“The mushrat kan foresee a hard winter and provide for it, but he kan’t keep from gittin ketched in the sylliest kind ov a trap.
“Hens know when it is a going to rain, and shelter themselfs, but they will try to hatch out a glass egg just az honest az they will one ov their own.
“The cuckcoo iz the greatest ekonemist among the birds, she lays her eggs in other birds’ nests, and lets them hatch them out at their leizure.
“Rats hav fewer friends and more enemies than anything ov the four-legged purswashun on the face ov the earth, and yet rats are az plenty now az in the palmyest days ov the Roman Empire.
“The horse alwuss gits up from the ground on his fore legs first, the kow on her hind ones, and the dog turns round 3 times before he lies down.
“The kangaroo he jumps when he walks, the coon paces when he trots, the lobster travels backwards az fast az he does forward.
“The elephant has the least, and the rabbit the most eye for their size, and a rat’s tale is just the length ov hiz boddy.”
The very latest item of interest to dog-lovers is the announcement that Bismarck has purchased a two-pound King Charles spaniel from the dog show in Boston.
My collection is now as complete as the limitations of time and the publishers will allow. As proprietor, I beg leave to announce my Literary Zoo as now open at all hours (for a moderate fee) to those interested in what we call, with conceit and possibly ignorance, the inferior orders of creation, and the dumb brutes.
THE END.