The poor wretch even dodged about to get
behind the shadow of the keeper who went into
the den, so as to get that functionary's body
and limbs between itself and the light. Poor
obsolete creature, rarely found upon the surface
of the world, belonging to a species fast dying
out, and which almost ought to be extinct, it
shuns the light and loves the shade and retirement
as some unlucky person who has survived
his age and cannot adapt himself to the new
state of things might keep himself out of the
way of the new generation and its rapid
progress. "Here, let me get away out of this
glare," says the poor aptoryx, "I am not of this
period; I know I ought to be extinct; I can't
move with the age; I don't approve of the
present goings on; they don't suit me. Not that
I wish to interfere or prevent your moving on
as you like, but please to let me keep out of it
all—for it's not in my line, and, if you'll allow
me, I'll get back again behind my screen, and
end my days out of sight and out of mind."

The grove of parrots starts at first sight of
the lantern into such a bristling phalanx of
glaring, shrieking, bobbing, vengeful demons,
that our adventurers do not spend many seconds
in their society, but, owning themselves
vanquished, fly off into the darkness again, leaving
this whole army of malignants in full screech of
triumph behind them, and betaking themselves
to the region where the beaver, busy in the
night, is like some country gentleman for ever
occupied with the "improvements" in and
about his small estate.

For, there never was such a fidget as your
beaver. Talk about human manias for bricks
and mortar; talk about throwing out bows,
making new paths through the woods, flinging
up slight conservatories, or knocking your
passage into your dining-room; these human
weaknesses are nothing to the alterations which the
beaver is perpetually making in his estate, and
apparently simply for the sake of making them.
It is quite impossible not to envy the obvious
sense of enjoyment with which this rascal crawls
over the top of his house to where some bough
which has made part of his thatch, does not meet
his approval, and taking one end of it into his
mouth, drags it after him till he gets to the
edge of his pond, into which he allows himself
to tumble, bough and all, with a lazy flop.
Would that the poor aptoryx could have such
sport as that beaver when he swims round the
pond with the end of the bough still in his mouth,
and presently dragging it out of the water again,
tries how it will look on the other side of his
roof. This beaver seems perpetually happy.
He has constructed his own abode with
materials thrown over into his enclosure, and goes
on thus reconstructing and altering it for ever.
The superintendent communicates it to 1st
Gentleman, who retails it to 2nd, and so on,
that this beaver is so fond of his house that
though he managed on one occasion to get out
of his enclosure and down to the banks of the
neighbouring canal in the dead of the night, he
was yet found next morning back in his legitimate
domain, and working away at his
"improvements" as hard as ever. He is a lively
chap at night, and was not the least disconcerted
by the presence of the party gathered
round him, but was, on the contrary, so
tremendously busy in doing nothing and then
undoing it again, still keeping his eye upon the
four gentlemen who had come to see him, that
3rd Gentleman was heard at last to remark to
4th Gentleman that he "looked upon this
animal as an impostor, and believed he was
doing it all for effect."

In the due course of such rapid changes of
country and climate as our adventurers are at
this time subject to, it is not long before they
come to a region where snakes and reptiles
writhe and twist and stand erect, glaring
malignantly at the intruders on their solitude, and at
the unwonted blaze of lamp-light that comes
with them. Festooned boas hang like tropical
plants above them, reptiles with legs crawl out
and watch them with erect heads, and small
malignant dust-coloured vipers stand upon the
tips of their tails and gasp envenomed breath,
against them.

Was it a dream—2nd Gentleman and 4th
Gentleman were now getting very sleepy, and it
might have been—was it a dream that one of
the guides about this time remarked, pulling out
a small heavy bag from a place of concealment,
that he had got a few mice there, and that,
perhaps, some of the reptiles might be on the feed?
Was it a dream that he presently dived down
into this bag, and, fishing up a little white mouse
by the tail, introduced it into the den of a
fearfully wide awake and restless dragon, with four
legs, and a tail, and a pair of watchful eyes? It
must have been a dream—it was too horrible to
be anything else—that this little creature ran to
the farthest corner of the den from that occupied
by the dragon, and that anon, finding itself
unmolested—for the dragon was too much
occupied with our four gentlemen to take any notice
of his small guest—came out and began to
play about in the close vicinage of its tormentor,
who evidently had his eye upon it, even while
he appeared to be watching his human visitors.
Yes; this was evidently a dream, and (dream-
like) there was no termination to it; the mouse
and the monster being left thus together, the
mouse playing and the monster watching, without
seeming to do so, out of the corner of his
eye. Stop; perhaps the mouse got out afterwards
through the bars; there seemed to be
room. Thank goodness, there seemed to be
room.

There is no worse place to dream in, than the
Zoological Gardens. Gentleman No. 2 dreamed
about this time, and so did No. 4, that a voice
said once again, "Perhaps this one will take a
mouse"—"this one" being the wretch who
stood upon the end of his tail. The mouse was
again handed in alive, and then both the above-
mentioned gentlemen dreamed of a crunch, and
then of a white mouse slowly disappearing down
a throat not anything like so large as the object
it swallowed, and they dreamed further that at