Part 14

A regiment of Life Guards recently owned a large brown bear, which ultimately found a home in the Zoo after giving proof of the wisdom of the keeper’s opinion. It was a pet of the regiment, and was taken from Knightsbridge to Windsor, and later to the Albany Street barracks, where it was kept chained up like a big dog, and treated with all the consideration due to a non-combatant member of the corps. A boy who was rather a favourite with the men, and used to run errands, and make himself useful about the barracks, took a fancy to the bear, and was employed to bring it its daily rations. One day, when the animal was asleep, the boy woke it by pulling the chain, at the same time laying the food before it. The experience of all those employed in the care of animals, whether wild or domesticated, forbids any approach without speaking to the creature first. In this case the bear, sulky at being wakened, and tethered only by a very long chain, seized the lad, and bit and clawed him so seriously that he was for some time an inmate of the Middlesex Hospital. The bear was “dismissed from the service,” and condemned to solitary confinement in a cage in the terrace in the Gardens. The ungrateful behaviour of the Guards’ bear must not be taken as a reflection on military treatment of wild animals, for an almost similar instance of the innate surliness of its species occurred many years ago in the establishment of one of those retired East India civilians whose Oriental habits were such a puzzle to the country squires, in the country seats in which the retired “Nabobs” often chose to spend their latter days. The gentleman in question had bought an estate in Devonshire; but it was his pleasure always to be waited upon by a “black man” at dinner, and in the later parts of the evening to sit at table with a pair of black bears, each adorned with a silver collar, seated in a large arm-chair on either side of him. An old Devonshire woman, who had been a servant in his family, took the bears under her charge, and fed them daily, until one of them bit three of the fingers off her hand. This was too much even for her master’s partiality for his pets, and the bears were slaughtered, and their bodies duly boiled down into “bears’ grease,” under the superintendence of their former owner and the attached domestic, who, though approving of the measure, like John Gilpin’s wife, “had still a frugal mind,” and felt that the unexpected supply of an expensive cosmetic should not be wasted.

The Polar bears are perhaps, with the exception of the elephants and other great pachyderms, the longest lived of animals when in captivity. In 1880 the first of the Polar bears died, after spending thirty-four years in Regent’s Park, and the eldest of the pair now in the collection has already spent twenty-six years in the Zoo. This is a splendid animal; at a rough guess it must weigh nearly a ton, and no carnivorous creature approaches it in size and strength. When we recollect that its common prey is the walrus, a sea beast nearly as large as a rhinoceros, seldom moving far from the edge of the ice-floes, and able by mere weight to drag both itself and its enemy into the sea, and to fight for life in its native element, the strength and armament of teeth and claws necessary to destroy it must be greater even than those of the lion, which, with all its weight of bone and muscle, seldom attacks even so large an animal as a buffalo, unless crippled by wounds.

The old Polar bear is now heavy with age and indolence; but the young female exhibits an activity and “lissomness,” whether on land or in the water, which shows how swift, dexterous, and terrible a foe to animal life the Polar bear must be. Confinement and maturity have not in the least abated its vigour, and it seems to enjoy life more than any creature in the Zoo. Fresh water is let into their bath three times in the week, and as soon as the bottom is covered the young bear rolls in and “cuts capers,” to use the keeper’s phrase. “She teased the old one till he got up to have a look, and then shoved him in,” he informed us on a recent visit; and though he seldom enters the bath now, he quite enjoyed it when once under-water. When in the bath by herself the female bear is in a state of pure physical enjoyment delightful to watch. She always prefers to take a “header,” but not after the orthodox fashion, for as her nose touches the bottom she turns a somersault slowly, and then floats to the surface on her back. After several rolls in the water she begins to play. Taking hold of her hind-paws with her fore-feet, she makes a huge ball of her body, and turns round and over with a curiously buoyant, easy movement, occasionally putting her head out to take breath and look at the spectators. Then she clambers out, shakes herself, and gallops round the edge of the bath. In spite of her bulk, this bear is really as active as a cat, and can go at speed round the narrow circle without pausing or missing a step. The next object of the bear is to find something to play with in the water. Anything will do, but if nothing else is handy, she usually produces a nasty bit of stale fish which she seems to keep hidden in some handy place, and dives for it, coming to the surface with the fish balanced on her nose, or on all four paws. If the water is still running in she will lie under the spout, and let it run through her mouth. But the most amusing game in which the writer has seen her occupied was played with a large round stone. After knocking it into the water, and jumping in to fish it out, she took it in her mouth, and endeavoured to push it into the hole in the pipe through which the water was running. This was a difficult matter, for the stone was as large as a tennis-ball, and the pipe was not much wider. Several times the stone dropped out, though the bear held it delicately between her lips, and pushed it out with her tongue. At last she sat up, and holding the stone between her fore-paws, put it up to the pipe and pushed it in with her nose. This was a great triumph, and she retired and contemplated the result with much satisfaction. Later, being apparently tired of this achievement, she threw water at it with her head, and failing to wash it down, picked it out with her claws, and went on diving for it in the bath.

