is the guepard, or hunting leopard.
The guepard, a graceful, spotted creature, is very useful to hunters in
India. It is not a savage animal, and when taken young is very easily
trained to work for its master. It is led hooded to the chase, and only
when the game is near is the hood removed. The guepard then springs upon
the prey, and holds it fast until the hunter comes to dispatch it. The
guepard in the Jardin d'Acclimatation is very affectionate toward its
keeper, and purrs like a big cat when he strokes its silky head, but it
is safer for children to keep their little hands away from it.

In pens provided with little ponds are intelligent seals and families of
otters, with their elegant fur coats always clean and in order; and down
by the shore of the stream and the large lake a loud chattering is made
by the numerous web-footed creatures and long-legged waders. Here are
ducks from Barbary and the American tropics, wild-geese from every
clime, and swimming gracefully and silently in the clear water are
swans--black, gray, and white--that glide up to the summer-houses on the
bank, and eat bread and cake from the children's hands.

Among the tall water-grasses at one end of the lake is a group of
pelicans, motionless, their long bills resting on their breasts. They
look very gloomy, as if refusing to be comforted for the loss of their
native fishing grounds in the wild African swamps.

Promenading in a spacious park are whole troops of ostriches, their
small heads lifted high in the air, and their beautiful feathers blowing
gracefully in the wind. Be careful, or they will dart their long necks
through the paling and steal all your luncheon, or perhaps even the
pretty locket from your chain, for anything from a piece of plum-cake to
a cobble-stone is food for this voracious bird. A poor soldier, whose
sole possession was the cross of honor which he wore on the breast of
his coat, was once watching the ostriches in the Jardin d'Acclimatation,
when a bird suddenly darted at him, seized his cross in its beak, and
swallowed it. The soldier went to the superintendent of the garden and
entered a bitter complaint; but the feathered thief was not arrested,
and the soldier never recovered his treasure.

What a rush and crowd of children on the avenue! No wonder, for there is
a pretty barouche, to which is harnessed a large ostrich, which marches
up and down, drawing its load as easily as if it were a span of goats or
a Shetl