Professional Documents
Culture Documents
3) Program-data dependence refers to the coupling of data stored in files and software
programs that use this data such that changes in programs require changes to the data.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
6) NoSQL technologies are used to manage sets of data that don't require the flexibility of
tables and relations.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 180
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
7) Data governance deals with the policies and processes for managing the integrity and
security of data in a firm.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
9) A data dictionary is a language associated with a database management system that end
users and programmers use to manipulate data in the database.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
14) OLAP enables users to obtain online answers to ad-hoc questions in a fairly rapid amount of
time, except when the data are stored in very large databases.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
15) With in-memory computing, a computer's primary memory (RAM) is used for processing.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
16) In a Web-based database, middleware is used to transfer information from the organization's
internal database back to the Web server for delivery in the form of a Web page to the user.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
17) The disadvantage of using a Web interface for a database is that it typically requires
substantial changes to the internal database.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
18) Common Gateway Interface is a specification for processing data on a Web server.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
19) Data administration is a special organizational function that manages the policies and
procedures through which data can be managed as an organizational resource.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
21) An effective information system provides users with accurate, timely, and irrelevant
information.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 174
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
22) Program-data dependence wastes storage resources and also leads to data
inconsistency where the same attribute may have different values.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
23) A traditional file system can deliver routine scheduled reports after extensive
programming efforts, but it cannot deliver ad hoc reports or respond to unanticipated
information requirements in a timely fashion.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 177
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
25) The most popular type of DBMS today for PCs as well as for larger computers and
mainframes is the rational DBMS.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
26) Up until about five years ago, most data collected by organizations consisted of
transaction data that could easily fit into rows and columns of relational database
management systems.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 184
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
27) Big data does not refer to any specific quantity but usually refers to data in the petabyte and
exabyte range—in other words, billions to trillions of records, all from different sources.
Answer: TRUE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
28) A data mart is a database that stores current and historical data of potential interest to
decision makers throughout the company.
Answer: FALSE
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
29) Which of the following best illustrates the relationship between entities and attributes?
A) the entity CUSTOMER with the attribute PRODUCT
B) the entity CUSTOMER with the attribute PURCHASE
C) the entity PRODUCT with the attribute PURCHASE
D) the entity PRODUCT with the attribute CUSTOMER
Answer: B
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.1
30) Which of the following is not one of the main problems with a traditional file environment?
A) data inconsistency
B) program-data independence
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33) The confusion created by ________ makes it difficult for companies to create customer
relationship management, supply chain management, or enterprise systems that integrate
data from different sources.
A) batch processing
B) data redundancy
C) data independence
D) online processing
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
37) DBMS for midrange computers include all of the following except
A) DB2.
B) Oracle.
C) Microsoft SQL Server.
D) Microsoft Access.
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
38) The type of logical database model that treats data as if they were stored in two-dimensional
tables is the
A) non-relational DBMS.
B) mobile DBMS.
C) relational DBMS.
D) hierarchical DBMS.
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
41) In a table for customers, the information about a single customer would reside in a single
A) field.
B) row.
C) column.
D) table.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
43) A field identified in a table as holding the unique identifier of the table's records is called
the
A) primary key.
B) key field.
C) primary field.
D) unique ID.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
44) A field identified in a record as holding the unique identifier for that record is called the
A) primary key.
B) key field.
C) primary field.
D) unique ID.
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
45) In a relational database, the three basic operations used to develop useful sets of data are
A) select, project, and where.
B) select, join, and where.
C) select, project, and join.
D) select, from, and join.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 179
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
50) Which of the following technologies would you use to analyze the social media data
collected by a major online retailer?
A) OLAP
B) data warehouse
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C) data mart
D) Hadoop
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
52) An automated or manual file that stores information about data elements and data
characteristics such as usage, physical representation, ownership, authorization, and security
is the
A) data dictionary.
B) data definition diagram.
C) entity-relationship diagram.
D) relationship dictionary.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
53) The specialized language programmers use to add and change data in the database is called
A) a data access language.
B) a data manipulation language.
