there are many examples of animals coming to surprisingliving arrangements. all are instances of that animal equivalentof anthropomorphism: zoomorphism, where an animal takes ahuman being, or another animal, to be one of its kind.

the most famous case is also the most common: the petdog, which has so assimilated humans into the realm ofdoghood as to want to mate with them, a fact that any dogowner who has had to pull an amorous dog from the leg of amortified visitor will confirm.

our golden agouti and spotted paca got along very well,contentedly huddling together and sleeping against each otheruntil the first was stolen.

i have already mentioned our rhinoceros-and-goat herd, andthe case of circus lions.

there are confirmed stories of drowning sailors being pushedup to the surface of the water and held there by dolphins, acharacteristic way in which these marine mammals help eachother.

a case is mentioned in the literature of a stoat and a ratliving in a companion relationship, while other rats presented tothe stoat were devoured by it in the typical way of stoats.

we had our own case of the freak suspension of thepredator-prey relationship. we had a mouse that lived forseveral weeks with the vipers. while other mice dropped in theterrarium disappeared within two days, this little brownmethuselah built itself a nest, stored the grains we gave it invarious hideaways and scampered about in plain sight of thesnakes. we were amazed. we put up a sign to bring themouse to the public's attention. it finally met its end in acurious way: a young viper bit it. was the viper unaware ofthe mouse's special status? unsocialized to it, perhaps?

whatever the case, the mouse was bitten by a young viper butdevoured – and immediately – by an adult. if there was aspell, it was broken by the young one. things returned tonormal after that. all mice disappeared down the vipers' gulletsat the usual rate.

in the trade, dogs are sometimes used as foster mothers forlion cubs. though the cubs grow to become larger than theircaregiver, and far more dangerous, they never give theirmother trouble and she never loses her placid behaviour orher sense of authority over her litter. signs have to be put upto explain to the public that the dog is not live food left forthe lions (just as we had to put up a sign pointing out thatrhinoceros are herbivores and do not eat goats).

what could be the explanation for zoomorphism? can't arhinoceros distinguish big from small, tough hide from soft fur?

isn't it plain to a dolphin what a dolphin is like? i believe theanswer lies in something i mentioned earlier, that measure ofmadness that moves life in strange but saving ways. thegolden agouti, like the rhinoceros, was in need ofcompanionship. the circus lions don't care to know that theirleader is a weakling human; the fiction guarantees their socialwell-being and staves off violent anarchy. as for the lion cubs,they would positively keel over with fright if they knew theirmother was a dog, for that would mean they were motherless,the absolute worst condition imaginable for any young,warm-blooded life. i'm sure even the adult viper, as itswallowed the mouse, must have felt somewhere in itsundeveloped mind a twinge of regret, a feeling that somethinggreater was just missed, an imaginative leap away from thelonely, crude reality of a reptile.