After this, the reptile house at the Zoological Gardens became a new attraction. From there to the bookshelves and back again to the Gardens, my little book of adventures was discarded for a more ambitious work; but still was confronted by disaffected publishers, whom even the Chelsea snakes failed to convince of public interest. Friends protested—and still demand—even while I write—‘How _can_ you give your mind to such odious, loathsome, slimy creatures?’ and I boldly reply, ‘In the hope of inducing you to believe that they are _not_ odious and loathsome, and especially not “slimy,” but in the majority graceful, useful, beautiful, _wonderful_!’ And I invite them to accompany me to the Zoological Gardens, and endeavour there to contemplate a reptile as they look at the other denizens of the Gardens, simply as a member of the wide family of the brute creation, appointed by the Great All-wise to live and feed and enjoy existence as much as the rest, and that have to accomplish the purpose for which they were created equally with the feathered families which we admire and—devour! And as whatever may be original or novel in this book has been obtained at the Zoological Gardens, I now invite my readers to accompany me in imagination to the Ophidarium, where we may learn how that little ring snake was able to swallow his prodigious mouthful without separating it limb from limb, as a carnivorous mammal would divide the lamb it has killed. ‘But’—you exclaim in horror—‘we do not wish to contemplate so painful, so repulsive a spectacle! How _could_ you, how _can_ you, stand coolly there and see that poor frog tortured and swallowed alive?’