C) structured query language.
D) a data definition language.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
56) The process of streamlining data to minimize redundancy and awkward many-to-many
relationships is called
A) normalization.
B) data scrubbing.
C) data cleansing.
D) data defining.
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
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57) A schematic of the entire database that describes the relationships in a database is called
a(n)
A) data dictionary.
B) intersection relationship diagram.
C) entity-relationship diagram.
D) data definition diagram.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 184
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
58) A one-to-one relationship between two entities is symbolized in a diagram by a line that
ends with
A) two short marks.
B) one short mark.
C) a crow's foot.
D) a crow's foot topped by a short mark.
Answer: A
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 184
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
59) Which of the following is not one of the techniques used in Web mining?
A) Knowledge mining
B) structure mining
C) server mining
D) user mining
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 190
AACSB: Reflective thinking skills
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
60) You work for a retail clothing chain whose primary outlets are in shopping malls, and you
are conducting an analysis of your customers and their preferences. You wish to find out if
there are any particular activities that your customers engage in, or the types of purchases
made in the month before or after purchasing select items from your store. To do this, you
will want to use data mining software that is capable of
A) identifying associations.
B) identifying clusters.
C) identifying sequences.
D) classification.
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.3
61) You work for a national car rental agency and want to determine what characteristics are
shared among your most loyal customers. To do this, you will want to use data mining
software that is capable of
A) identifying associations.
B) identifying clusters.
C) identifying sequences.
D) classification.
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.3
63) All of the following are technologies used to analyze and manage big data except
A) cloud computing.
B) noSQL.
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C) in-memory computing.
D) analytic platforms.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
64) A nationwide magazine publisher has hired you to help analyze their social media datasets
to determine which of their news publications are seen as the most trustworthy. Which of
the following tools would you use to analyze this data?
A) text mining tools
B) sentiment analysis software
C) Web usage mining technologies
D) data mining software for identifying associations
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
65) The tool that enables users to view the same data in different ways using multiple
dimensions is
A) predictive analysis.
B) SQL.
C) OLAP.
D) data mining.
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
69) ________ tools are used to analyze large unstructured data sets, such as e-mail, memos,
survey responses, etc., to discover patterns and relationships.
A) OLAP
B) Text mining
C) In-memory
D) Clustering
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
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70) An alternative to using application server software for interfacing between a Web server
and back-end databases is
A) CGI.
B) HTML.
C) Java.
D) SQL.
Answer: A
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
71) The organization's rules for sharing, disseminating, acquiring, standardizing, classifying,
and inventorying information is called a(n)
A) information policy.
B) data definition file.
C) data quality audit.
D) data governance policy.
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
72) The special organizational function whose responsibilities include physical database design
and maintenance, is called
A) data administration.
B) database administration.
C) information policy administration.
D) data auditing.
Answer: B
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 193
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
73) Which common database challenge is illustrated by a person receiving multiple copies of an
L.L. Bean catalog, each addressed to a slightly different variation of his or her full name?
A) data normalization
B) data accuracy
C) data redundancy
D) data inconsistency
Answer: D
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.1
74) Detecting and correcting data in a database or file that are incorrect, incomplete, improperly
formatted, or redundant is called
A) data auditing.
B) defragmentation.
C) data scrubbing.
D) data optimization.
Answer: C
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
75) You are creating a database to store temperature and wind data from national airport
locations. Which of the following fields is the most likely candidate to use as the basis for a
primary key in the Airport table?
A) address
B) city
C) airport code
D) state
Answer: C
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
C) normalizes data.
D) enforces consistency among different sets of data.
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.4
77) Which of the following is not a method for performing a data quality audit?
A) surveying entire data files
B) surveying samples from data files
C) surveying data definition and query files
D) surveying end users about their perceptions of data quality
Answer: C
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 194
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.4
78) The most popular type of DBMS today for PCs as well as for larger computers and
mainframes is the ____________________________.
A) relational DBMS
B) relational DMBS
C) rational DBMS
D) rational DMBS
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 185
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
80) Another way of facilitating big data analysis is to use _______________________, which
relies primarily on a computer’s main memory (RAM) for data storage.
