Part 19

There is only one monkey which we can thoroughly recommend as an indoor pet, the beautiful and intelligent little Capuchin. The marmosets, even more beautiful and equally pleasing, are too delicate for our climate, and die of colds and coughs after the first fogs of winter. But the lively little Capuchins may be kept for years in an English house; and no monkey approaches their good-temper and pretty winning ways. They all have good round heads, with black fur on the top and light-brown on the cheeks. Some have pinkish faces, and others dark-brown skins, with eyes like brown jewels. Their faces are most expressive, and seldom still, for they take deep and abiding interest in everything in or about their cages. One kept in a large house in Leicestershire had learnt to put out burning-paper, which it did most adroitly by beating it with its hands or knocking it against the floor. Another, which was kept at the Zoo, would, if it got a match, collect a heap of straw, strike the match, light its bonfire, and dance round it. This dangerous accomplishment led to its removal from the cages on Saturdays and Bank-holidays, when the crowd makes it difficult to keep a watch on its movements. The Capuchin is so small, so pretty, and so clever, that it seems to embody all the good and none of the bad points of monkey nature.

No one who has seen pumas when kindly treated in captivity can doubt the justice of the impression that these friendly and beautiful cats at once produce, that they _must_ be suited for pets and companions. The general verdict of South Americans as to their gentleness and natural liking for man, even when wild on the Pampas, is given in some detail in a later chapter on Animal Temper. There was at least one puma kept as a pet in this country, by Captain Marshall, the owner of a unique private menagerie at Marlow on the Thames. Reports of a gentleman, “with a tame lioness by his side,” having been seen sitting by a lock gate on the Thames, evidently pointed to the taming, not of a lioness, which, however domesticated among those whom it knows, would be too dangerous and uncertain a creature to take abroad, but of a puma, which, being neither striped nor spotted, would be at once described as a “lioness” by the ordinary “man in a boat.” This was the case, and the following is Captain Marshall’s short account of his late pet, for unfortunately it died of liver-complaint before the writer could ask to make its acquaintance. “My big full-grown puma,” writes its master, “was as tame as a cat. It was kept for months on a chain and collar, and could be led about. It would rest its head on my lap, and I could pull it about as much as I liked. I also had a baby one, but she was _not_ tame.” The lovely snow leopard, which came to the Zoo in 1894, was a lady’s pet. It had always been fed upon cooked meat, and was perfectly tame. The writer has patted it as it lay in its box in the Lion House, and it merely looked up exactly like a sleepy grey Angora cat. Yet this was a full-grown leopard, in perfect condition and health, living in the next cage to one of the black variety, which was almost the wildest creature in the menagerie.

Those who possess an aviary may be interested to hear that at the Zoo, blackcaps, whitethroats, garden-warblers, and nightingales, all birds of passage, are living in excellent health through the winter; and one nightingale was singing on December 29, but the song, though very beautiful, was not a true nightingale’s note, but largely borrowed from that of the bulbul in the next aviary, the bird being a young one, caught in the autumn. It is evident, from the experiment at the Zoo, that our summer warblers may be kept as pets; but the bird of all others suited for the aviary, but neglected as a rule in England, is the bulbul. The Persian variety has the finest song, but the Indian is an even prettier bird, and sings exquisitely. In appearance, the bulbuls are not unlike the Bohemian waxwing, with a black conical top-knot, cinnamon-coloured backs, red-and-white or yellow-and-white cheeks, and white breasts, with some bright colour near the tail. The note is most liquid and beautiful, and the bird has a pretty habit of varying the volume of the sound, singing loudly in the open, and almost whispering its song to its master or mistress if confined in a room. We might do worse than follow the example of the Persians, and make the bulbul our favourite cage-bird, instead of the canary.

THE PARIS ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS IN THE TWO SIEGES.

