Page:The Strand Magazine (Volume 6).djvu/40

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ZIG-ZAGS AT THE ZOO.
39

a bite, will last him for ten minutes or a quarter of an hour.


That goose is sour.

These foxes—all of them—have a very irritating cause of bad temper to contend with in the existence of a fine pair of Chinese geese a few yards beyond the obstructive bars. The ordinary fox has arrived at a stoical attitude of indifference to the Chinese goose. He affects to believe that he is uneatable. The Chinese goose wears a black stripe behind his neck, rather suggestive of a pigtail; this the fox points out to his friends as evidence of uneatability, having learned the consolation from a relative who once had a fancy for grapes.

As for the wolf, the cause of man's hatred for him lies in the fact that a wolf nursed Romulus and Remus. If this malevolent creature had left them as they were, they would have been drowned in the Tiber. Thus Romulus would never have built Rome, and there would have been no Cæsar, no Dr. Smith's Smaller Roman History, no Principia Latina, and untold misery would have been spared many generations of long-suffering schoolboys. No wonder that the wolf is held in horror and detestation by all nations, and is exterminated mercilessly wherever found. Years of bitter tears, bitter Cæsar, bitter Accidence, bitter Smith's Smaller, and bitterest swish have left their scar upon the human soul, and roused up an hereditary and traditional hatred of the beast, but for whose malignant interference All Gaul would never have been divided in Three Parts; a hatred only second in its wild intensity to that of the snake who beguiled Eve. Consequently the wolf for ever wears his tail between his legs, as does every member of the canine kind unbeloved by man, which, by-the-bye, is a noticeable thing in itself, but obvious to everybody who shall compare those in this row.


A study in tails.

The most wonderful dog story on record, by the way, is that of Katmîr, the dog who was shut up with the Seven Sleepers. This faithful creature kept ceaseless watch over his masters without eating, drinking, or sleeping, for the trying period of 309 years. It is the most wonderful instance of a dog's fidelity I ever came across, and an excellent specimen of the dog story in several respects.

Speaking of facts, it is not generally