Life At the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens

Part 1

MARTIAL HAWK EAGLE. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton. ]

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LIFE AT THE ZOO

NOTES AND TRADITIONS OF THE REGENT’S PARK GARDENS

BY C. J. CORNISH

With Illustrations from Photographs by GAMBIER BOLTON, F.Z.S. and from Japanese Drawings

LONDON SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED ESSEX STREET, STRAND 1895

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PREFACE

IT may be said that some of the subjects of these notes are not obviously part of life at the Zoo, and this remark would be well founded. They have in the writer’s mind a connection with the Zoo, which perhaps is not obvious, and might not appeal to the majority of readers, and would certainly take more time to set out than its value warrants. So that if any reader or critic cares to press the point, he is prepared to say at once, mea culpa.

The chapters on Animal Æsthetics, dealing with the sensibility of the inmates of the Zoo to music, will be found under the title of “Orpheus at the Zoo,” by which they originally appeared in the Spectator, to the editors of which paper the author owes his thanks for suggesting many subjects of interest at the Zoo which would not have occurred to him, and for their kind permission to publish these, as well as other chapters in an extended form. He hopes that both these, and the unpublished chapters which are now added, present a fair picture of the many-sided present, as well as some glimpses of the past, of the famous menagerie in Regent’s Park.

For the insertion of animal drawings by Japanese artists, in addition to Mr. Gambier Bolton’s photographs, the writer must plead the conviction, which he has long maintained, that their truth to Nature is of its kind unrivalled.

C. J. CORNISH.

Orford House, Chiswick Mall,

September 28, 1894.

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CONTENTS

PAGE

THE ZOO IN A FROST 1

THE GHOSTS OF THE TROPICAL FOREST 13

THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO 20

PATTERNS ON LIVING ANIMALS 29

THE GIRAFFE’S OBITUARY 38

THE ELECTRIC EEL 48

DEEP-SEA LAMPS 55

THE LION HOUSE AT THE ZOO 62

DIVING BIRDS AT THE ZOO 77

TAME DIVERS 86

Part 2

THE QUEST FOR THE WILD HORSE 91

ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO—THE ANIMAL 99 SENSE OF BEAUTY

ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO—SCENTS AND 109 SOUNDS

ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO—THE FIRST VISIT 115

ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO—THE SECOND VISIT 123

ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO—THE CHOICE OF 131 INSTRUMENTS

TALKING BIRDS 139

ELEPHANT LIFE IN ENGLAND 146

WANTED—A NEW MEAT 162

AN EXPERIMENT IN ANIMAL 170 PRESERVATION

“JAMRACH’S” 177

EXPRESSION IN THE ANIMAL EYE 192

LONDON BEARS 200

YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO 210

ANIMAL COLOURING 222

WILD-CATS AT THE ZOO 229

THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS 240

RARE AND BEAUTIFUL MONKEYS 248

THE LARGER MONKEYS 255

LIZARDS AND CROCODILES AT THE ZOO 263

FROM THE ANIMALS’ POINT OF VIEW 270

POSSIBLE PETS 278

THE PARIS ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS IN THE 287 TWO SIEGES

OTHER BEASTS OF BURDEN 293

THE SOLDIER’S CAMEL 302

THE CANADIAN BEAVER 311

THE TEMPER OF ANIMALS 318

CRIMINAL ANIMALS 325

Part 3

A YEAR AT THE ZOO 334

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LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

