this place,
because of the regrettable absence of specimens from the Zoo. The
conductor (_Bellpunchus familiaris_) is readily capturable in this
country. The habits of the bookmakers (_marsupialis vulgaris_) may be
studied, and their curious habits learned by anybody willing to incur
the expense in the inclosures set apart for their exhibition at the
various racecourses, where their sportive gambles are the subject of
great interest (and principal) on the part of speculative inquirers.

[Illustration: THE RECORD.]

[Illustration: THE KANGARULER.]

[Illustration: WAR OF WIT.]

Mansbridge is the guardian of the kangaroos in the Zoo--or the
kangaruler, as one may say. Most pouched things in the Gardens are given
to the care of Mansbridge, which involves a sort of compliment, for a
pouched thing is never clever by itself, and wants a keeper who can
think for it. He has the wallabies, the kangaroo hares, the kangaroo
rats (mad things these, greater hotch-potches than the others), and the
wombats. The wombat cannot jump like the kangaroo or the wallaby, and
his sprightliness and activity are the sprightliness and activity of a
cast-iron pig. He is slow, but I scarcely think he is quite such an ass
as the kangaroo. I have even found him indulging in repartee, as you
shall see. Every single movement of any part of the wombat is deliberate
and well considered; it is apparently debated at great length by all the
other parts, and determined upon by a formal resolution, duly proposed,
seconded, and carried by the complete animal properly assembled. Once
the motion is carried, nothing can stop it. If the wombat's travels are
crossed by a river, he merely walks into it, across the bottom, and out
at the other side. Here, in lairs side by side, live a common wombat
and a hairy-nosed wombat. They don't come out much in daylight, and they
had been here some time before they found themselves both out for an
airing together. "Halloa," reflected the hairy-nosed wombat, "here is my
neighbour. I'll chaff him!" and he straightway set to work to invent
some facetious observation. In an hour or so an idea struck him, and,
advancing to the partition bars, he said to the common wombat, "Here, I
say--you're common!" and laughed uproariously. The common wombat felt
the sting of the remark and determined upon a crushing repartee. While
the other chuckled over his achievement (about an hour and a half) the
common wombat laboriously constructed h