the ones with the longest

playing off practical jokes upon one another, tails appearing to be a source of endless humor to those that have not so much tail to be pulled. I have seen one of them coil his tail round the neck of another, and drag him about the cage until he was nearly strangled, — which could hardly have been a joke to one of the parties in the transaction. The young folks take great delight in watching the gambols of these restless creatures, who accept eagerly the bits of apple or cracker offered them. Once, I remember, when a little girl had given a piece of cake to a very gentlemanly-looking monkey with long red whiskers and a bald head, an old lady remarked, with a toss of her chin, "Well, I guess the fellow might have said 'Thank you,' anyways!" She was evidently so impressed with his resemblance to a human being as to have forgotten that monkeys do not possess the gift of speech.

That ball of yellow fur, rolled up in a corner of a cage, is the singular creature called the kinkajou, or mico-leon. The latter name is Spanish, and means "monkey-lion," although the kinkajou has nothing in common with either of those animals. He is a native of the South American forests, where he lives mostly in trees, through the branches of which he travels with great agility, swinging himself from branch to branch with his long, grasping tail. He bears a rather unfavorable reputation, being much addicted to making raids upon the neighboring hen-roosts, when the inmates of the farm-houses are wrapped in slumber. Like the bear, he is very fond of honey, and makes terrible havoc among the stores of the wild bee. The kinkajou sleeps all day, but is very active and lively at night; and if he would only uncoil himself now, you would see that he is a creature of about the size of a cat, and that he has a very long tail, a small round face, a black nose, and queer little blinking eyes.

A finer eagle than any of those that we have seen outside is this brown and white one, standing majestically upon a rock in the centre of his cage. This is the harpy, a South American eagle of great strength and ferocity. Observe the immense power of his yellow legs and claws. The feathers on the back of his head are long and loose, and he erects them, every now and then, so that, in certain positions, they give him the aspect of a huge horned owl. See how his dark eyes flash as

he seems to catch a glimpse of some imaginary prey! Perhaps he is circling, in fancy, high in air over the morasses of far Surinam, watching his oppor tunity for a swoop down upon some stray beast or bird of that tropical region. There is a ceaseless din here among the cages, a mingling of the voices of monkeys and parrots; for it is by these that most of the noise

is made in such collections as this. The parrots, you will see, are in great variety of size and color, green and red prevailing in the plumage of most of them, however, and they are all remarkable for their loud, harsh voices. The most attractive among them are these lemon-crested cockatoos, who look so bright and fresh in their clean white garb. One of these is an old resident of the Park, and has become very impudent and familiar. He is continually hinting, in a cracked, husky, old voice, that "Polly wants a cracker"; and when he gets one he holds it in his claw in a very human way, and looks at it, with his head on one side, after every bite. The children seem to be on very good terms with this cunning old bird, who gives gymnastic entertainments for

their amusement, -going down the

bars of his cage head-foremost, with the assistance of his beak, and performing several wonderful feats of posturing and tumbling.

The storks - a pair of graceful birds with bright red bills, and long, slender legs of the same color do not seem to be quite so happy here as they are in the summer-time, when they are allowed to roam at their own free will about the nooks and meadows of the Ramble. They are very tame, because in Holland, the country from which they come, people are not allowed to molest them, their services being considered valuable in picking up the garbage of the streets and gutters.

There are many other birds and beasts here that I should like to mention, but now we must go. As we pass out, however, we stop for a moment to admire the ocelot, as he lies there, licking his tawny sides with a contented air. He is one of the smallest and most beautiful of the leopard tribe, and, if domesticated while young, becomes as gentle and playful as a common cat. And here, in a dark corner, we have a glimpse of a glass case containing something partially rolled up in a blanket. It is a small boa-constrictor; and a pigeon, which has been provided for his breakfast when he wakes up, is quietly roosting upon his coils, unconscious of impending fate.

RW

Well, here we are in the open air again; and, as we turn into the walk, you will observe many small brown birds, which nestle close to one another in

the bushes, and chirp very loudly. These are English sparrows, which were introduced into the Park about three years ago, and have so multiplied since that they have already done good service in destroying myriads of the noxious worms by which trees are infested in the early summer.

Charles Dawson Shanly.

CAST AWAY IN THE COLD.

AN OLD MAN'S STORY OF A YOUNG MAN'S ADVENTURES.

XI.

"You "YOU will tell us to-day what you did with the bears, — won't you, Cap

tain Hardy?" inquired William.

"Well," replied the Captain, laughing in his free-and-easy way, like a jolly old sailor as he was, taking his long pipe out of his mouth that he might do it all the better, "I think it was pretty near being what the bears did with us, my hearties! yes, that would be quite as near the mark, I'm thinking.”

"No matter, then," said William, "no matter, Captain Hardy; we ain't particular, you see, any way you like. I'll put the question t' other way, you know, what did the bears do with you?"

The Captain was in great good-humor to-day, and he kept on laughing till his pipe went out; and, while he laughed, he said, "Why, to be sure, they frightened us!"

"Tit for tat," exclaimed William ; you frightened them, that 's fair." "That's so," replied the Captain, -"that's so, sure enough; only they would n't stay frightened, while we did, you see.”

"What did they find you out?"

"That they did, my lad, just as soon as they had finished the old narwhal. We were sound asleep when they came; and they soon woke us up with the great noise they made close to the hut.

"But stop a bit!" exclaimed the Captain, reflectively; "my story 's got ahead of me, or I've got ahead of the story, one or the other; so I must go back a little." And he paused, not with his finger to his nose this time, as usual, but to his forehead, as if feeling in his brain for the end of the "yarn," as he always called the story.

