LIFE AT THE ZOO 
THE ZOO IN A FROST 
Sudden and severe cold, however trying to human 
constitutions, seems almost harmless to animal health, 
provided the weather be dry, frosty, and undimmed 
by fog. On the last Friday of November 1893, the 
thermometer fell so rapidly that in a few hours it 
registered sixteen degrees below freezing-point. On 
the following morning, though the sun was shining 
brightly, every pool and pond was sheeted with ice, 
and the gravel walks were as hard as granite. Yet at 
the Zoological Gardens, birds and beasts from tropical 
or semi-tropical regions, such as Burmah, Assam, 
Malacca, and Brazil, were abroad and enjoying the 
keen air ; and others, which are usually invisible and 
curled up in their sleeping apartments till late in the 
day, were already abroad, sniffing at the frost and 
icicles, and as indifferent to the cold as Mr. Samuel 
Weller’s polar bear “ven he was a-practising his 
skating.” A visit to the Gardens in such weather 
