REMINISCENCES FROM THE MELBOURNE ZOO. 
123 
until he was successful, and then he found himself in the midst of ten 
or twelve poor old wrecks, who studied him as carefully as he inspected 
them. One of them was a very old pony, and he thought it would be the 
best to begin upon, so he made straight for its hocks, inflicting a sharp 
bite. In its astonishment the poor cripple jumped higher than it had 
done even as a frisky foal. That was quite satisfactory, so he turned 
his attention to a number of great old draught horses that had never put 
up the semblance of a canter since they were weaned. In less than flve 
minutes he had the whole yard of them rushing madly about as if they 
were panic-stricken race horses being chased by a mob of dogs. Before 
long the horses began to look upon the humorous side of things, and pon- 
dered whether they were not geese as well as their tormentor. They 
paused, badly winded, and appeared to enjoy the joke of their being so 
silly as to stampede; but the joke lost its point as the business-like beak 
caught one hind leg after another that was far too stiff to be lifted for 
a kick, and they showed signs of acute distress before the goose could 
be captured and tipped unceremoniously back, headlong, into the pond. 
He had not the smallest intention in the world of being “cabin’d, 
cribbed, confined” in such inglorious surroundings. He watched his 
opportunity, and got away by climbing the front bank. Then he sauntered 
past the Polar bears, but a cursory glance showed him it was scarcely 
worth his while wasting time over them. They were too securely barred 
in, and, besides, looked rather dangerous. He went on to inspect the 
Brahmin cattle, but decided he could do nothing much with them. The 
keepers were after him by this time, and so he dodged into the compound 
of the water buffaloes, though he liked them still less than the Indian 
cattle. Their heads were far too formidable, but it was a case of “any 
port in a storm.” He quickly got from there to the American bison. He 
walked around them slowly, scrutinising them carefully. The little calf 
seemed to be fairly tame, so he made a decisive move towards her, but she 
ran for safety to her mother, and that effectually finished the visitor’s little 
game. Thus baulked, he went further afield, and cut across country to 
the ostriches’ paddock, where there was a luxuriant growth of Cape weed. 
As he began grazing at once, the keepers thought he was quite out of 
mischief, and allowed him to remain there. These geese live entirely 
upon grass, and so the men argued that he would be so pre-occupied in 
this land of plenty that he would ignore any live inhabitant. But as soon 
as he had eaten enough to go on with, he turned his attention towards 
the ostriches, and then from his triumphant cackling the keepers knew 
there was fine mischief a-foot, and that he was far too happy to be vir- 
tuous. When they came upon the scene two great cowards were rushing 
madly around and around their paddock. The goose, however, was not 
