Life at the Zoo

Sudden and severe cold, however trying to human constitutions, seems almost harmless to animal health, provided the weather be dry, frosty, and undimmed by fog. On the last Friday of November 1893, the thermometer fell so rapidly that in a few hours it registered sixteen degrees below freezing-point. On the following morning, though the sun was shining brightly, every pool and pond was sheeted with ice, and the gravel walks were as hard as granite. Yet at the Zoological Gardens, birds and beasts from tropical or semi-tropical regions, such as Burmah, Assam, Malacca, and Brazil, were abroad and enjoying the keen air; and others, which are usually invisible and curled up in their sleeping apartments till late in the day, were already abroad, sniffing at the frost and icicles, and as indifferent to the cold as Mr. Samuel Weller's polar bear "ven he was a-practising his skating."