Not satisfied, you perceive, with enjoying his domino or his door-knob all the way along that immense neck, the camel-gander must needs indulge in a spiral gullet. It is mere gluttony. Especially is it wicked of Atkinson, who has already the longest bird-neck in all these gardens. Look at the necks of all the cursores. The poor little wingless kiwi, with a mere nothing of a neck--for a cursore. _He_ does without a spiral gullet. The festive cassowary--which, by-the-bye, _doesn't_ abound--or exist--on the plains of Timbuctoo, as the rhyme says--the festive cassowary, I say, wears his gullet plain. The rusty rhea takes things below with perfect directness. The lordly emeu gets his dinner down as quickly as the length of his neck will permit. It is only when one reaches the top of the cursorean thermometer, all among the boilings, so to speak, that the ostrich, with the longest neck of all, must poach another few inches by going in for a spiral. Pontius Pilate is bad enough, but a spiral for Atkinson!--well, there! The partiality of the struthians for eccentric refreshments--clinkers, nut-crackers, and the like--leads many to a superstition that these things are as nourishing as they are attractive. They're not. Certain liberal asses have a curious habit of presenting the birds with halfpence. I scarcely understand why, unless modern environments have evolved penny-in-the-slotomaniacs. And I am prepared to bet that on occasions they are less generous with their pence. Nevertheless, they do it, and it kills the birds. One cassowary who died recently was found to contain one and eightpence in copper. I suggest that in future the experimentalizers confine their contributions to bank-notes. I have taken the trouble to ascertain that these will do no harm while their disappearance will afford an additional enjoyment to the contributors commensurate with their higher value. Perhaps there is something in the habits of the cassowary himself that explains these offerings. The cassowary always comes to meet you at the bars with a look of grave inquiry. If you offer no tribute he turns off, with many cockings of the beak, surprised, indignant, and contemptuous. Very few people can endure this. They hastily produce anything they have--anything to conciliate the contemptuous cassowary. And as he takes it, an expression steals across the cassowary's face which seems to admit that perhaps the fellow isn't such a shocking outsider after all. When a man has nothing more nutritive about him, this form of extortion may produce halfpence. [Illustration: THE CURSOREAN THERMOMETER.] The rhea is small potatoes beside the ostrich--merely a smaller and dingier camel-gander. But the emeu is a fine upstanding fellow, with his haughty sailing head and his great feather boa. [Illustration: THE CASSOWARY DISGUSTED.]