This wonderful recollection begins with a shy young boy who, while everyone else was dancing on the streets, celebrated the World War II Allied victory by observing a colony of rooks. After studying the behavioral habits of the 10-spined stickleback at Oxford, Desmond Morris became curator of mammals at London Zoo and quickly became a familiar figure in homes all over Britain as presenter of Zootime, delighting millions of tea-time viewers with a daring attempt to pick up a deadly scorpion by its tail or a tumble off the back of an elephant. As curator of mammals at the zoo, life was as bizarre behind the cameras as in front of them, not least when a whale turned up in the Thames River or when a pair of ferocious bears escaped and caused havoc in a restroom.