HERE is an odd scene in the Jardin des Plantes at the end of April 1871. The communards were defending the ramparts, and a steady rain of shells had been pouring in from the Versaillist batteries for a week. Every one in Paris was “stale” from continued siege and bombardment. War had lost all its excitement, and nothing relieved its squalid discomfort. An order to impress all citizens for the National Guard had just been issued, and one of these, M. Henri de Goncourt, an author, a man of taste, and a man of peace, had wandered into the Jardin des Plantes, partly from sheer ennui, partly, as he would have us believe, in the hope that he might find an empty loose box of a deer or antelope, in which he could sleep, and escape the _réquisition militaire_ of the omnipotent M. _Pipe-en-Bois_. He found a party of National Guards sauntering round the Gardens, conducted by a philosophical Republican, who halted his squad in front of the kangaroos’ cages, and gravely took for his text the maternal virtues of “_Citoyenne_” _Kanguroo_, begging them, “with emotion,” to observe the contrast of the animal, which always carried its infant in its pocket, with the indifference of “_les femmes aristo_” to their babies! The republican zeal for improving the occasion is typical of the frame of mind to which the average Parisian can always bring himself and his audience over any political or patriotic question, on the most trifling occasion, a kind of conscious insincerity which his hearers agree to share in order to enjoy the sentiment of the moment. But the time and occasion are not often so comical. The observer of the scene, M. de Goncourt, a writer steeped in the literary life of Paris, a life which the siege had starved and crushed, leaving the poor man in a state of acute _mental_ starvation very curiously shown in his journal of the siege, declared that the animals which had survived the first siege, or had been introduced to the Gardens after the Prussian occupation, were almost as bored by the loss of their “public” as he was at the loss of his. “The animals,” he says, “are silent. The elephant, _abandonné de son public_, leaning indolently against the wall, was eating his hay with the air of a man compelled to dine alone.

In the first siege, the animals of the Paris Zoo which could by any means be classed as “game” or venison early found their way into the butchers’ and game-dealers’ shops. As early as October 3 two large stags were exposed for sale; at the same time big tame carps, which had adorned the fountains in the Gardens, were rubbing their purple noses against the sides of a baby’s bath, set upon the counter, and a young bear, freshly killed, its broad paws clenched in death, was hanging like a sheep from the hooks above, destined for auction by hungry Parisians on the following day. On the last night of the old year, in the shop of the butcher Roos, in the Boulevard Haussmann, far less appetizing viands were the subject of a sale, which for the moment was invested with an interest equal to that attending an auction of masterpieces of art at Christy’s. The last batch of animals from the Jardin d’Acclimatation was on offer, to supply the materials for a New Year’s dinner. The trunk of “Pollux,” a young elephant, was the central attraction, and among a number of unfamiliar heads and horns, a shopman was pointing to a pile of camel steaks.

The butcher was concluding his speech, in the centre of a circle of women—

“It is forty francs a pound, for the filet or the ribs. Yes—forty francs. Dear, you say? Not at all; I do not see my way to making a penny on it. I counted on 3000 lbs., and he (the elephant) has only cut up into 2300 lbs. The feet—you ask the price of the feet?—are twenty francs; the other portions eight francs to fourteen francs a pound. Allow me to recommend the elephant sausage; there is onion in my sausage, ladies and gentlemen!”

De Goncourt was able to purchase two larks for his breakfast—like the toasted mice of the hero of Bulwer Lytton’s _Parisians_, “dainty, but not nutritious.” That evening he found, at Voisins, the famous elephant sausage, _and he dined on it_.

