The Animal Story Book

From the noted Scottish author and scholar: 66 tales about creatures of land, sea, and air. Adapted from stories originally told by Alexandre Dumas, Th ophile Gautier, Pliny, and others, they include The Adventures of Pyramus, Two Highland Dogs, The Ship of the Desert, The Otter Who was Reared by a Cat, and many more. This is a high quality book of the original classic edition. This is a freshly published edition of this culturally important work, which is now, at last, again available to you. Enjoy this classic work. These few paragraphs distill the contents and give you a quick look inside: While the strong cage of wood and iron was being built which was to form Sa s house on the way to England, his lady keeper thought it would be a good opportunity to make friends with him, and used to spend part of every day talking to him and playing with him; for this, as everyone knows, is the only way to gain the affection of bird or beast. ... Many creatures and many men might have made a great fuss at being shut into a cage instead of being allowed to walk about their own house and grounds, but everyone had always been kind to Sa, so he took for granted it was all right, and made himself as comfortable as he could, and was quite prepared to submit to anything disagreeable that he thought reasonable. But it very nearly happened that poor Sa had no voyage at all, for while he was being hauled from the canoe which had brought him from the shore into the ship, the men were so afraid to come near him that they let his cage fall into the sea, and if the sailors from the vessel had not been very quick in lowering a boat it would have been too late to save him. ...Pigs, too, he hated, and they ran constantly past his cage, while as for an orang-outang monkey about three feet high, which a black trader once tried to sell to the sailors, Sa showed such mad symptoms at the very sight of it that the poor beast rushed in terror to the other end of the vessel, knocking down everything that came in its way. ...Now sermons are things that take up a great deal of attention, and he had almost forgotten his lost favourite when he was startled by a tremendous noise in the hall outside his study, and on opening the door to see what was the matter, he saw his buzzard rushing about, followed by five others, who were so jealous of its copper plate and bell, that they had tried to peck them off, and the poor thing had flown as fast as it could to its master's house, where it knew it was safe.