Part 13

The well-known escape of the tiger which the elder Mr. Jamrach recaptured in the street, was partly due to the weakness of a cage. An Indian tiger had been brought up from the docks, and was about to be transferred to a larger den in the “stables.” This animal showed more judgment than most of its kind, for it used its back in the fashion of a lever, and burst the rear of the cage. It then trotted down the narrow passage, and into the main street, then known by its old name of Ratcliffe Highway. The only person who waited its approach was a little boy of eight years old, who had put out his hand to touch it. The tiger patted him with his paw, and of course the child fell on the pavement, though the blow was so gently given that the child was stunned but not injured. The tiger then picked him up by the loose part of his jacket, and was trotting off with him, exactly like a cat carrying a mouse, when Mr. Jamrach the elder came running up in pursuit. He at once sprang on the tiger’s back, and grasping its throat with both hands drove his thumbs into the soft part below the jaw. The tiger dropped the child, and Mr. Jamrach literally “drove it home” like some domestic animal, only with a crowbar instead of a stick.

The courage and readiness of Mr. Jamrach’s attack can hardly be over-estimated. The creature was an absolutely new arrival, as to whose temper nothing but the worst could be imagined after so prompt an escape and the attack on the child. The native coolness and indifference to human powers of resistance of the tiger could hardly be better illustrated than by the unabashed impudence with which this tiger, after months of captivity by human beings, after being fed, moved hither and thither, lowered into ships and hoisted on to quays, by men whom it was powerless to injure, picked up the first nice little boy it met after two minutes of freedom, and trotted off to make a meal of him in a city of four millions of people.

Mr. Jamrach has been good enough to give the writer details of another and less well-known tiger escape, which took place on the North-Western Railway near Weedon Station about fifteen years ago. The tiger was being sent to a dealer in Liverpool, and was in a cage fastened to the bottom of an open truck. The cage was amply strong, but another train, loaded with huge iron girders that had been improperly packed, and projected from the sides of the trucks, passed that in which the tiger was travelling, and one of the girders struck the cage and smashed it to pieces. The tiger was unhurt, but the cage fell to pieces round it, and left it sitting on the truck like a pigeon when the “trap” is pulled. The tiger at once bounded off, and by a strange chance alighted almost in the middle of a flock of sheep. It knocked down half-a-dozen, and after making a meal off one of these, trotted off up the line. “The news soon spread,” writes Mr. Jamrach, “and caused the greatest consternation everywhere. Fortunately a troop of soldiers happened to be quartered at Weedon, and these were called out and packed away in a railway train, which followed up the tiger at a slow rate, and out of the railway carriage the soldiers potted away at the tiger until they killed him. My father always considered he had a good claim against the Railway Company for damages, but did not follow it up, and consequently was a heavy loser.”

The most troublesome arrival to recapture which ever escaped from the “stables” in London was a large baboon. It contrived to get clear of its cage over-night, and opened the window of the room in which it was confined. Thence it leapt on to the roof of a house opposite; “crawling over the tiles,” says a writer to whom Mr. Jamrach told the story, “it ensconced itself among the chimneys, pleased with the warmth, and chattered defiance at its pursuers. Then a grand commotion ensued among the neighbours. Letters and messages of horror and entreaty poured in to Mr. Jamrach; he was even threatened with legal proceedings. All sorts of methods were tried to catch the fugitive; but an ape’s feet are more at home on narrow ledges and steep inclines than feet cased in boot-leather. For days the baboon kept his liberty, consoling himself for the chilliness of the nights by abundant frolics during the day. Little wonder if the children were afraid to go to bed at the top of the house, or if the servant-girls looked up nervously from their toilets at any sound on the tiles outside, fearing to see the face of that ‘odious creature’ glaring in through the glass pane. There could be no rest till he was caught and caged. Eventually he was enticed into a room through an open window, and a blanket having been thrown over him, he was caught and carried home in triumph.”

The panic caused by a big monkey at large is almost equal to that which follows the escape of some really dangerous beast. Only in the present year a large mandrill owned by a lady was pursued and shot without mercy in Essex, as a precaution against “its well-known ferocity.”

“The most interesting side of our profession,” says Mr. Jamrach, “is the possible arrival of _new creatures_, animals never seen alive in Europe, or new to our experience.” The chance of such an event is never quite absent. Even in 1894 he received a strange deer from Japan. He sent this at once to Professor Milne Edwards at the Jardin des Plantes of Paris, who pronounced it to be a new species.