Bears do not often have families in the Zoo. They are bad mothers in confinement, though when wild they are most devoted to their pretty little cubs. It must be admitted that they are almost the least well-housed of any creatures in the Gardens, as their dens, though dry, are cold and small. The most remarkable cubs ever born in the Gardens were a cross between the Polar and American black bear, born in 1853. In the spring of 1894, one of the she-bears in the pit gave birth to a litter of two, but one of these was killed by the male bear, and the other fatally injured.

Their place was, however, more than filled by a pair of tiny cubs which arrived at the Gardens on Easter Monday, a gift from Mr. Arnold Pike. They are of the grey Syrian breed, which is found from the Lebanon, across the high lands of Asia Minor, as far as the Caucasus, in which mountains these cubs were found when only a few days’ old. Though in a sense they are distant relations of the bears that ate the bad children who mocked the prophet Elisha, these little fellows were extremely tame and friendly. They were about the size of a large Skye terrier when they arrived, with sawdust-coloured heads, white collars, brown bodies, and sharp noses. They fed heartily on bread-and-milk and treacle, and their little stomachs stuck out roundly in evidence of their appreciation of their diet.

They were extremely sociable, and never quite happy unless people were near them or within sight. When they had human company they sat up, stretching their claws through the bars, in order to take hold of and suck the fingers of any one who would permit it. If not they sucked their own, keeping up a continual humming noise all the time. If left alone this became a loud, sustained complaint, like the noise of a litter of hungry puppies.

Bears are far more difficult to rear than would be thought in the case of such rough, hardy creatures. They are liable even after the first six months to cramp and paralysis of the hind-quarters, which gradually increase until the animal dies.

In winter-time all the bears are worth a visit. The black Himalayan bear, with its white front, the brown Russian and American species, with their magnificent soft fur, and most beautiful of all, the full-grown Syrian bear, with coat of cinnamon-grey, carrying a bloom like that on some soft fruit, are then in perfect condition. The two grizzly bears are interesting mainly on account of their rarity, and the possibility that they may live to develop the huge proportions which American hunters are unanimous in ascribing to the monsters of the Rocky Mountains. But even in full growth, it is much to be doubted whether the grizzly ever reaches the size even of the smaller Polar bear now in the Gardens.

YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO.

ARTEMIS, protectress of all young wild beasts, should be honoured with a statue at the Zoo; for the cages are yearly filled by the graceful young of wild creatures native to every quarter of the globe. The greater number are born in the menagerie, honest little British lions and the rest, of the true Cockney breed. Others come from the Gardens on the Continent, notably from Amsterdam, where, for some reason, the wild-beast farm thrives amazingly; and others, mainly the whelps of the fierce carnivora, are the gifts of Indian rajahs or of African sultans to the Empress of India, or captured by English sportsmen in their distant forays among the beasts of prey. By mere coincidence, the Lion House has lately been almost restocked by gifts which have been part of the tribute from the East to the West since the days of Roman Proconsuls. Five of the new arrivals were cubs, all of rare beauty of form and colouring, and in the finest health and condition. Three young tigers presented to the Princess Henry of Battenberg by the Nawab Sir Asmanjah had reached the Gardens only twenty-four hours before the writer paid them a visit, and were in a state of royal indignation at their change of quarters from the ship, to which they had become temporarily reconciled. One only would enter the front cage of the den, where it lay on its back with its paws bent inwards, growling to itself, occasionally turning over, laying its ears back on its head, and flattening its nose against the back of its wrist, like a sulky child. Two other half-grown cubs were in that interesting region known as the “passage,” which runs between the winter cages and the fine outdoor palaces behind. The details of the daily management of from twenty to thirty lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, and pumas can be comprehended at a glance from this central position. The ground-floor of the cages in the house, and of the playgrounds on the opposite side, is about four feet higher than the floor of the passage. The sleeping compartment of each cage has an iron sliding shutter, always kept locked, which gives on the passage. A corresponding shutter leads to the playground. A travelling bridge, running on rails, and barred on each side with iron rods, is the means of transit from the cages to these outer runs. When an animal is to be transferred from one to the other, the bridge is run up, the shutters are raised, and the lion or tiger, after sniffing and hesitating like a cat entering a room, walks through the bridge-cage, and takes possession of its apartments. Two of the young tigers were in the sleeping-den; the other chose to remain in the bridge-cage, where it lay, crouched and sulking, on the floor. Though not more than half-grown, they are more massive in shape, richer in colour and marking, than any full-grown tiger in the Zoo. The record of their capture is more complete than is usual in the case of animals presented by native princes. They are part of a litter of five taken at Charglain, about fifty miles from Hyderabad. The Nawab himself shot the tigress, and had alighted from his howdah to measure it, when an alarm was raised by the beaters that another tiger had been seen creeping in the jungle. On the beat being resumed the five cubs, then about a fortnight old, were caught, each being about the size of a full-grown cat. For the first week a she-goat acted as foster-mother, but they were afterwards brought up by hand with cows’-milk from a feeding-bottle. For food on the voyage to England they were provided with a flock of sheep, and so well were they fed, that they arrived at the Gardens with half a sheep still uneaten in the cage.[7] The two lion cubs caught by Lord Delamere in Somaliland were hardly of age to leave the nursery, though the difference of temper which is so commonly observed among lions was already marked. One, a beautifully mealy-tinted little lioness, with a thick rough coat like a St. Bernard puppy, and dark-brown eyes, ran out to play with a handkerchief, and could be petted like a kitten. The other was a morose little savage, lying at the back of the cage, and growling at every passer-by. They are fed on mutton powdered with bone-dust, and promise to rival in beauty even the slim and elegant young lioness presented by the Sultan of Zanzibar.