A) data warehouse
B) in-memory computing
C) analytic platforms
D) Data mining
Answer: B
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
Answer: A
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 188
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
86) The discovery and analysis of useful patterns and information from the World Wide Web is
called ______________________.
A) Data mining
B) Web surfing
C) Web data
D) Web mining
Answer: D
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 190
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.3
89) To analyze unstructured data, such as memos and legal cases, you would use ________
tools.
Answer: text mining
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
90) A(n) ________ view shows data as it is actually organized and structured on the data
storage media.
Answer: physical
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 178
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
91) DBMS have a(n) ________ capability to specify the structure of the Knowledge of the
database.
Answer: data definition
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 181
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
92) Relational DBMSs use ________ rules to ensure that relationships between coupled tables
remain consistent.
Answer: referential integrity
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 183
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
94) In ________, a data mining tool discovers different groupings within data, such as finding
affinity groups for bank cards.
Answer: clustering
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
95) High-speed ________ use both relational and non-relational tools to analyze large datasets.
Answer: analytic platforms
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 186
AACSB: Reflective thinking skills
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
96) A(n) ________ is software that handles all application operations between browser-based
computers and a company's back-end business applications or databases.
Answer: application server
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 192
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
97) In data mining, the technique of ________ uses a series of existing values to predict what
other values will be.
Answer: forecasting
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.3
99) Information is _______________ when it is useful and appropriate for the types of
work and decisions that require it.
Answer: relevant
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 174
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
100) __________________ is the presence of duplicate data in multiple data files so that the
same data are stored in more than one place or location.
Answer: Data redundancy
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
101) __________________ refers to the coupling of data stored in files and the specific
programs required to update and maintain those files so that changes in programs require
changes to the data.
Answer: Program-data dependence
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.1
103) ______________________________ use a more flexible data model and are designed for
managing large data sets across many distributed machines and for easily scaling up or
down.
Answer: Non-relational database management systems
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 180
104) The process of creating small, stable, yet flexible and adaptive data structures from complex
groups of data is called ____________________.
Answer: normalization
Diff: 1 Page Ref: 183
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Knowledge
Objective: 6.2
106) The small publishing company you work for wants to create a new database for storing
information about all of their author contracts. What factors will influence how you design
the database?
Answer: Student answers will vary, but should include some assessment of data quality,
business processes and user needs, and relationship to existing IT systems. Key points to
include are:
Data accuracy when the new data is input, establishing a good data model, determining
which data is important and anticipating what the possible uses for the data will be, beyond
looking up contract information, technical difficulties linking this system to existing
systems, new business processes for data input and handling, and contracts management,
determining how end users will use the data, making data definitions consistent with other
databases, what methods to use to cleanse the data.
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 175-176
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.1
107) When you design the new contracts database for the publishing house mentioned above,
what fields do you anticipate needing? Which of these fields might be in use in other
databases used by the company?
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Answer: Author first name, author last name, author address, agent name and address, title
of book, book ISBN, date of contract, amount of money, payment schedule, date contract
ends.
Other databases might be an author database (author names, address, and agent details), a
book title database (title and ISBN of book), and financial database (payments made).
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 175-178
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.1
108) List at least three conditions that contribute to data redundancy and inconsistency.
Answer: Data redundancy occurs when different divisions, functional areas, and groups in
an organization independently collect the same piece of information. Because it is collected
and maintained in so many different places, the same data item may have:
1. different meanings in different parts of the organization,
2. different names may be used for the same item, and
3. different descriptions for the same condition. In addition, the fields into which the data is
gathered may have different field names, different attributes, or different constraints.
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 176
AACSB: Analytic skills
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.1
110) You have been hired by a national furniture leasing company to implement its first business
intelligence systems and infrastructure. To prepare for your initial report, describe the types
of data in their firm they can use to support business intelligence and the systems that you
will implement to support both their power users and casual users, and explain how these
systems or tools work together.