The prices of rare animals, often differing little in general appearance from common species, are high enough at present to make the wild-beast trade a lucrative business. But it would be a mistake to suppose that the pursuit of this profession, or even the business of owning and exhibiting wild beasts, is solely a matter of sale and barter, or mere money-making. In all connected with the sale or management of wild animals with whom the writer is acquainted, there is a genuine naturalist’s appreciation in the creatures they deal in, often existing side by side with something of that pride in maintaining animals in good condition which they share in common with the whole race of breeders of prize cattle, race-horse trainers, masters of hounds and huntsmen, down to the labourers with their pigs. From the highest to the lowest, they seem to know most of what is going on, not only in the different menageries of England, but also on the continents. The masters and owners will meet one another often in the course of business, and the men pay cross visits to rival establishments, and discuss the latest additions or losses. We seldom fail to see at a circus or exhibition of performing animals the well-known faces of some of the keepers at the Zoo; and when going round the houses at the Gardens, the best-known owners of circuses, the lion-tamers or elephant-trainers of the ring, may often be seen musing in front of the cages and taking stock of their inmates. A Suffolk villager in London nearly always chooses the meat-market at Smithfield as the first place in which to spend a happy day; and a wild-beast keeper goes naturally for change of scene to another wild-beast menagerie.

EXPRESSION IN THE ANIMAL EYE.

THE wonderful compound eyes of insects recently formed the subject of a paper read by Lord Rayleigh before the Royal Society, recording observations of minute accuracy and ingenious measurement by Mr. A. Mallock. The general conclusions formed as to the actual power of these complex organs rather raises than lessens the claim to efficiency of the simpler vertebrate eye. The compound eye pieces together the separate impressions of the object seen, and should any of the facets be out of order, a blank must be left in the corresponding part of the picture. The only advantage which is claimed for insect-sight is that at the shortest distances the object seen is still in focus, which partly accounts for the “short-sighted” manner in which most insects seem to examine any object in which they are particularly interested. Seen under a powerful microscope, and measured by the delicate instruments so skilfully employed by Mr. Mallock, these insect eyes are marvels of geometrical symmetry. But they are merely organs of sight, not of expression. They are beautiful with the beauty of cut gems, and as devoid as a brilliant of any power of expression of character or emotion.

A very brief visit to the stalls and cages of the Zoo, shows that the importance of the eye in the physiognomy of the higher animals is even greater than in the human face; for in the greater number of even the best animal types, the play of feature is so limited, that expression is conveyed mainly by the eye, to which the movable ear plays an important and connected but always subsidiary part. By what seems almost a paradox, many human eyes, which produced a first impression of beauty, but are soon discovered to be singularly lacking in expression, are afterwards felt to have a strong resemblance to the eyes of certain animals,—of deer, for instance, or of birds; yet in the very animal which suggests the resemblance, the eye often possesses great intrinsic beauty, which is increased and dignified by a peculiar fitness for the face in which it appears. It is in keeping with the limits of animal expression that the actual size of the eye should bear a greater proportion to the area of the face than it does in man; and it will be found that the general estimate of animal beauty varies in the main with the size of the eye; the giraffe, whose immense orbs exceed those of any other animal in size, perfection of shape, convexity, lustre, depth of colour, and length of eyelash, being perhaps the most general favourite in the rivalry of beauty, and the almost eyeless moles and manatees those which stand lowest as judged by the presence or absence of expression, without the accession of hideous deformity.

The analysis of beauty must always be approached with diffidence. There is always the danger that, like the crystal drop, it may, on the displacement of a single component part, rebuke the impertinent inquirer by the shivering and resolution of the perfect whole into fragments which baffle reconstruction and defy recognition. Common opinion, the fairest arbiter in a matter of such general interest, is probably agreed, that in the human eye, colour does not control our estimate of beauty. “Black eyes or blue eyes, hazel or grey,” as the song says, are equally admired in the proper setting. But in the eyes of all other creatures colour does make a marked difference in the impression which they convey to us, though the reason for this difference is obscure. Light-coloured eyes of any shade seem to detract strangely from the depth and significance of animal expression. The usual tint in these light-coloured eyes of animals is a bright golden yellow. Creatures of very similar form and almost identical shape of head and face, appeal, or fail to appeal, to us by the expression of their eye largely on account of this slight difference, though the probable range of emotion and scope of intelligence in the one can hardly be believed to differ greatly from the same powers in the other. The yellow eyes of the sheep and the goat have probably never been the subject of a word of commendation, while poets and painters have never tired of celebrating the dark eyes of their cousins, the roebuck and the gazelle.