Footnote 7:

The tigers were, in fact, over-fed. They were too heavy for their legs, their hind-quarters grew weak, and one has died.

Three litters of wild swine were born in the Gardens during the first eight months of 1893—two early in the spring, and one, of four beautiful piglings, late in the summer. Young wild boars are far prettier than might be expected from the rather forbidding appearance of their parents. Their bodies are slim and elegant, their snouts fine, their ears short, and their legs and feet almost as finely-shaped as those of a young antelope. Their colour is a bright fawn or a rich tan, with longitudinal stripes like those on a tabby kitten; and in place of the thick bristles of the older pigs, their bodies are covered with a long and thick coat of rough hair. Family life in the wild boars’ quarters is harmonious and amusing. For the first month the little orange-striped pigs depend on their mother for food, and take no notice either of visitors or of each other. Each roams about by itself in the most independent fashion, or drops down to sleep on its stomach, with its legs stretched straight out before and behind, like a kneeling elephant in miniature. Later, when they have to be satisfied with the food provided in the troughs, they become the most amusing and importunate beggars in the Zoo, the old sow and boar setting the example, well supported by the little pigs. The whole family stand upright on their hind-legs in a row, like heraldic pigs supporting a coat-of-arms, with their fore-feet against the rails, and squeak, grunt, and even climb the wire-netting for contributions. Even if the floor is littered with delicious hog-wash, they prefer to plead _in formâ pauperis_, and the yearning to reach just one inch farther than their brothers seems to give an impulse to the growth of their snouts, which soon grow long, flexible, and narrow, like those of the parent-swine. The ancient breed of wild swine which haunted the great Caledonian forest may claim to have been re-established, for some of these are the third generation in descent from ancestors bred in Scotland.

But the youngest member of perhaps the oldest family in the British Islands was the white calf, the lineal descendant of the wild white cattle of ancient Britain. The bull, cow, and calf formed one of the happiest family groups in the Gardens, and should be studied by any one desirous of appreciating the natural beauty of these cattle, one of which, a wild steer from Chillingham, took a first prize when judged on its merits among the finest domestic breeds of England. The bull at the Zoo belongs to the Chartley herd, which has been in the possession of Lord Ferrers’ family for nearly a thousand years, has a short muzzle, broad forehead, and crescent horns with a downward reversed curve. Its silky coat is pure white, its eyes the deepest jet-black, shaded by long white eyelashes. The tips of the ears and of the horns are black, and just above the hoof are black and white speckles, like the “flea-bites” on a Laverack setter’s coat. The cow, like the bull, is white, with black points, but the horns curve upwards. Between the two stands the little bull-calf, a perfect miniature of its father, except that the horns are only budding. It has the same black muzzle and ear-tips; even its tongue is black, and the black and lustrous eye is shaded by thick, straight white lashes, like rims of hoar-frost. Deer and antelopes breed freely at the Zoo. The eland calf has a short body, more like that of a young colt, with long legs, and the hump upon the back undeveloped. All the elands are in fine condition, and might be propagated to stock our English parks; but as an ornament they cannot compare with the indigenous wild cattle of the Chillingham or Chartley herds. Both the wild ass and the zebra had young ones. The young wild ass was a pretty, playful creature, with a coat like grey velvet; but the infant zebra was perhaps the greater favourite with the visitors to the Zoo. It exactly resembled its mother in colour, and in the distinctness and arrangement of the stripes, but it was far lighter and finer in its proportions. With a luxurious instinct for comfort, the little creature usually lay asleep upon the light-green hay which the mother pulls from the rack above—a background which contrasted admirably with its rich sepia and cream-coloured stripes.

