240 
ANIMAL CURIOSITIES 
authority over their fellows with such success 
that they are invariably treated with the 
greatest respect. It is true that fear is chiefly 
responsible for producing such a submissive 
frame of mind on the part of the subjects 
towards their overlords, and in the case of the 
king snake and king cobra discretion certainly 
proves to be the better part of valour, for if 
other snakes, be they venomous or otherwise, 
get in their way, they are promptly eaten up 
alive. 
Athletes and acrobats are to be met with 
in many forms of animal life, the monkeys, 
and especially the arboreal apes known as 
gibbons, displaying the most wonderful agility 
in their movements. Kangaroos and jerboas 
are endowed with remarkable powers of jump¬ 
ing, while in the lower members of the animal 
creation we have examples in the locusts, 
grasshoppers, crickets, frog-hoppers and fleas 
which far outstrip the efforts of the greatest 
human athlete in their leaping powers. 
The flea is able to leap two hundred times 
its own length, and it has been computed 
that if a man six feet in height were able to 
achieve a similar performance he could leap 
from Bow Church in Cheapside right over the 
top of St. Paul’s Cathedral and land at the 
bottom of Ludgate Hill. The frog-hopper, 
