| dbp:text
|
- It was intended that I should be a doctor, but parents propose and boys dispose. I had no liking for carving human animals; I wanted to get out amongst the beasts and birds. It was the call of the wild, I suppose.
So one day when I was 15 and had two dollars I let out from as good a home as there was around Los Angeles. I spent one dollar on traps and half a dollar on birdlime, and I had half a dollar left as capital. Then I worked through to 'Frisco' and when I realised, I had 50 dollars. That is how fate decides.
Well, I was away four years, and my people found I was at Seattle, and they sent my brother up to capture me, which he did, and I had to put in another year at school. But it was no use. You know, some men are just like lichens they stick on one bit of rock; others are like seed that is blown about the world, and perhaps never stay long enough anywhere to germinate. (en)
- This trip I captured 73 monkeys of various kinds, 16 deer, chimpanzees, eagles, ostriches, a mermaid, a servalina, two bush pigs, 964 grey parrots, and those other things I mentioned previously. But here is the pride of the lot, a king penguin, from Kerguelen, on the way to the South Pole. (en)
|
