Читать книгу Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens онлайн

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The gulls were particularly noisy, and playing at a new game with bits of ice, which they picked up from the broken edges of their ponds, and let fall on the sound ice. They then scrambled and fought for the pieces as they slid on the slippery surface. One big gull swallowed a large triangular piece, which stuck for some time in its throat, and evidently gave it much discomfort until the sharp edges melted. The ravens in the crow-cages were also much pleased with the broken ice, and were busy hiding all the pieces in holes round the edges of their aviary. One of the birds was evidently not satisfied with the concealment offered by the cranny into which it had poked a large fragment, so after considering for some time, it drew it out again, rubbed it in sand till it was well covered with grit, and then pushed it back, protected by a coating of colour “adapted to environment.”

The heating of the Monkey House had been carefully looked to during the night, and beyond showing a disposition to huddle together and sleep, the common monkeys betrayed little obvious sensibility to the bright dry cold outside. But the delicate little marmosets and small tropical South American species were, with the exception of the Capuchins, removed to the warmer inner room behind the glass palace. One creature only seemed penetrated by the frost, a sleeping lemur. It was clinging to the bars of its cage, its hands grasping the rods, its two front arms stretched out, and its head, heavy with sleep, drooping between them. Yet, though steeped in slumber, it was shaken from moment to moment by spasms of shivering, its body conscious and responsive to the cold, though its drowsy brain was insensible to the warnings of physical malaise.