A VISIT TO THE ZOO
Last Saturday we all went to the Zoo. There were no lion or tiger cubs, but we went behind the cages in the reptile house and the keeper showed us some baby crocodiles and let us hold one. It had the funniest little teeth like a tiny saw, and a white throat which it can close up in the water, and a film comes over its eyes when it likes just like the shutter of a Brownie. The keeper said it was a few months old but would very likely live to be a hundred.
Then he hooked a boa constrictor out of its cage and asked us to hold it. I was frightened at first but after Jack and the others had held it I tried. Its body feels terribly strong and electric and all the time it is coiling about and darting out a little forked tongue. I was very glad when the keeper took it away.
We saw the diving birds being fed in their tank. There are two of them, one in a cage at each end, and the keeper throws little live fish into the tank and lets out one bird at a time. At first we were very sorry for the poor little fish, which swim about frantically in all directions to escape from the terrible great bird who dashes after them like a cruel submarine; but after a while we began to want the bird not to miss any. Isn’t that funny? And my brother Jack got so excited that he pointed out to the bird where one of the little fish was hiding and cried out “Here he is, look, down here! Look, in the corner!”
“Convolvulus”
A FABLE
There was once a garden path paved with flat stones, and in between the stones were little tufts of thyme and other herbs.