The rarer animals from the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne were transferred before the siege to the Jardin des Plantes. These were mostly bought by the proprietor of the English butcher’s shop, M. Debos; he also bought the elephants of the Jardin des Plantes for 27,000 francs. “Personally, I have eaten the flesh of elephants, wolves, cassowaries, porcupines, bears, kangaroos, rats, cats, and horses,” says the author of the _Englishman in Paris_. His views on these creatures as articles of food are only given at length in the case of the dog, cat, and horse. The last was supposed to have become a recognized part of the food supply of Paris in the year before the siege, but it never acquired any popularity. “It is very curious, but a positive fact nevertheless, that I have heard Parisians speak favourably afterwards of dog’s and cat’s flesh, even of rats baked in a pie; I have heard them say, that for once in a way, and under ordinary circumstances, they would not mind partaking of those dishes; I have never heard them express the same good-will towards horse-flesh. One thing is certain. At the end of the siege, the sight of a cat or dog was a rarity in Paris, while by the official reports there were thirty thousand horses left.”

The same writer records the opinion of an officer who was most successful in “siege cookery” on the subject of the dog as food. This gentleman, aided by a soldier servant, had made an excellent dish of “larks,” which turned out to be field-mice, slightly flavoured with saffron to disguise their musky taste. “You may disguise anything with saffron except dog’s flesh. His meat is oily and flabby; stew him, fry him, do what you will, there is always a castor-oil flavour remaining, which cannot be got rid of. The only way to minimize that flavour, to make him palatable, is to salt or rather pepper him; to cut him up into large slices and leave them a fortnight, bestrewing them very liberally with peppercorns. Then before cooking them, put them into boiling water for a time, and throw the water away.”

All palates do not seem to have disliked dog so greatly. At Brebant’s, where M. Renan and other leading writers dined regularly during the siege, a “saddle of mutton” was brought in. “We shall have the shepherd served up to-morrow,” said M. Hébrard. It was explained that it was a “_très belle selle de chien_,” and that this was the third time they had eaten dog.

“No, no,” exclaimed M. Saint-Victor, horrified. “M. Brebant is a respectable man—he would have told us—horse, _not_ dog.”

“Dog or mutton,” said Nefftzer, his mouth full, “I have never eaten a better _rôti_. If Brebant would give you rat, it is excellent, a mixture of pork and partridge.”

During this dissertation poor M. Renan, who appeared preoccupied and thoughtful, grew pale, then green, threw his five francs on the table, and left hurriedly.

The result of the compulsory experiments in food during the siege will not be much assistance to guide the work of acclimatization, or to aid in the discovery of a new meat, either from the menageries of the Zoological Gardens, or our beasts of burden, though all the needful accessories of good cooks, good wines, and good company were available to secure success.

OTHER BEASTS OF BURDEN.

THE failure of the Zoological Society to establish any new draught animal in this country seems to show that as long as an Englishman can get a horse, he tries to do without any other beast of burden. The use of dogs is no longer legal, and we have nearly discarded the sturdy ox, even for ploughing. A few are to be seen in Wiltshire and on the Cotswold Hills; in Berkshire there are some half-dozen teams, among them a famous quartette of red steers belonging to Sir William Throckmorton; and Mr. Beresford Hope’s team of “sheeted” Dutch oxen, black giants with white “sheets” of identical shape, is one of the sights of the farm at Bedgebury in Sussex; but outside these counties we know of none in England.