But the pride and flower of all the youth of the Zoo is the young hippopotamus. As it lies on its side, with eyes half closed, its square nose like the end of a bolster tilted upwards, its little fat legs stuck out straight at right angles to its body, and its toes turned up like a duck’s, it looks like a gigantic new-born rabbit. It has a pale, petunia-coloured stomach, and the same artistic shade adorns the soles of its feet. It has a double chin, and its eyes, like a bull-calf’s, are set on pedestals, and close gently as it goes to sleep with a bland, enormous smile. It cost £500 when quite small, and, to quote the opinion of an eminent grazier, who was looking it over with a professional eye, it still looks like “growing into money.” There are connoisseurs in hippopotamus-breeding who think it almost too beautiful to live. We had hoped to find a prairie-dog family, as several of the smaller rodents had produced young ones; but though several of the solemn little fellows were sitting bolt upright, cramming straw into their mouths with both hands as fast as they could, like a conjuror swallowing tape, there were no little prairie dogs. The kangaroos and wallabies, on the other hand, had several “joeys”; and nothing could well be stranger than this dual existence of mother and young, in which, contrary to all precedents, the young is carried by its parent, though it is quite independent of its milk. Thus an old kangaroo or wallaby will put its head down to drink, while the young wallaby, wide awake and independent in the pouch, picks up a piece of cabbage, and, holding it in its hands, eats it like a boy eating an apple and looking out of a window. The long, sharp claws of the hind-legs are doubled forward when in the pouch, and project like a couple of pens on either side of the young one’s ears, while the tip of its tail also hangs out just under its chin. In a cage in the small mammals’ house there were a number of young weasels, which were, without exception, the brightest and most active creatures in the Gardens. They were absolutely without fear of man,—bold, impudent, and astonishingly agile. They had converted the hay at the bottom of their cage into the likeness of a hedge-bottom, with numerous tunnels, galleries, and holes, and in these they would play by the hour. It was always the same game, catching and killing, and the fury with which they would roll over and over until one had the other by the throat, and pretended to kill it, was most excellent counterfeit. The difficulty was to tell the number of the weasels. There were only four, but there seemed to be as many more. They were here, there, and everywhere, and scarcely had the tail of one disappeared at one hole, than its sharp, bright eyes were peering from another at the opposite side of the cage. They could run either backwards or forwards in the holes, and no mouse, rat, or rabbit would stand a chance against these untiring and agile little enemies.

It is difficult to say why there are no young wolves at the Zoo. According to Tschudi, the naturalist of the Alps, they are pretty little creatures, born blind, covered with reddish-white down, and sprawl in a heap like puppies. The little dingoes, of which a litter were born early in the year 1893, much resemble this description, and, like the wolf cubs, are born blind. They are sold, and fetch £1 each. Esquimaux puppies, which are often born at the Zoo, are amusing little creatures, ready to eat boiled tripe from a dish until their little stomachs resemble a cricket-ball, an instance of heredity no doubt transmitted by generations of half-starved ancestors. Young marmosets and gerbilles, Angora goats, ibexes, mountain sheep and wapiti deer, gazelles and opossums, with a brood of young puff-adders, young seagulls, and wild geese, hardly complete the list of the year’s increase at the Zoo.

In 1894 the black-headed gulls reared several broods in the Gardens, but all the other water-fowl in the large aviary failed to rear their young, though the ibises nested, and seemed about to lay.

The water-animals, unlike the water-birds, seldom breed at the Zoo. Probably the little ponds and pools in which otters, beavers, and seals are kept are not large enough to give them that quiet and repose which conduces to family life. But otters, true Devonshire otters, did once have a litter at the Zoo, and the head-keeper, Mr. James Hunt, who was greatly interested in their welfare, gave the following pretty description of their habits.[8]

Footnote 8:

_Proceedings Zool. Soc._, Mar. 13, 1847.

“The female otter was presented to the Society by Lady Rolle on February 4, 1840, being apparently at that time about three months old. In 1846 a large male was presented to the Society by the Rev. P. M. Brunwin, of Braintree, Essex. Its weight when first taken was 21 lbs.; but it was not half that weight when presented to the Society, having wasted much in confinement in a cellar. About a month after his arrival there was continual chattering between him and the female at night, which lasted for four or five nights, but they did not appear to be quarrelling. On August 13, the keeper who has charge of them went to give them a fresh bed, which he does once a week. While pulling out the old bed he saw two young ones, apparently about five or six days old, and about the size of a full-grown rat; he immediately put back the bed, with the young ones in it, and left them.

“On the twenty-first the mother removed them to the second sleeping-den; her object appeared to be to let them have a dry bed. On the 9th of September they were first seen out of the house; they did not go into the water, but crawled about, and appeared very feeble.