In a delightful story book, called _Friends in Fur and Feathers_, we had
all read a very interesting account of a young elephant called Kornegalle
Jack, which became exceedingly attached to his master. I wonder whether
you know it? If you do not, perhaps you might have the book for your next
birthday present, and read a great deal about elephants, as well as other
animals, whose names only we have time, to mention now.
But you will say, perhaps, that we have forgotten one kind of animal, for
we have not said a word about Pigs. Well, Piggie has not been forgotten;
but it seems difficult for him to find just his own place among the classes
of Mammalia, for he is like several of the quadrupeds in some particular,
but unlike any one of them altogether. You cannot put him with the
Ruminants, and yet he has cloven feet; he has the same number of teeth as
the horse, and his snout is rather like, in a small way, the trunk of the
elephant; then, in his wild state, he might almost be reckoned among the
beasts of prey, for the wild Boar, with its terrible tusks, is a most
formidable creature to encounter.
Of all the families of the Mammalia, that of Rats and Mice is the most
numerous. There are two kinds of rats, the black and the brown. I do not
know to which kind Willie's "Ratto" belongs, but I have heard many stories
of his clever tricksy ways, and of how well he knew his name, and obeyed
his master.
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