If we arrive at the Zoo a little before four o'clock in the afternoon we ought to go straight to the lion-house, for four o'clock is the lions' dinner-time. The house is light and warm, and the cages are all down one side in a row. Behind them are the railed-in gardens belonging to the beasts; but sometimes the doors between are shut, and the lions are not allowed to walk in their gardens. On fine sunny days, however, we can see them there outside, licking their great lips and rolling about lazily on the warm ground. In the lion house about ten minutes to four all the great animals begin to get restless; they walk up and down and whine or howl, and as four o'clock draws near they get more and more excited, some of them going round and round in circles, always quicker and quicker. Though they have no watches, they know the time exactly, which is rather wonderful, for there is nothing to tell them four o'clock is near. This is their one meal in the day, so no wonder they look forward to it; and when you see what they get, it doesn't seem much for such a great big animal as a lion. Soon a rumbling sound is heard, and a little truck laden with raw meat runs up through a little passage between the cages, and the keeper pushes it along the front of the cages to the end. Then the animals get frantic; the sight of the raw meat makes them savage; they leap and howl--great howls that would make your blood run cold if you heard them on a dark night when you were out in the forest. The animal that goes round in circles goes so fast he nearly tumbles on his head, and the others trot backwards and forwards, and all is noise and confusion. The keeper undoes a bar at the bottom of the cage, which leaves just enough room to put the meat in; then he picks out the piece he means for that animal and thrusts it through at the end of an iron rod. The lion or tiger pounces on it, and growling, carries it into a corner of its den. The keeper replaces the bar, and goes on to the next one, and so on until all are fed. Then a deep silence follows; there is only a licking of great lips, a sort of purring of content, and a sound of bones being crunched or scraped, and we can look at the animals more easily than when they are running about. Here in front is a magnificent lion, with a great tawny mane; his broad nose is wrinkled as he crunches his bone. He has torn all the meat off it almost at once, and his rough tongue has licked it clean until it is quite polished; but he still goes on chewing it with those huge white teeth as long as your finger--teeth that would crunch through your arm in a moment. This old fellow is usually good-tempered for a lion, but when feeding-time comes his wife Mrs. Lioness has to go into the back den shut off by a little door to eat her dinner alone, or they would fight. Suddenly Mr. Lion raises his head and looks round grandly, as if he were ashamed of all those people who come to stare at him. He was a