and scratch his ear—if he were to do something of this sort, and thus incur transmigration in the regular Buddhist course, I believe he would become a stork. Indeed, I have no doubt that the storks whose profundity of meditation we all so much admire in the Zoological Society's Gardens
"Whitebait or soles?"
are incarnations of most respectable and influential Mahatmas who have had an accident in training, and so become scratched from the race of immortals. Observe their attempts to renew training. Did ever Mahatma in this world so solemnly, so intensely, so severely bring his whole mental faculties to bear on nothing for hours together as one of these? The stork is endeavouring to make up for lost time. There he stands, with his shoulders humped, his eyes half open, looking at nothing; all the brains under his almost bald pate are set to work upon the same object. But he will never complete his allotted term of meditation—never, that is to say, so long as it is the custom to feed him regularly. Look! the time for dinner approaches. Most would observe no change in the demeanour of the stork; but the close examiner will detect a slight quiver of the eye: the temptation is too strong, and his glance almost imperceptibly wanders to where the keeper usually appears with the fish. Alas! the flesh is weak. His eyes have strayed from their contemplation of nothing, and his mind follows. "Wonder what's for dinner today?" thinks the stork. "Whitebait, perhaps, or soles—glorious! Something worth being a stork for! Even a whiting wouldn't be so bad, while, as for a nice trout with—well, there!" Soon the keeper appears. The stork doesn't run after him—that would not be becoming in a Mahatma; he waits with pretended indifference. And the keeper throws toward him—herrings, actually and literally herrings! It is too bad. Bloaters again! But he doesn't fly into an
"Bloaters again!"
undignified and unphilosophic rage; without moving otherwise, he simply elevates his eyelids to their furthest extent, and turns from under them a sadly, resignedly reproachful gaze on the keeper. Oh the sorrow of it! All his noble resolves, his heroic concentration, immortal training, thrown to the winds for two penn'orth of bloaters! Bitterness and woe! Notwithstanding which he swallows the bloaters.
Walk quietly away round beyond the southern ponds. Here is a cage from which some well-satisfied carnivore has retired into his den, leaving the end of his tail over the threshold as an intimation to visitors. He has also left a fairly well picked bone, and a scrap or two of biscuit thrown in by human admirers. Step softly. A syndicate of three mice has gone into business with the bone, and a saucy sparrow is levying a distress on the biscuit. The sparrow flies away without affording an opportunity for study; but from what can be seen of the mice their principles seem to be dishonest. The morals of the mouse are hopeless.
Along past here are the wolves' and foxes' cages. The fox is a sharp feeder, but a well-behaved one; the wolf isn't. A pair of animals that fight and yelp and make a swirl of unholy confusion over food which is quite enough for two are unimproving examples of domestic concord. Leave them alone.
