The House of Lords is not noted for its wild animals, though we've seen the occasional mouse scurrying across the red carpets and a security guard found a fox trotting along the corridor in the early hours.
Recently we've had an incursion of goats, or rather "goats" - the new ministers who Gordon Brown appointed from outside Parliament in a so-called "Government of All the Talents".
The last prominent politician with the nickname of The Goat was the great Welsh Liberal and World War One Prime Minister David Lloyd George.
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In his younger years he was rather dapper but later on had a fairly shaggy look with long white hair and a bushy moustache. But the nickname was more to do with his liking for young ladies.
The latter day goats have been controversial in other ways and there's been a lot of grumbling inside the Labour ranks.
There are getting on for 200 backbench Labour peers.
Many of them are former ministers, top union leaders and others who have retired from active political work.
But there are still a fair number with the competence, political experience and energy to become ministers, who are not happy when people are brought in "off the street".
One of them, former CBI chief Digby Jones - now trade minister Lord Jones of Birmingham - has not even joined the Labour Party.
This weekend it was security minister Alan West - Lord West of Spithead - who caused a stir by changing his mind within the hour (after a "chat" with Gordon Brown) - over the plans to lock people up without charge for up to 56 days.
The new foreign office minister Lord Malloch-Brown had already made several media gaffs.
Many peers were outraged when the previous foreign office minister, Lord Triesman, was summarily heaved out of his job by Brown.
The House of Lords as a whole is very supportive of those of its ministers it thinks are doing a good job - regardless of politics.
Only last week a previous "goat", businessman Lord Drayson, resigned as defence minister in order to race his motorcars.
It remains to be seen how many of the new ones survive in the political circus, even the rather well-mannered circus in the House of Lords.
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