Answer: All types of data can be used for their business intelligence systems, including
operational, historical, machine-generated, Web/social data, audio and video data, and
external data. The large datasets can be collected in a Hadoop cluster, and used by an
analytic platform to support power user queries, data mining, OLAP, etc. A data warehouse
can be used to house all data, including smaller data sets and operational data, and be used
to support casual use, for queries, reports, and digital dashboards, as well as support the
analytic platforms. Smaller data marts can be created from the data warehouse to enable
faster querying and typical queries from casual users.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 185-186
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Synthesis
Objective: 6.3
111) Identify and describe three basic operations used to extract useful sets of data from a
relational database.
Answer: The select operation creates a subset consisting of all records (rows) in the table
that meets stated criteria. The join operation combines relational tables to provide the user
with more information than is available in individual tables. The project operation creates a
subset consisting of columns in a table, permitting the user to create new tables that contain
only the information required.
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 179-180
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Analysis
Objective: 6.2
112) Describe the ways in which database technologies could be used by an office stationery
supply company to achieve low-cost leadership.
Answer: Sales databases could be used to make the supply chain more efficient and
minimize warehousing and transportation costs. You can also use sales databases, as well as
text mining and sentiment analysis, to determine what supplies are in demand by which
customers and whether needs are different in different geographical areas. Business
intelligence databases could be used to predict future trends in office supply needs, to help
anticipate demand, and to determine the most efficient methods of transportation and
delivery.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 184-185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
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113) Describe the ways in which database technologies could be used by a toy manufacturer to
achieve product differentiation.
Answer: Product databases could be made available to customers for greater convenience
and ordering online. Databases could be used to track customer preferences and to help
anticipate customer desires. Sales databases could also help clients such as toy stores
anticipate when they would need to re-supply, providing an additional service. Data mining,
Web mining, and sentiment analysis of big data could help anticipate trends in sales or other
factors to help determine new services and products to sell to clients.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 184-185
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
114) What makes data mining an important business tool? What types of information does data
mining produce? In what type of circumstance would you advise a company to use data
mining?
Answer: Data mining is one of the data analysis tools that helps users make better business
decisions and is one of the key tools of business intelligence. Data mining allows users to
analyze large amounts of data and find hidden relationships between data that otherwise
would not be discovered. For example, data mining might find that a customer that buys
product X is ten times more likely to buy product Y than other customers.
Data mining finds information such as:
● Associations or occurrences that are linked to a single event.
● Sequences, events that are linked over time.
● Classification, patterns that describe the group to which an item belongs, found by
examining existing items that have been classified and by inferring a set of rules.
● Clusters, unclassified but related groups.
I would advise a company to use data mining when they are looking for new products and
services, or when they are looking for new marketing techniques or new markets. Data
mining might also be helpful when trying to analyze unanticipated problems with sales
whose causes are difficult to identify.
Diff: 3 Page Ref: 188-189
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.3
115) What are the differences between data mining and OLAP? When would you advise a
company to use OLAP?
Answer: Data mining uncovers hidden relationships and is used when you are trying to
discover data and new relationships. It is used to answer questions such as: Are there any
product sales that are related in time to other product sales?
In contrast, OLAP is used to analyze multiple dimensions of data and is used to find
answers to complex, but known, questions, such as: What were sales of a product—broken
down by month and geographical region, and how did those sales compare to sales
forecasts?
Diff: 2 Page Ref: 187-188
AACSB: Use of information technology
CASE: Evaluation
Objective: 6.2
8 avril 1915.
28 avril 1915.
4 mai 1915.
Les trams circulent presque vides ; les rues sont de plus en plus
désertes. Avec cela, un printemps adorable. Sur les branches des
arbres fruitiers, les fleurs grimpent les unes sur les autres ; les
branches ont de grosses touffes d’un blanc exquis et parfumé, et il y
a tant, tant d’oiseaux qui chantent sur les arbres des avenues et
dans les jardins, derrière les maisons brûlées et abandonnées !
