LONG SEPARATED.
Whether the ostrich is actually such an ass as to hide his head with a notion of concealing himself I don't quite know, but there is certainly a deal of ass in the camel-goose. A Hottentot will put an ostrich skin over his head, and walking with his natural shanks exposed get among an ostrich family and kill them off one after another, to the family's astonishment. Now, a bird who mistakes a nigger with a mask for an intimate relation plainly enjoys in his composition a large flavour of the ass. Not knowing it, however, the camel-goose is just as happy, and neither experiences the bitterness of being sold nor the sweetness of selling. I don't believe that Atkinson was even aware of the triumphant sell which he lately assisted in administering to Mr. Toots, the cat from the camel-house.
The cat in the ostrich-house is a sly fellow, and I believe he knows why there are fewer pigeons in the roof of the hippopotamus-house than there were. He horribly sold Mr. Toots, who was anxious to have a snack of poultry himself, for a change. "In my house," said this bold, bad cat, "there are the biggest pigeons you ever saw. Go in and try one, while I look out for the keeper." And the trustful Mr. Toots went in; and when, full of a resolve to make it hot for everything feathered in that house, Mr. Toots bounced into the presence of Atkinson, who is rather more than seven feet high, he came out anxious for the scalp of that other cat. I never mention this little adventure to Mr. Toots, who is sensitive, but all the other Zoo cats chaff him terribly. Even Jung Perchad and the other elephants snigger quietly as they pass, and Bob the Bactrian, from the camel-house, laughs outright; it is a horrid, coarse, vulgar, exasperating laugh, that of Bob's. Atkinson, however, is all unconscious of the joke, and remains equally affable to cats, pigeons, and human beings.
Pontius Pilate is just the sort of camel-gander that would bury its head to hide itself. Pontius Pilate is, I fear, an ass; also a snob. He has a deal of curiosity with regard to Atkinson, who is a recent arrival, and lately belonged to the Queen. Also, he is often disposed to pay a visit—with his head—to Atkinson's quarters, and take a friendly snack—at Atkinson's expense; this by an insinuation of the neck out between his own bars and in between those of Atkinson, adjoining. But he doesn't understand the laws of space. Having once fetched his neck around the partition into Atkinson's larder by chancing to poke his head through the end bars, he straightway assumes that what is possible between some bars is possible between all; and wheresoever he may now be standing when prompted by companionable peckishness, straight he plunges among the nearest bars, being mightily astonished at his inability to reach next door, if by chance he have dropped among bars far from Atkinson's. He suspects his neck. Is the ungrateful tube playing him false? Maliciously shortening? Or are his eyes concerned in fraud? He loops his head back among his own adjoining bars, with a vague suspicion that they may be Atkinson's after all; and he stretches and struggles desperately. Some day Pontius Pilate will weave himself among those bars, basket fashion, only to be extricated by a civil engineer and a practical smith. Pontius Pilate is the sort of camel-gander that damages the intellectual reputation of the species. Of course he would bury his head to hide himself. Equally of course he would muzzle himself to prevent you from biting him, or tie his legs together to prevent you from running and catching him, or anything else equally clever. Pontius Pilate, I have known you long—even loved you, in a way. But I have observed you closely, and though, like Dogberry, you may have everything fine about you, I am impelled sorrowfully to write you down an ass.
The ostrich is one of those birds whose whole command of facial expression is carried in the neck. He can only express himself through his features by offering you different views of his head. This is a great disadvantage. It limits the range. You may express three sentiments by the back, front, and side of the head, and something by way of combination in a three-quarter face. Then you stop, and have no further resource than standing on your head, one of the few things an ostrich is not clever at. But with such materials as he has, the ostrich does very well. Observe, his mouth is long, and droops at the corners; but the corners are wide apart, for there the head is broad.
Now you may present simple drama by the aid of this mouth—suitably disposed and ordered by the neck. Take Atkinson, here, whose beak has a certain tip-tinting distrusted of the teetotaler. Bend his head (only in theory, because Atkinson won't stand any practical nonsense)—bend his head to look downward, and let his neck wilt away sleepily. Now, viewed from the side, where is a more lamentable picture of maudlin intoxication? What could improve it, except, perhaps, a battered hat, worn lop-sided, and a cigar-stump? He is a drunken old camel-gander, coming home in the small hours, and having difficulties with his latch-key. Straighten Atkinson's neck, open wide his eyes, and take a three-quarter face view of him. Sober, sour, and indignant, there stands, not the inebriated Atkinson, but the disturbed Mrs. Atkinson on the stairs, with a candle, and a nightcap, and a lecture. That awful mouth actually conjures that candle, that nightcap, and that lecture into existence—you see and hear them more clearly than you do Atkinson, although they are not there. But this is an advanced exercise in struthian expression—a complicated feat, involving various and complex elements. There is the neck-wilt and the bending of the head; also the three-quarter face, not a simple element.
The plain and elementary principles of struthian expression lie in the mere front and side views. The third simple view, the back, is not particularly eloquent, although practice might do something even for that. At the side the ostrich is glum, savage, misanthropical, depressed—what you will of that sort. Let him but turn and face you—he can't help a genial grin. All done by the versatile neck, you observe, which gives the head its position.