… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
42
|
|
“To the emmet gives Her foresight and the intelligence that makes The tiny creatures strong by social league.”
Wordsworth.
|
|
“The parsimonious emmet.”—Milton.
|
|
“Us vagrant emmets.”—Young.
|
Part II. The Indian Seasons.
Table of Contents
|
“A great length of deadly days.”—Atalanta in Calydon.
|
|
II.
|
The Rains… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
67
|
|
“For the rain it raineth every day.”—Twelfth Night.
|
|
“Ah! if to thee It feels Elysian, how rich to me, An exiled mortal, sounds its pleasant name!”
Endymion.
|
Part III. Unnatural History.
Table of Contents
|
Monkeys and Metaphysics. — How they found Seeta. — Yet they are not Proud. — Their Sad-Facedness. — Decayed Divinities. — As Gods in Egypt. — From Grave to Gay. — What do the Apes think of us?—The Etiquette of Scratching. — “The New Boy” of the Monkey-House. — They take Notes of us. — Man-Ape Puzzles. — The Soko. — Missing Links.
|
|
Titus Andronicus.
|
|
“It is no gentle chase.”—Venus and Adonis.
|
|
“Whence and what art thou, execrable shape, That darest, though grim and terrible, to advance Thy miscreated front?”—Paradise Lost.
|
|
“You do it wrong, being so majestical, To offer it the show of violence.”—Hamlet.
|
|
“God made him, and therefore let him pass for a man.”
Portia.
|
|
“With a groan that had something terribly human in it, and yet was full of brutishness, the man-ape fell forward on his face.”—Du Chaillu.
|
|
III.
|
Elephants… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
|
152
|
|
They are Square Animals with a Leg at each Corner and a Tail at both Ends. — “My Lord the Elephant.”—That it picks up Pins. — The Mammoth as a Missionary in Africa. — An Elephant Hunt with the Prince. — Elephantine Potentialities. — A Mad Giant. — Bigness not of Necessity a Virtue. — A Digression on the Meekness of Giants.
|
|
The Rhinoceros a Victim of Ill-Natured Personality—In the Glacial Period. — The Hippopotamus. — Popular Sympathy with it. — Behemoth a Useless Person. — Extinct Monsters and the World they Lived in. — The Impossible Giraffe. — Its Intelligent use of its Head as a Hammer. — The Advantages and Disadvantages of so much Neck. — Its High Living. — The Zebra. — Nature’s Parsimony in the matter of Paint on the Skins of Animals. — Some Suggestions towards more Gayety.
|
|
They are of Two Species, tame and otherwise. — The Artificial Lion. — Its Debt of Gratitude to Landseer and the Poets. — Unsuitable for Domestication. — Is the Natural Lion the King of Beasts?—The true Moral of all Lion Fables. — “Well roared, Lion!”—The Tiger not of a Festive Kind. — There is no Nonsense about the Big Cats. — The Tiger’s Pleasures and Perils. — Its Terrible Voice.— The poor Old Man-Eater. — Caught by Baboos and Killed by Sheep. — The great Cat Princes. — Common or Garden Cats, approached sideways. — The Physical Impossibility of Taxing Cats. — The Evasive Habits of Grimalkin. — Its Instinct for Cooks. — On the Roof with a Burglar. — The Prey of Cats. — The Turpitude of the Sparrow. — As an Emblem of Conquest and an Article of Export. — The Street Boy among Birds.
|
Bears are of three kinds, Big Bears, Middle-sized Bears, and Little Wee Bears. — Easily Provoked. — A Protest of Routine against Reform. — But Unreliable.
|