At length the old man appeared to have quite satisfied himself about the matter, for he started off as fast as he could go. "I did n't tell you anything about the fort we built, nor the time we had provisioning it, — did I ?” said he.

"No," answered William, "nothing about a fort."

"Then there's the broken end of the yarn at last. Well, it was a good long time before the bears finished the old narwhal; but, finding how much they were occupied in that quarter, we went to our storehouses, and brought

the former on the Having done this, we and, as a still further

all our stores away, and stowed them close to the mouth of the hut, thinking that, if they were discovered, we should be better able to protect them. First, however, we built up two solid snow-walls, about three feet apart, and as high as our heads, directly on a line with the entrance to our hut, so that when we went outside we walked right between them. Then, behind these walls, we piled all the birds, seal-flesh, and eggs that we had for food, and all the blubber (now frozen quite hard) that we had for fuel, right-hand side (going out), and the latter on the left. covered the whole over with snow several feet deep; protection against our enemies the bears, we built up a great wall all around in front of the hut where there were no high rocks. Through this wall we left only one small hole to crawl through when we went out; and, when we came inside, we carefully closed it up with some large blocks of snow. But we did not go outside much, being afraid; and at length, when one of the bears was discovered prowling about very near the hut, we drew within our fortification, closed the opening in the wall as tightly as possible, and were prepared for a siege.

"At first we did not sleep much, being all the time fearful of attack; but gaining courage as we found, day after day, that the bears did not come to molest us, we at length fell asleep both together; and it was while we were thus asleep that the bears discovered us; and before either of us awoke they had actually scaled the wall of our snow-fort, and advanced to where our food and fuel were stowed, close to the mouth of the hut, and were tearing through the snow to get at it.

"We were much frightened, - or I might perhaps better say alarmed, as we felt quite secure ourselves, for the present, since the bears would not be likely to trouble us so long as there was anything else to eat; but then they might just as well eat us first, and the stores afterward, as to eat the stores first; for then we must surely starve and freeze, which would be quite as bad. "We became now fully aroused to a sense of our unhappy condition, and, the first feeling of alarm having passed over, we began seriously to reflect upon what we should do; for something had to be done, and that very quickly.

"I looked out through the window, and there were the bears all crowded together in the narrow passage; and one of them had already got among the frozen ducks, which were tumbling out in the snow at his feet, and he had one in his mouth, crunching away at it in such a manner as to leave no doubt that he was either very hungry or was in a violent hurry, — growling all the while, with each crunch he gave, to keep away the other two bears. This bear was much the largest of the three; indeed, the smallest one was not larger than a Newfoundland dog, not larger than Port or Starboard. Thus you see not only what a destructive, but what a selfish, beast he was. "From alarm we now got to be angry, as we observed the liberties these bears were taking with our food, and the little ceremony they made of eating up, in this wholesale manner, that which had cost us so much hard labor, and upon which our very lives now depended. I seized 'Old Crumply' in very

desperation, and asked the Dean if he would follow me. What!' exclaimed he, 'you don't mean to attack them?' 'That's just what I am going to do,' said I; and, if you can do anything with "The Delight," now's your chance.' 'I'll stand by you,' said the Dean, grasping his weapon; 'better to be killed outright by the bears than to let them starve us to death, and then perhaps kill us afterwards.'

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Desperate as was our condition, I could not help being amused by the Dean's way of putting the matter,—'first starved to death, and then killed'; and I think this little speech, turned in that happy though awkward way, did a great deal to stiffen up my courage.

"I crawled out through the door and passage-way of the hut (which I have told you was not high enough for us to stand upright in), and, upon coming near the end of it, there was the bear within three feet of me. His head was turned away, and his nose was all buried up in the snow; for he had swallowed his duck, and was getting a fresh one, so that he did not see me. My heart seemed to be in my mouth, - so close to the dreadful monster, -SO ferocious and fearful did he appear as I looked up at him. Had I been alone, I think I should have retreated; but here was the Dean behind me, and I was ashamed to back out, having gone thus far. Summoning all my courage, therefore, I brought forward my spear, grasped it with both hands, and plunged it with all my force into the animal's neck, just behind the lower jaw and below the ear

"It was a fortunate stroke. I had evidently, by chance, cut some great blood-vessel, for the blood gushed from the wound in a regular stream. The bear dropped his duck very quickly, I can tell you. He was probably never so much astonished in all his life before. I had come upon him so stealthily, and he was so absorbed in what he was about, that he had never once suspected the presence of an enemy, but thought himself, no doubt, a very lucky bear to find such a dinner ready caught for him.

"But I caused him to sing another tune than to be constantly growling to frighten off the little bears, for he roared with terror, so that you might have heard him full half a mile; and, finding that he could not wheel around as quickly as he wanted to, he roared again, louder than before, which sounded so dreadful that I drew back into the hut quite instinctively, and thus lost the opportunity to give him another thrust, which I might very well have done, in the side. When he had got wheeled round, he rolled over the other two bears, and the three together, all roaring very loud, rolled against the snow-wall of our fort, and broke it down; and now, as soon as they could scramble to their legs again, they hurried away through the snow down into the valley, the smallest one trying hard to keep up, and whining piteously all the while, as if he were afraid something would catch him; and now, just as we had done before, when we had, with our shouts, frightened the bears away when they had first come to disturb us, we ran after them, little thinking, in the excitement of the moment, of danger.

"We found that the bear I had wounded held straight down the valley, as was easily told by the red streak he left behind him on the snow. The other two turned to the right, and ran over in the direction of the old narwhal.