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THE LION.

THE Lion is not so fierce and cruel as the tiger, and can be tamed more easily; nevertheless it is not very pleasant to meet with a Lion in his native forest, it is quite a different sort of thing to seeing him in a safe cage in the Zoological Gardens. The Lion that has once tasted man's flesh is a most fearful animal. He will watch round a camp all the night in hopes of being able to seize some unfortunate traveller; and if any one strays beyond the camp-fire, he is sure to fall a prey to this dreadful beast. The celebrated traveller, Gordon Cumming, tells a story of one of his servants being eaten alive by a Lion before he could rescue him. Yet when Lions are tamed they are most tractable, and even affectionate animals. I have read a story of a Lion who used to play at bo-peep with the daughter of his keeper, and another of a Lion who let a young girl ride on his back.

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THE

WOOD-PIGEONS.

HAVE you not sometimes heard a soft melancholy cooing as you were walking through a wood in the evening time? That is the note of the Woodpigeon, or Ring-dove as it is sometimes called. But although their cooing is often heard, the pigeons themselves are seldom seen, for they are very shy birds, and hide themselves in the thickest

branches of the trees. It is also very difficult to find a Pigeon's nest, for it is built with only a few pieces of stick laid across each other, and scarcely looks different to the small twigs of the tree. There are a great many different kinds of pigeons: one is called the Carrier Pigeon, because it will carry letters, or other small things, from one place to another, just like a regular postman. To make it do this, you must first keep it at one house for a time and treat it very kindly, and then take it to another house and do the same, and ever after it will fly backwards and forwards between the two houses.

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