Were we right to legislate against the use of dogs for draught? A careful inquiry has been made in Brussels, and the verdict is that dogs are more useful than horses for minor town traffic—quieter, cleaner, and cheaper. “The first distinctive institution that attracts the attention of a stranger in Belgium,” writes the Consul, “is the working-dog. Liège is a city of great wealth and industry, employing as many horses as any other town of its size in Europe; and yet for every horse, at least two dogs are to be seen in its streets.” In the early morning, we are told, the boulevards are literally alive with them. The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the porter, carriers of all kinds, engage the dog’s services. His step is so much quicker than that of the horse, that he will in an hour cover twice as much ground, and he carries with him a greater burden in proportion to his size. Six hundred pounds is the usual weight for an ordinary dog, though a mastiff often draws as much again. They cost about 3_d._ a day to keep on black bread and horse-flesh, and draught-dogs are now carefully bred, mastiffs crossed with the bull-dog to give lungs and chest fetching the highest prices, averaging from £4 to £6. The Consul concludes by stating his opinion that “there is not an article of merchandise, from a ton of coals to a loaf of bread, sold in our cities, which might not be more advantageously delivered by dogs than horses.” The Consul is doubtless thinking of ordinary “tradesmen’s” deliveries. It would be ridiculous to expect dogs to take the place of the brewers’ dray horses, or the railway-goods horses,—but his views certainly deserve consideration. In England, where their use was once common, we seem to look on dogs as only suitable for draught inside the Arctic circle. The absence of a strong shoulder and hard hoofs suggests cruelty in their employment. Nothing in Holland and Belgium gives an Englishman a keener sense of discomfort than seeing dogs in carts. His first impulse is to protest against it as ill-usage. In reply he will learn that a careful inquiry had been held many years ago; that Mr. Grantley Berkeley, whose personal affection for animals, as shown in his _Memoirs_, was almost a passion, had been consulted, and that the verdict had been in favour of continuing their use. Many months of careful observation confirmed this view. No animal so enjoys his work, or does it so willingly, as a dog. Except the elephant, no other animal can be trusted to work alone like the smugglers’ dogs between France and Belgium, or collies watching sheep. They are scarcely ever struck or beaten either in Holland or Belgium. They do not fight, and the only drawbacks to their use are their readiness to attack a stranger who approaches their cart when left in their charge, and the severe hydrophobia “scares” which their numbers at times produce. They are exuberantly happy in their daily work, and come of their own accord at the right hour to be harnessed. Small dogs in little carts are always ready and anxious to race against big ones; and though at the Hague the barking and galloping of dogs within the city-bounds is forbidden, as “furious driving” is here, the dogs, when returning with empty carts, may race as much as they please. Two little boys, with their cart drawn by a sturdy bull-terrier, used often to wait for and race a couple of half-bred mastiffs drawing a cart with two men, the owners running alongside, and jumping on when the carts—mere narrow shelves like all dog-carts, whether on wheels or sledges—were going at ten miles an hour. There may be cruelty, just as in the use of any other creature. But men are always hardest on a sluggish animal. One donkey suffers more than twenty dogs. The legislation which stopped their use in England was nominally humanitarian. But it has often been asserted, that it was chiefly due to the objection which persons who drove horses entertained for dog-carts, and to the country gentleman’s dislike of dogs as enemies to game. We should be sorry to see dogs replace ponies in common use. But it should not be illegal to employ them. We have seen a little Pomeranian helping to pull its invalid master’s chair, and evidently proud of its work. In this case, it would have been difficult for the policeman to put the law in force. In snow-time we have harnessed a setter and a retriever to a toboggan-sledge, and they enjoyed the fun quite as much as their master,—indeed, they upset us at the first corner.