Comme leurs propriétaires, à l’étranger, doivent y penser
maintenant ! Je crois qu’on entend mieux les oiseaux parce que les
rues sont plus silencieuses, et peut-être aussi parce que nous
n’avons pas encore entendu une note de musique depuis l’invasion
et que le moindre son harmonieux, après les discussions sur la
guerre par ces voix rudes et âpres des Flamands, caresse notre
oreille charmée et surprise.
Derrière chez nous, il y a un merle qui a le langage le plus
spirituel, le plus expressif, en même temps que le plus
délicieusement modulé. Ah ! la chère créature ! si je pouvais la
prendre dans le creux de la main et lui gratter doucement la tête, en
signe de reconnaissance ! Toutes les bêtes aiment qu’on leur gratte
la tête : si le merle se laissait faire une fois, il y reviendrait, et pour
moi ce serait une grande joie.
5 mai 1915.
22 mai 1915.
30 mai 1915.
30 mai 1915.
Le dindon domestique, tout blanc, se pavane, la queue en
éventail, les plumes ébouriffées, tout son être hérissé, devant le
treillage derrière lequel se trouve, le cou tendu, la femelle de son
congénère, autre dindon domestique. Il a les yeux entourés de bleu ;
le cou, la tête et le chiffon qui lui pend par-dessus le bec,
sanguinolents. Le chiffon est fripé comme un lambeau d’entrailles ; à
volonté, il injecte de sang, ou fait bleuir en bleu de ciel, ou laisse
pâlir en un blanc violacé cette masse amorphe qui pendille de droite
et de gauche. Il va et vient, apoplectique ou anémique, dément de
désir. Il est magnifique, antipathique, plein de morgue et
d’acariâtreté. Il tend le cou et fait kloukoulou ! kloukoulou ! Kwole,
kwole, kwole !
8 juin 1915.
13 juin 1915.
25 août 1915.
9 novembre 1915.
12 novembre 1915.
5 avril 1916.
7 avril 1916.
30 novembre 1916.
Je crois que l’œil le plus beau au monde est l’œil du hibou grand-
duc : une grande boule noire comme liquéfiée, bordée d’une bande
de feu liquide, mais adoucie par la myopie et la souffrance de la
captivité. Je me trouve devant la cage. Il fait un Chchinit effarouché
et suit peureusement les mouvements de mes yeux, seule chose
qu’il semble voir dans ma figure. Oh ! qu’il est beau, qu’il est beau, et
que je l’aime, surtout maintenant que nous sommes nous-mêmes
pris dans une trappe d’où nous ne pouvons bouger.
Par le froid qui commence, les bonnes avec les enfants se
réfugient dans le palais des éléphants, où il n’y a plus que des
zèbres, des chameaux, des girafes et le rhinocéros. Il y fait chaud et
les enfants que les mamans envoient, bien emmitouflés, prendre de
l’air frais et pur, ne respirent pendant des heures que l’odeur du
fumier de ces animaux.
Le jardin zoologique est lamentablement triste : la moitié des
bêtes ont disparu, elles sont mortes et on ne peut les remplacer ;
d’autres ont été envoyées en Hollande parce qu’on ne pouvait plus
les nourrir ; celles qui restent ont l’air lonely. Moi, je me promène
dans ce jardin, bien désemparée aussi.
Les grues font un tour de valse quand elles voient arriver leur
gardien ; nous, quand nous voyons arriver un de nos gardes-
chiourmes, nous avons envie de nous fourrer dans un petit trou, tant
ils nous épouvantent.
5 juin 1917.
21 août 1917.
29 novembre 1917.
1917.
La grue du Sénégal claironne sa musique à soufflet, puis fait
quelques tours sur le gravier humide de sa cage. Elle se picote, et,
lasse du froid et d’être seule, elle tourne son cou en forme de S sur
le dos, fourre sa tête sous ses ailes, puis replie une patte sous son
ventre et reste, tremblotante de froid, en équilibre sur l’autre pied.
Elle me fait pitié, l’adorable grue couronnée du Sénégal.
6 février 1918.
16 avril 1918.