s gleaming. The rattlesnake is found in North America.

The reptile house has been rebuilt and is very hot and damp, to suit the
animals who live there. In the middle there is a large tank with
numbers of ugly crocodiles living in it. They are dark greeny-brown,
like a log that has been a long time in the water, and if you were
floating down the Nile, or any river where crocodiles live, in a boat,
and saw something floating that you thought a bit of old wood, it might
very likely be the back or head of a crocodile. He has a bony coat like
a suit of armour, and it would be very difficult indeed to break through
it, and he swims along, using both his strong tail and his flat feet. He
is what is called an amphibious animal, because he lives partly on land
and partly in the water. He must breathe air, but he can shut up his
nostrils by a fold of skin as we shut our eyes, and can remain under the
water without breathing for some time. His enormous jaws are like a pair
of great shears, and woe be to any animal or man who gets his leg
between them. It will be cut off as cleanly as the gardener cuts a tall
flower with his shears. The crocodile lives in water, and catches fish
and other things; he comes out at times and lies on the banks, and in
the evening, when the land animals come down to drink, he hides himself
in the water, and catches anything he can with his ugly snout. Fancy a
dainty antelope finding suddenly that his delicate nose was pinched
tightly by Mr. Crocodile's teeth, and that he was being drawn down, down
to a hideous death!

But we have stayed much too long in the reptile house, and have not even
mentioned the pretty little green frogs and the many other things to be
found there.

On the other side of the lion house, away from the reptiles, is the
sea-lions' pond. Sea-lions are not the least little bit like real lions,
but when sailors heard them roaring on the rocks far out to sea they
thought they must be lions, and so they gained the name. There are
several of them at the Zoo, huge clumsy looking creatures with big
whiskers, and a skin like india-rubber. At one end of their pond is a
mass of artificial rock with caves and terraces, and when the sea-lions
are out of the water they gallop about on this in an astonishing way,
considering that they have no legs, and only end in a fish's tail. They
lollop along on two front flippers and their strong muscular tail, and
then plunge off the rocks into the water