finer in its proportions. With a 
luxurious instinct for comfort, the little creature usually 
lay asleep upon the light-green hay which the mother 
pulls from the rack above — a background which 
contrasted admirably with its rich sepia and cream- 
coloured stripes. 
But the pride and flower of all the youth of the Zoo 
is the young hippopotamus. As it lies on its side, with 
eyes half closed, its square nose like the end of a bolster 
tilted upwards, its little fat legs stuck out straight at 