MARTIAL HAWK EAGLE Frontispiece

POLAR BEAR 6

THE LAST GIRAFFE 38

PUMAS 62

LION AND LIONESS 72

TIGER AFTER SMELLING LAVENDER-WATER 110

AXIS DEER LISTENING 118

TIGER LISTENING TO SOFT MUSIC 136

JAPANESE PUG AND CAT 180

THE QUEEN’S LION CUB 210

OTTER PURSUING FISH 220

ARABIAN BABOON 240

MACAQUE MONKEYS 248

MONKEYS PELTING COOLIES WITH 258 FIR-CONES

ALLIGATOR 264

BACTRIAN CAMEL 302

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LIFE AT THE ZOO

THE ZOO IN A FROST

SUDDEN and severe cold, however trying to human constitutions, seems almost harmless to animal health, provided the weather be dry, frosty, and undimmed by fog. On the last Friday of November 1893, the thermometer fell so rapidly that in a few hours it registered sixteen degrees below freezing-point. On the following morning, though the sun was shining brightly, every pool and pond was sheeted with ice, and the gravel walks were as hard as granite. Yet at the Zoological Gardens, birds and beasts from tropical or semi-tropical regions, such as Burmah, Assam, Malacca, and Brazil, were abroad and enjoying the keen air; and others, which are usually invisible and curled up in their sleeping apartments till late in the day, were already abroad, sniffing at the frost and icicles, and as indifferent to the cold as Mr. Samuel Weller’s polar bear “ven he was a-practising his skating.” A visit to the Gardens in such weather suggests a modification of too rigid ideas of the limitation of certain types of animals to warm or torrid climates, and illustrates the gradual and reluctant character of the retreat of species before the advance of the glacial cold in remote ages. No creatures are, as a rule, more sensitive to cold than the whole monkey tribe. Yet there is at least one species of monkey which habitually endures the rigours of a northern winter. One of the cleverest antique Japanese drawings at South Kensington represents a troop of monkeys caught in an avalanche of snow. The grotesque discomfiture of these pink-faced monkeys rolling down the hillside, helplessly clutching at each other’s bodies and limbs, grinning and grimacing as their heads emerge from the powdery snow, is something more than the fancy of a Japanese painter. The incident is probably drawn from an actual scene, and one of the creatures, the Tcheli monkey from the mountains of Pekin, was in an open cage in the gardens, and in far better health and spirits than in the height of summer. Its fur had grown thick and close, and the naked face had assumed the dark madder-pink with which it was adorned in the drawing. When presented with sticks crusted with frozen ice, it sucked the chilly dainty with great relish, and only showed signs of sensitiveness to cold by putting its fingers in its mouth, and then sitting on its hands to warm them. The behaviour of this northern monkey is only strange by contrast with the general habits of its kind. But the indifference to cold of the capybara, a gigantic water guinea-pig from the warm rivers of Brazil, is not easy to explain. Two of these quaint creatures had left their snug sleeping apartments, and were stepping gaily among pools of half-frozen water and broken ice. One had gained an extra coat by burrowing in its straw and then emerging with a pile upon its back; and, when this fell off, retired and shuffled on another pile; but the other seemed quite content to sit without protection in the sunniest corner of its enclosure. The whole colony of porcupines (six in number), which, like most semi-nocturnal animals, are very loath to appear in public during the day unless enticed by food of a more than usually tempting character, were abroad and in the highest spirits, erecting and rattling their quills, and sitting up to inspect their visitors like gigantic rabbits. It is difficult to conceive that a coat of quills can impart much warmth to its wearer; but towards Christmas the quaint black-and-white garment of the porcupine has almost the appearance of a mantle of stiff feathers; and the crest on the head and shoulders, sloping backwards along the spine, combines, with the black face and Roman nose, to suggest a comical resemblance between the fully-fledged porcupine and one of Buffalo Bill’s Sioux warriors in full costume of eagles’ plumes.

During the first cold of winter the plumage of the birds and the coats of the fur-bearing animals in the Zoo are hardly inferior to those of their wild kindred. Both the eagle and the American bison are in condition to excite the cupidity of an Indian brave. The bull bison, which in summer has a strangely ragged and “moth-eaten” appearance, with big patches of bare skin showing on its flanks, is now covered with a “buffalo-robe” of magnificent proportions and the richest colour and texture. From shoulders to tail, the body is wrapped in a mass of brown felted fur. The mane hangs down below the knees, and a shock of black and silky hair covers the head and face, almost concealing the horns and the sullen, bloodshot eye. This bull is said to be the largest of its race in this country, and is probably as fine a specimen of the male bison as ever led its band across the frozen plains of the North-West. It was brought to England by Lord Lorne after the completion of his stay in Canada as Viceroy of the Dominion, and spent its earlier days at the Home Park at Windsor, whence it was transferred on exchange to the Zoo.

The golden and sea-eagles never present so fine an appearance as in these bright winter days. Those who see them with their wings and tails ragged and broken in the summer and early autumn, would hardly recognize them in their compact and close-set winter plumage, as they scream aloud in the frosty air, and fly to and fro in their large aviary on pinions undisfigured by a single broken feather. The Gayal, an immense bison from the jungles of Assam, with a coat as smooth and sleek as the bison’s is shaggy and unkempt, drinks the iced water in its pen, and stamps the frozen ground—while the steam rises from its broad nostrils into the cold English air—with all the vigour of a shorthorn bull in a Surrey straw-yard; and the wild swine, whether from India or Europe, are equally indifferent to the weather. It would seem that all those species, such as the wild boar, or the buffalo and bison, which are widely distributed on many continents, adapt themselves rapidly to changed conditions of climate; and those wild boars which have been bred for several generations in this country and in Scotland, are rapidly developing a thicker and rougher coat of hair than their Indian cousins. It is probable that the tiger from Turkestan, if allowed the use of the outer cages, from which the Indian tigers and other large carnivora are withdrawn during the winter, would develop the thick and beautiful coat with which the northern tiger is represented in Chinese paintings. The bears, though so well wrapped up, take the frost as a hint to hibernate, and were for the most part fast asleep. Those which occupy cages facing the morning sun uncurl as the day grows brighter, and exhibit coats in the utmost perfection of winter growth. The black, brown, and cinnamon bears have at this time a bloom upon their fur which the utmost skill of the furrier fails to reproduce if the animal is killed at any other period of the year. In Southern and Central Russia many proprietors own large estates devoted to breeding horses and cattle. A menagerie of bears is often added to this. These are killed at the right season, and their skins sold in the best condition. Cloaks made from the skins of the six-months-old cubs have been sold for from £600 to £1000. Of the Polar bears, one, the older and larger, seems disposed to follow the example of the brown and black species, and to doze through the cold weather. The she-bear, much smaller and younger than its mate, takes its bath as usual, and plays with the floating ice like a baby with the soap. There it exhibits the most astonishing antics, turning back-somersaults, and standing on its head, or flinging out plates of ice with its nose and paws. No creature suggests such perfect indifference to cold as this Arctic bear, with icicles hanging to its fur, as it plunges again and again into its freezing bath.

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