creature when his food is brought to him and
flung into his cage. He does not even notice
it. Perched on the highest attainable pinnacle
of masonry within his reach, at the top of his
cage, with his back to the quarter from which
the keeper approaches with his ready-slaughtered
prey, he gazes out into a further distance than
that within the lion's range of sight. He will
gaze on it for half an hour together, revelling in
this liberty of the eye, which is the only freedom
left him, and neglecting the food which
has been flung through his bars. What to him
is this ready-slain flesh? He is not like his
neighbours, the, vultures, who desire nothing
better than to have their prey killed for them.
He would hunt it down and strike it for himself.
Let the carrion lie there, he will fetch it when
famine obliges him, and not before.

These wrinkly-necked and scavenger vultures
proclaim, as most things do, their natures by
their foul outside. How different are these from
the eagles. The vulture is as large as the eagle.
The stretch of its wings is as vast. It stands
on high pinnacles of rock as the other does, but
it has not that steady, long-continuing gaze. It
is a degraded, hungry, devouring monster, that
hops and dances with joy when its barrow of
flesh arrives, that tears the meat from the beak
of the companion of its captivity, dropping its
own portion to do so. The meat gets so
covered with sand and gravel before these vultures
have been long fighting for it, that you desire,
as you look, to take it from them and wash it.
There is something to be learned from the
collection in the Zoological Gardens. The melancholy
Jaques was ever twisting a moral out of the
things he observed in creation. The sluggard is
sent by Solomon to look at the industry of the
ant, and we are taught elsewhere to unite the
wisdom of the serpent with the harmlessness of
the dove. Who can look at these vultures tearing
at each other's meat and dropping their own
property in the attempt to snatch that of their
neighbour—who can see this and not be
reminded of what he has observed among certain
human vultures, who will grasp and tear at some
small legacy which has fallen to a brother-
vulture, who will spend their substance in trying
to keep him out of it, who will mar and defile
the coveted possession itself rather than let
cousin-vulture or nephew-vulture or daughter-in-
law-vulture possess it intact. Fight on, ye wry-
necked herd, pluck at the prizes you desire so
much, pick at each other to get them, wrinkle
your skins and make yourselves hideous in your
thirst for gain, hop about that small property in
impotent agonies of desire, but note the while
that high above your heads there stands a creature
at first sight like yourselves, but, in reality,
as widely removed as Hyperion from a satyr.
Look up at your king, and look with fear. His
plumes are smooth, and there are no wrinkles in
his neck. No lust of gain has lowered his head
to be like yours, sunk in a high-shouldered stoop
of greed. Why, look again: such wares as you
are fighting for in sordid struggle lie at the
bottom of his small domain, neglected and
despised. He will come down to them when he
must, but while he can, he will still cry Excelsior!
and press with eager longings against his
prison bars. There are men like this: they are
few and far between. The vultures, the apes,
and the carrion crows outnumber them by
thousands; but still there are eagles in the human
world, and the vultures and the monkeys hate
and fear them.

But if there is a lesson of industry in the ant
that shall keep the teaching of the eagle from
misleading us into a life of useless aspiration—if
in the vulture there is a perpetual caution against
a debased and sordid covetousness—then is the
building which our zoological teachers have set
apart for the apes and monkeys a perfect lecture-
hall against the smaller villanies to which
humanity is prone—a pillory of warning to the
world. This is the head-quarters of Fuss. As
you stand and watch one of the inhabitants of the
Temple of Irony—and in watching one you watch
all, for they are all alike—you will be reminded
every instant of the more fussy and important
among your friends and acquaintances. Mark how
your monkey fidgets, how he hastens hither and
thither, always, as it seems, on important business,
though it is only, perhaps, to fetch the flea
out of his partner's ear, or to steal a hazel-nut
from his friend. Mark how he wrinkles his brow
and lifts his eyebrows, and looks about among
his nut-shells, and among the hairs of his coat,
for nothing, for he is an impostor, and seldom
finds even a flea. Your Eye-witness has been
received by his friend Pumpcourt (whom he was
foolish enough once to consult) with just such
raising of the eyebrows; and P. would knock
about the sham briefs upon his desk in hurried
search for documents which he knew did not
exist, exactly like this monkey. The ape looks
towards the door when it opens, with an expression
which distinctly says, “Is that the Solicitor-
General, because, if it is, I want to have a word
with him.” In all these things this animal
resembles Pumpcourt, and many more fussy
friends. In holding out his hand (alas, it is
a hand) for your contribution to his keep—
but doing so with a wandering eye that is ever
on the look-out to see if there is anybody in
the place better worth attending to—your monkey
reminds you still, of such members of your
acquaintance as will talk to you till a richer
and more successful man enters the room, from
which moment their attention wanders, and
they answer you at random. But there is no
end to this: in irritable tempers speedily
excited, in fury about nothing, in furtive cunning,
in every low, degrading, and indecent gesture
and practice, these creatures “hold the mirror
up” to all of us, and show the spectator of their
hateful antics the things that he must most
avoid. Indeed, this would almost seem the
object of the monkey's existence, and while the
nearness of his resemblance to the lower types
of human physiognomy is terrible and humbling
in the last degree, it is consolatory to think that
in proportion as a man is a man he is removed
the more from this detested comparison. The