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A bat is a bird or a mouse of its own choosing when it is tense. This is the caption to a relief on the Dierentuin bridge on Prinsessegracht. The relief shows a bat with two weasels. This motif is taken from the fable by Jean de la Fontaine (1621-1695), in which a weasel who had the land of bats spoke: 'Fie! How dare you, little mouse, hang about in my house?' To which the bat replied that he was a bird. When a second weasel addressed him as a bird, the bat was obviously a mouse.

Beneath the picture of two skinny rats is written: 'In words they are united: none that ring the bell of the cat'. The rats have to stay in their burrow because of a hangover, 'mad with hunger'. When the suggestion is made to ring a bell for the tomcat, none of the rats dares to carry out the plan. In short, there is much talk, but when it comes down to it, nobody does anything.

There are also ten granite animal tableaux by artist Gra Rueb, combined with proverbs by poet Ben van Eysselstein. Rueb and Van Eysselstein based eleven out of twelve times their work on the moralising Lafontaine fables. Only 'The swan, who sees only himself, does not seek out the falcon who spies on him', cannot be traced as such.
Rueb has often been praised for her animal depictions. The bridge sculptures prove how skilfully she portrayed animals. The character and peculiarities of the animal are striking, here and there with mild mockery. Animals are central to the works of art on the bridge, because the Hague Zoo used to be on the other side. Hence the name Zoo Bridge. From 1863, the garden functioned as a place of entertainment. In the 1960s, the zoo had to make way for the new provincial government building and the buildings were demolished.