In birds the contrast is even more marked. As a rule, the eyes of the hawks are light-yellow, bright, and piercing, with wonderful powers of vision. The true falcons, which do not surpass the hawks either in size or courage, have black eyes, which lend a nobility and dignity to the expression of the bird which the goshawk, with all its pride of carriage, never attains. There is something infinitely roguish and mischievous in the light-blue eye of the jackdaw, which would be pure ruin to the character of its grave cousin “parson” rook, if, by some unkind freak of nature, one were born with such disfigurement; indeed, it may be doubted if the colony would not pronounce sentence of execution at once upon such a discredit to the tribe. There seems good reason to believe that this feature, often the only obvious mark which distinguishes young nestlings of one species from those of another, is that which leads to the detection and prompt destruction by birds of the newly-hatched young, from alien eggs which have been placed for experiment in their nests. There is, however, one middle shade found in birds’ eyes which is singularly beautiful, the so-called “gravel-coloured” eye of certain breeds of pigeon. This is really a brilliant shade of tawny-red, and though unshaded by lashes, and set in the centre of the bare “cere,” gives to the birds a bold and intelligent appearance in complete contrast to the vapid effect of red eyes in most animal faces. We believe that the countenance of a pink-eyed albino guinea-pig is as nearly devoid of expression as it is possible for the face of a quadruped to be; and whenever the pink eye accompanies albinism there is an obvious loss of interest in the face, though the eye, considered as an object apart, may have the depth and lustre of a smooth garnet. Where albinism develops blue eyes, as in white cats, and sometimes in white horses, the loss of expression is less; but even in the horse, the blue eye, ringed with pinkish-white, is too like that of fish to suggest a tenth part of the intelligence and power of emotion latent in the face of the dark-eyed Arabian. Even dogs with light eyes have less of the _appearance_ of truth and trustfulness than others, though the pale eye is seen in some of the most ancient and valuable breeds, such as the lemon-and-white Clumber spaniel. In the case of the dog, the human preference for the dark over the light eye is perhaps explained by the affinity which the last has with that of the wolf and the common fox. The cunning, shifty look which the last animal possesses, is largely due not only to the yellow colour, but also to the shape and mechanism of the vulpine eyes. They are set close together, and the inner corners run down almost parallel to the muzzle. In addition, the pupil of the fox’s eye expands and contracts like that of a cat.[6] By day the eye is a mere yellow orb, with a narrow line of black in the centre. The reason that the stuffed foxes’ heads to be seen in so many country houses bear the amiable and most un-foxy expression which they do, is that the “artist” who stuffs them, sticks in nice brown glass eyes with black pupils, which he takes from the compartment labelled “dogs” in the curious box in which glass eyes for all creatures, from tom-tits to stags, are kept duly sorted for use. Cats’ eyes are by no means devoid of a pleasing expression, except in strong light; but among them the dark-grey iris of the Angora and some of the “blue” cats give a look of repose and serenity which the brassy orbs of the yellow-eyed varieties never possess. A larger and more striking example of the same difference is found in contrast of the yellow eyes of the black leopard at the Zoo, one of the most unpleasant-looking of the big _felidæ_, and the dark, convex eyes of the ocelot. But the most striking instance of the immense difference between the effect of the light eye and the dark, is seen in the case of a new species of eagle-owl which has just been brought to the Zoo from Mashonaland. The great brown eagle-owl of Northern Europe, with its huge, round, yellow-and-black eyes with which it sternly stares the visitor out of countenance, has a fierce, wide-awake, resentful expression exactly in keeping with its character. The “milky eagle-owl,” a splendid bird, with plumage barred with wavy lines of grey from crest to talons, has oval eyes of the deepest black, soft and lustrous, and shaded with eyelids and lashes. The result is a change of expression to something quite unlike the face of any bird, and more human than that of most beasts. It is certainly the finest bird-eye yet discovered.

Footnote 6:

The miniature Asiatic foxes which are often shown in numbers at the Zoo seem less affected by bright sunlight than the English species.

The eyes of Homer’s goddesses must not be judged too literally by the animal model in the standing epithets by which he loves to describe them. Γλαυχῶπις Ἀθήνη was the “bright-eyed” goddess; and the owl probably had its Greek name from the brightness of its eyes. So Hera was ox-eyed—that is, with round dark eyes—fine to look at, but if we may judge from her character, perhaps equally without expression, with those of the animal which they resembled. Helen, when restored to Menelaus, and playing the part of hostess to Ulysses, artlessly apologizes for the trouble which the Greeks had incurred on her account,—

“κυνώπιδος εἵνεκα κούρης,”

in which the word κυνώπιδος, “with dog’s eyes,” may be taken to mean what would now be described as “rather a forward young person.” Yet in the recognition of Ulysses by the old dog Argus, there is a feeling for the pathos of animal expression which finds adequate interpretation in the beautiful picture in which Mr. Briton Riviere has depicted the longing look of recognition in the eyes of the dog, and of pity in those of the hero, who sees in the first the sole signal of welcome to his island home. The charm of this picture lies in the truth that in the eyes of the dog and in the eyes of the King the same emotion is actually present, and exhibited naturally and spontaneously by the organ of sight, without transgressing the limits of expression in the animal, which one of the greatest animal-painters not unfrequently ventured to do, by transferring to it modifications of feature only possible in the human eye. The expression which is associated with the most beautiful of animal eyes, those of the horse, the stag, and the eagle, is so dependent upon particular differences of shade and setting, in creatures whose emotions and intelligence cannot greatly differ in degree,—that its common interpretation must be due rather to analogy than to any appreciation of its meaning.

