THE HUMAN ZOO

Anyone who has ever tried to spoon Pablum into a stubborn infant can hardly help but feel that the baby baboon on the cover of this week's issue looks startlingly like a lot of human babies in one of their moments of tender crisis. Photographer Nina Leen, in fact, has managed to use animals to caricature people in all the good-natured photographs on the following pages. In taking the pictures (at New York's famed Bronx Zoo) she was sometimes forced to wait for hours to catch simple poses which subtly suggested humans in unguarded moments. The natty and sad-eyed fellows just opposite are Malabar squirrels, but something about their appearance suggests a pair of bookies peering out of a boxcar door to see if they are still one jump ahead of the sheriff. Look again and you can feel a quality of startled naiveté about them—and almost hear a spooning teen-ager telling his girl: "Gosh—your pop just drove into the driveway!" There is something about them—and about Miss Leen's hippos, her harbor seal, her black leopard and her recalcitrant orangutan—which reflects things hidden in all of us.

BATHERS
You see all kinds at Coney Island. So this couple has gained weight in 60 years? So wotta relief at the beach!

GAMBLER
"Gimme that deck, podnuh! Keep yuh hands on the table and don't make no moves. Ah aims to count them cards."

ACTRESS
Cut from long shot of hero's ship on horizon to closeup of beautiful dusky maiden calling, "Tyrone! I will wait!"

COP HATER
Our hero will glare like this for another 10 seconds, but he'll produce his driver's license all the same.

FIVE PHOTOS

NINA LEEN