REMINISCENCES FROM THE MELBOURNE ZOO. 
197 
So, for some little time, there is some good team work done, and solid 
progress is made. But as soon as the head of the colony is satisfied that 
they are really busy at the base, he goes further afield, and as he works 
always with his back to the crowd, he is unable to see them dropping 
out of the ranks one by one, and again his first intimation of something 
wrong is the calm of inertia that has superseded the bustle of prepara- 
tion. When he again discovers a wonderfully happy family as sportively 
at play as though that were the business of life, he rushes with a scream 
of anger into the midst of the merry-makers, and under the lash of his 
caustic tongue the trifiers again make a spasmodic effort to please him. 
They work this time desperately, for they feel that even work is prefer- 
able to his tirades against their utter shiftlessness, their blank ingrati- 
tude, their beastly selfishness, and the hideous injustice of leaving the 
whole of the gigantic task to him when it is for the benefit of all. Then 
he wanders still further away, and in the heat of anger he gathers out- 
rageously big mounds and viciously sends them back, with a savage kick 
first from one foot and then from another, as if he is thus relieving his 
feelings, and does not care a straw whether the wide circle he is making 
means extra work for the lazy ones at the back or not. 
This goes on until he has collected enough leaves to make the solid 
foundation. Then he comes back, and, as if in disdain, he tells them 
all if they will insist on playing when they should be working for their 
living, they might at least dance upon the mound of leaves and save him 
the job. He watches them grimly as they work under his supervision, 
without giving them one-half a chance to pause for breath, let alone for 
recreation. When he is satisfied that they have trodden it down enough, 
he does the next important bit himself. Their intelligences are not suffi- 
ciently acute for him to trust even to their assistance in anything requir- 
ing skill, so he gathers up by himself all the surface soil in the immediate 
vicinity and flings it on top of the heap of leaves, which have been trodden 
into something like a symmetrical shape. This earth is carefully spread 
all over the leaves, and then trodden down again. Another layer of 
leaves, and another of earth follow, in proper order, until the mound is 
about five feet high and twelve feet in circumference at the base. From 
start to finish he never ceases scolding and fussing like a bad-tempered 
old woman with a crowd of idle and careless children, so that this period 
is a most trying one for all concerned. He inspects the finished mound 
with the minutest care, flattens it somewhat on top, and then goes down, 
and in the course of a dozen trips around the base, scrapes up every odd 
leaf that happens to be lying about, and thus making everything as tidy 
as even an old maid could wish. With his strange foreknowledge of 
coming changes of weather, he has calculated that the mound will just 