LONDON BEARS.

“NEVER make a pet of a bear,” is the advice given by the experienced “bear-ward” at the Zoo. But though his conclusions are the result of longer and closer experience of the animals than is possessed by any one person in Europe, there is something so attractive in the apparent simplicity and _bonhomie_ of the comfortable, warmly-clad, deliberate ursine race which appeals irresistibly to animal-loving Englishmen. Ever since the early middle ages the performing bear has been a favourite; and to this day there is in Turkey and Bulgaria a wandering race of gipsies who are known by the common name of “bear-tamers,” from their traditional occupation of catching the young cubs in the forests of the Carpathians, and leading them through the villages as performers in all the feasts, whether Christian or Mussulman, of the ancient land of Thrace.

The tame bear, which for the greater part of 1891 and 1892 was exhibited in the London streets, and ultimately had an audience from her Majesty at Windsor Castle, was also a familiar acquaintance of most of the London police magistrates. Its popularity was such, that whenever exhibited it instantly became the centre of a crowd, which increased until the police constable on duty felt it incompatible with his position not to take it into custody. Then came the scene in the dock next morning, and the “dismissal with a caution” as a sequence. Meantime the bear had usually held a reception in the police-station the night before; and so much did its endearing ways win the hearts of the “force,” that on one occasion the constable who had run it in made a collection for its benefit the moment the case was dismissed.

This was a small Pyrenean bear, about three years old, with a rough coat the colour of a dusty cocoa-nut fibre door-mat, and though it had a strong steel muzzle of apparently needless severity fixed round the base of its nose, the genial Provençal who owned it, and whose bed it usually shared at night in the quarters of the foreign artists in street music and ice-creams in which he dwelt when not employed in exhibiting his pet before royalty, or elsewhere, declared that it was a “_brave bête, doux comme un enfant, et doué de traits de caractère tout à fait remarquables_.” The behaviour of the street urchins to the _brave bête_ was perhaps a reminiscence of the days when bear-baiting was looked upon as an exhibition calculated to maintain the pugnacious character of the true-bred Englishman; for, once assured that it would not hurt them, they stamped on its toes as occasion offered, until the bear rose on its hind legs and assumed an attitude of defence, which drove the malicious tribe to a safe distance. “_Pauvre bête, il a peur_,” said his owner; and it was evident not only that the bear was afraid of the brutal children of the street, but that it looked to the “grown-ups” for protection.

Probably the most easily tamed of the tribe are the small Malayan bears, five of which are at present in the collection of the Zoological Society. These are true honey-eating bears, provided with long elastic tongues, and covered with short close fur of the most beautiful dark and glossy brown, of the tint to which seal-skins are dyed. The largest is a perfect beauty in the eyes of bear connoisseurs, sleek and glossy, its coat fitting it like a well-made suit of felt, and when walking upright, as it prefers to do when about to be fed, it is “just like a person,” as we once heard a small girl remark. It has a cream-coloured face, and a beautiful orange “bib.” The oldest of the family has been twenty years in the Gardens, and is so stiff and decrepit, that when on the ground it moves like a rheumatic old man. But it can still climb, and will exhibit most amusing feats upon the bars in return for a lump of sugar. Sugar is the greatest luxury which can be given to these “sweet-toothed” animals except honey, and their rations of this are carefully regulated, as it does not agree with their constitutions when in confinement. When a lump of sugar is shown to the old bear it climbs the bars with great deliberation, and then holding on by all four feet waits for the visitor to go through his part of the performance. Unless this is carried out according to rule, the bear descends and sits on the floor, waiting until it gets the sugar thrown to it without further trouble. But if the lump is slowly waved round in circles from right to left—the opposite direction is not considered fair, and the animal “won’t play” if it is persisted in—the bear also turns “coach wheels” slowly on the bars. His old elbows stick out and his paws turn in, but he still feels equal to almost any number of turns if the visitor is exacting. When rewarded with the sugar the bear “makes it last,” like a nasty little boy with a sugar-plum, only far more ingeniously. “That was a white sugar-plum I gave you,” says the horrible child in Mr. Du Maurier’s picture—“it was _pink once_.” The bear is not really nasty, but it has discovered an ingenious process by which loaf-sugar can be converted into honey. It first wets its fore-paws, and then cracks the sugar into two pieces, and puts one on to each paw. It then rubs the bits on with its nose, and next picking each up again cracks it, and lays two well-moistened pieces on to each paw, as before. It then licks these off again, and if any is left again deposits them on the backs of its well-moistened sticky knuckles. Finally it licks them quite clean, and turns slowly head over heals, as an acknowledgment of the treat.