Scene 2.

[Footnote 20: _The Old Zoo and the New._]

These views I would apply to every beast of prey in the Gardens, each one of which, in my opinion, has a gross wrong done it in not being allowed to do that which both its soul and body expressly commission it to do--as though a sentient musical instrument, throbbing to play, should never, in all its faded life, be given the opportunity of emitting a note. The misery of such privation is far beyond that which would attend the energy now so cruelly restrained. It is out of all proportion to it, in my opinion. Not only snakes, then, but the lion and tiger, too, should, by my will, kill their prey; or, if this were too costly a proceeding--though I see not why it should be--then out with them to the wilds they belong to! I would have those only stay, that could stay, and be themselves. No neuters in my Gardens!

If animals have really rights--as to which, and our own, I have expressed my views--then snakes must necessarily have their share of them. They have a right, I maintain, upon that assumption, to eat their victuals according to the laws of their being, and I, on my part, shall always be pleased and interested to see them do so. I am greatly interested in snakes, and in reptiles generally. Their structure is wonderful, their powers are extraordinary, their ways and their habits, their whole life history, everything about them, is fascinating. They are not stupid, as they are erroneously supposed to be, and those who have been brought into intimate relations with them have found them capable of great and enduring affection.[21] For the sort of crusade, therefore, that has been got up against these maligned creatures, I altogether repudiate it, and I dissociate myself entirely from the many harsh, rude, unsympathetic and unappreciative things that have been said about them. Things, of course, are thus, or thus, according as we ourselves are, and snakes must be uninteresting indeed to some people, since--_infandum!_--in a place devoted, or that should be devoted, to the study of the living habits of the living animal, it is proposed, with a shout of "Eureka!", to substitute for the grace of motion and lithe sinuosity of the living serpent, its motionless, stuffed, dusty, dirty, faded, black, hard, cracky skin. A stuffed snake!--that awful production, from which all softness and smoothness is gone, out of which every intimate character is driven, from the very beginning, whilst the mere superficial resemblance fades slowly, day by day, till we have, at last, something like a vast sausage, or interminable gouty black-pudding, set hard in a bolster-like attitude, with a crack, or repulsive sharp angle, at every one of the stiff, graceless bendings, supposed to represent those marvellous flexures of the real creature, which, when we see them in their living beauty, set the mind in a glow of admiration, and are a rest, as well as a feast, for the eye to dwell upon. This--this monstrosity--we are to have, and to be thankful for having it, instead of the gracious glidings and foldings, the sweet wave-like coilings and uncoilings, the subtle entanglements, labyrinthine complexities, that, going hand in hand with the greatest simplicity of design, and with the perfect, deft power of unravelment, make the living body of a snake both a joy to the æsthetic, and a wonder to the intellectual mind: instead, too, of the radiance, lustre, sheen--the glory, both of pattern and hue--which sometimes sits upon its glistening scales, crowning them with a beauty hardly, if at all, inferior to that which decks the feathers of a bird, or waves on the wings of a butterfly. All this we are to fling away for worse than "dusty nothing," for a set of sorry deformities--worthy only of some wretched taxidermist's shop-window--which every real naturalist ought to be ashamed to look upon, but every one of which must cost some poor serpent its life. The worst plaster cast, substituted for the original marble of a Greek statue, were artistic luxury compared to this; and those, indeed, who have no taste for art can enjoy the one, as much--or as little--as the other. It is easy to be satisfied with stuffed snakes, when _snakes_ are of no interest to one; and that, I think, is the position here. Those who would stand and look at the pavement, as soon as they would at a python or rattlesnake, say to those who have the life-loving instincts of the naturalist, "Oh, get rid of your live snakes, and have stuffed ones instead. They're just as interesting--in fact, more so, because you can set them up as you like." Exactly. I understand, quite, what is meant--only to me a live snake is much more interesting than a live man or woman, and a stuffed one almost more repugnant than a stuffed man or woman would be. That is the little difference--the little thing that makes all the difference. One is either a naturalist, or one is not.

[Footnote 21: See the uniquely interesting letter of Mr. Severn to the _Times_ of July 25th, 1872, as quoted by Romanes in his _Animal Intelligence_ (International Scientific Series), pp. 260-2.]

No, these are not my plans of reform for the Gardens, and though I entirely condemn certain abuses in the feeding of snakes, for the disappearance of which I am thankful, yet I cannot sympathise with a movement which, though it has incidentally brought this about, is founded upon a principle which I think is a false one, and calculated to produce unhappy results in regard to the animal kingdom at large. Except where it cannot be helped, I do not believe in altering or modifying the laws of nature, as enforced upon animals, by one jot or one tittle. Nature, nature, nature--that is the beginning and end of my ideas about a collection of living wild animals. It is simpler even than Hamlet's view--long since become obsolete--as to the office and function of the stage--"to hold as 'twere, the mirror up to nature"--for here, instead of the mirror, there should be nature herself. I would keep no animal in respect to which proper and adequate arrangements could not be made for it to live its own life, and, where practicable, to die its own death. And in regard to suffering inflicted by one animal on another, I would ask only this one question, and be governed by the answer: "such suffering in accordance with the laws of nature, and the conditions of things in the world at large, or is it not?" In proportion as the power of exercising its natural functions and aptitudes is taken from it, I pity an animal, and that is why I hate--with an intellectual quite as much as with a humanitarian hatred--the miserable cellular confinement inflicted upon wild creatures in a Gardens like ours. But I would never curtail the activities of one animal in order to preserve the life or diminish the sufferings of another, though I would rigidly guard against those sufferings being unduly, _i.e._ artificially, increased. In my snake-house, by the way, the question as to the propriety of presenting the inmates with domestic animals, could hardly arise, since it would be co-extensive with a rabbit-warren, and my gardens indeed, could I have my real wish, would be quite as large as Rutlandshire (Yorkshire for choice).

In the principle of interference, as between one animal and another, I have no belief. It does not appear to me to be sound or healthy in itself, and its effect must be to check the growth of knowledge. Not, of course, that I would wish to curtail the liberty of personal action in this respect, any more than I would wish mine to be curtailed. He who, in his private capacity, keeps a snake, and feeds it on fruit or meat, has my hearty approval; but if a naturalist, seeking instruction, were to keep it in this way, he would be largely wasting his time. That he should be obliged, or considered morally bound, to do so, is intolerable. I lift up my voice, and protest against such an idea. I go very far--very far indeed, I think--in my humanitarian views in regard to animals, but as a naturalist I must draw the line somewhere, and I draw it at officious intermeddling, at any attempt to stop the course of nature in the animal world; in which term, however, I do not include domestic animals.