The English reliance on horses, big and little, is almost justified by the wonderful adaptation for manifold uses which careful breeding has produced. The work of the dog must, in civilized countries, be limited to petty draught on well-made roads and in towns. In the Arctic circle he is a necessity to man as a beast of burden. When the Greenland dogs die, the Greenlander must become extinct. It is impossible for him to drag home the seals, sharks, white whales, and narwhals, which he shoots on the ice, without his dogs, or for the Eskimo to make his long migrations with his family and household goods to fresh hunting-grounds without their aid. If the epidemic of rabies which half-destroyed their teams had not been arrested by the ice-fiord of Jacobshaven, the Greenlanders would by now have been pensioners on Danish charity. It was noticed, as evidence of the absolute dependence of the Arctic man upon the services of the Arctic dog as a beast of burden, that whenever a native lost his dogs, he went very rapidly down-hill in the scale of Eskimo respectability, and became a sort of hanger-on to the fortunate possessor of a sledge-team. Exactly the same degradation has been observed in the case of the Tartar who is too poor to keep his horse, and a corresponding rise in the social scale of the “foot” Indians of Patagonia, when a neighbouring tribe of horse-Indians lent them horses, and provided them with hunters to teach their use in the capture of game. On good ground, a team of six Eskimo dogs will draw a load of from eight to ten hundred-weight at a speed of seven miles an hour. Large teams, with light sledges and little except the driver to carry, are wonderfully rapid. Kane, the Arctic traveller, was carried for seven hundred miles at an average rate of fifty-seven miles a day. Lieutenant Schwatka sent two Eskimo with a double team of forty dogs, the sledge having its runners “iced” by pouring water over them, to the rescue of a half-frozen sailor, who was viewed from the ship at a distance of ten miles across an ice-covered bay just before nightfall. Two drivers sat on either side of the sledge, with knives to cut the harness of any dog that might stumble and be dragged to death, and the sledge was driven at perhaps the highest speed ever known. The dash of ten miles was accomplished in twenty-two and a half minutes. But creditable as such an achievement is to the half-starved descendants of the Arctic wolf, the strongest evidence against the use of the dog for general draught purposes is the fact, that wherever the surface, even in the snow regions, is sound and safe for any other creature than the light and active dogs, the reindeer, or, in the more southerly districts, the horse, at once takes its place. There is one exception, the great Thibetan mastiff, which stands apart. These dogs, the largest in size of any native and unimproved breed, cross the mountains regularly as beasts of burden, and bring their loads as far as Darjeeling. For size, courage, and general utility they are probably the finest race of dogs in the world.

But as a rule in Asia the dog is the draught animal of the inferior races. Mr. Nordenskiold, in his voyage in the _Vega_ to the Asiatic shore of the Behring Sea, noticed a marked difference between the “Dog Chukchs,” the inhabitants of the coast, and the “Reindeer Chukchs” of the interior. The latter were better clothed and in better circumstances. Both showed great kindness to their animals, which is unusual among semi-savages. The “Coast Chukchs” always carried dog-shoes, neatly-made bags of soft leather, with straps attached, to put on their dogs’ feet if cut by the sharp snow. The herd of a “Reindeer Cutch” came down from the pasture every morning to meet their master. The leading stag came first; and bade him good-morning by gently rubbing his nose against his master’s hands. All the other deer were then allowed to do the same, the master taking each by the horn, and carefully examining its condition. The inspection over, the herd then wheeled, and returned to the pasture. It would be difficult to name another beast of burden so tame and so efficient as the reindeer. A good reindeer will travel one hundred miles a day over frozen snow, and can draw a weight of three hundred pounds; thus surpassing the dog by one-half in distance and two-thirds in drawing power. The loads carried by the camels of the Heavy Camel Corps across the Bayuda Desert were very little heavier than those drawn by the reindeer across the Northern steppes. Including the rider, the average weight was about three hundred and forty-two pounds. Even so, they were over-weighted, and the little Egyptian horses ridden by the Hussars, who accompanied the column, were less exhausted than the larger beasts when the forced march was completed. The llama, admirable as it was for climbing the step-roads of the Incas, which ruined Pizarro’s horses, is only an inferior camel; and the yak, Thibetan goat, and buffalo are highly specialized forms, suited to particular climates and conditions. The water-buffalo is the one domestic animal which evolves the enthusiasm and affection of the Chinaman. He loves it as the Hindoo does his cow, and paddles by its side in the squashy rice-fields, with a smiling contentment on his bland countenance, due to a feeling that in his buffalo he owns the one thing needful to make his husbandry a success and satisfaction. Of all the creatures of the flowery land, it is the only one which the Celestial takes with him into the countries of the barbarians into which he migrates. Long ago the Chinaman in Singapore and the Straits Settlements became a buffalo breeder, and now he has imported them into the Sandwich Islands. There also the trotting ox is now established, and is regularly ridden by the Kanaka boys. The breed is maintained in great purity, and for pace and size they match the best animals of the Indian plains.