in these Gardens submitting himself to be fondled by an old lady visitor. It is by way of repudiating any suggestion of bunions that the eagle adopts a raffish, off-hand, chickaleary sort of roll in the gait, so that altogether, especially as viewed from behind, a walking eagle has an appearance of perpetually knocking 'em in the Old Kent Road. On Charley's next birthday I shall present him, I think, with a proper pearly suit, with kicksies cut saucy over the trotters, and an artful fakement down the side, if the Society will allow me. [Illustration: A PASSING SNACK.] [Illustration: DINNER AHOY!] There is nothing in the world that pleases an eagle better at dinner-time than a prime piece of cat. Charley tells me that, upon the whole, he prefers a good, plump, mouse-fed tabby; he adds that he never yet heard of a tame eagle being kept at a sausage shop, though he would like a situation of that sort himself, very much. The stoop of a free eagle as it takes a living victim is, no doubt, a fine thing, except for the victim; but the grabbing of cut-up food here in captivity is merely comic. The eagle, with his Whitechapel lurch, makes for the morsel and takes it in his stride; then he stands on it in a manner somehow suggesting pattens, and pecks away at the hair--if, luckily, he has secured a furry piece. I am not intimate with any eagle but Charley, but I am very friendly with all of them--golden, tawny, white-tailed, and the rest, with their scowls and their odd winks--all but one other of the wedge-tailers, who stays for ever at the top of the tree trunk and looks out westward, trying to distinguish the cats in the gardens of St. John's Wood; he is reserved as well as uppish, and I don't know him to speak to. [Illustration: UNCIVIL BAWLINGS.] I am pretty intimate with many of the owls. The owl I know least is a little Scops owl, kept alone in the insect-house. He has for next-door neighbour a sad old reprobate--Cocky, the big Triton cockatoo--who abuses him horribly. The fact is, they both occupy a recess which once Cocky had all to himself, and now Cocky bullies the intruder up hill and down dale; although little Scops would gladly go somewhere else if he could, and takes no notice of Cocky's uncivil bawlings further than to lift his near wing apprehensively at each outburst. He and I have not been able to improve our acquaintance greatly, partly because he is out of reach, and partly because Cocky's conversation occupies most of his time. [Illustration: WHAT!] [Illustration: WELL--] [Illustration: DID YOU EVER!] [Illustration: OF ALL THE--!]