The evening times., 1898-08-04
THEY STAND THE TEST"
Eclipse Bicycles,
FOURTEENTH AND H STREETS.
jy2l-tf
AN ALLIGATOR GAME.
How the Captives in the Zoo Play
Mt Pyramid

IFrom the Cincinnati Enquirer.)
Did you ever see the Zoo alligators play
pyramid" or any other of their famous
games? They wrestle like old-time
Graeeo-Roman boys, and strain and
struggle in all sorts of ways at it. When.
finally, one wins by getting the other
on his back funnier thing occurs. The
victor makes a sound like escaping
steam, then the others make sounds like
escaping steam-alligators' applause. if
you please. Then they all become still
and watch the vanquished brother squirm
to get off of his back and onto his legs
again. If he is longer in doing this than
the gang think is proper they move up in
single file and give him jab with their
jaw in his upturned belly. When finally
he gets himself righted, all hands again
set up the steam escaping racket, cheer
ing him long and as loud as they did
his victor. Their meaning no fight is
shown by their never hurting each other
Another of the great midsummer pas
times of these Zoo alligators is playing
pyramid. The gators play pyramid sew
eral times a day. To see it done you'd
declare that the ugly things had been
trained to 1t. But no. It's just one of
the ways of the sporty side of their life
The game comes on by one of the bigger
aliisators uttering the steam kissing
noise. This calls the others to attention
Then the big one says a line or two of
alligator talk and stretches himself full
length in the center of the pen. No soon
er is this done than little bit smaller
alligator crawls on top of the other and
stretches out eng.hwise. but head to tail
with the other. The second one being set
tied. he lets off little steam talk, and a
third, little smaller alligator, climbs up
on top of the second and settles down as
the second did. They keep this up until
six or seven have builded themselves into
as strange and wonderful a pyramid as
ever an eye beheld. After each one has
settled on top of the other he lies per-
feo,ly motionless. so that when the pyra-
mid is completed It appears as some
marvellous carving.
But this effect lasts only about two min
utes after the pyramid Is finished. Then
comes new chapter of the act The
Sandow gator underneath all starts to
crawling. He heads for up and down
places in the pen, the game clearly being
TO see how long 1t will take him to jolt
his strange pyramid load to pieces And
right here develops what appears to be
strict rule of the game. Say there are
seven in the pyramid, and the sixth from
the bottom jostles off first taking, of
course, the seventh one with him. You'd
naturally think the game done for that
sixth and seventh alligator. But not at
all. 1t seems that the sixth one is in dis
grace for having been shaken off before
the seventh one. who was top of the heap
Therefore, what does the seventh do but
cling to the back of the sixth after
they've fallen off, and proceeds to ride
Mr.. Alligator No. around the pen until |
Mr.. Sandow Alligator has succeeded in |
dumping the whole shooting match. If the |
fourth is shaken off before the fifth, the |
fifth, like the seventh, proceeds to ride
his disgraced next until Sandow gets
rid of all his load and another game is |
started.