The Tower Menagerie

Part 1

THE TOWER MENAGERIE.

THE TOWER MENAGERIE:

COMPRISING THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE ANIMALS CONTAINED IN THAT ESTABLISHMENT;

WITH Anecdotes of their Characters and History.

ILLUSTRATED BY PORTRAITS OF EACH, TAKEN FROM LIFE, BY WILLIAM HARVEY; AND ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY BRANSTON AND WRIGHT.

LONDON: PRINTED FOR ROBERT JENNINGS, POULTRY; AND SOLD BY W. F. WAKEMAN, DUBLIN. M DCCC XXIX.

CHISWICK: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM COLLEGE HOUSE.

TO HIS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE FOURTH, THE MUNIFICENT PATRON OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES,

This Volume,

IN WHICH IT IS ATTEMPTED TO COMBINE BOTH ART AND SCIENCE IN THE ILLUSTRATION OF HIS ROYAL MENAGERIE,

IS, BY HIS MAJESTY’S MOST GRACIOUS PERMISSION, HUMBLY INSCRIBED.

CONTENTS.

PAGE

INTRODUCTION ix

BENGAL LION 1

LIONESS AND CUBS 11

CAPE LION 17

BARBARY LIONESS 24

TIGER 25

LEOPARD 35

JAGUAR 41

PUMA 49

OCELOT 53

CARACAL 57

CHETAH, OR HUNTING LEOPARD 61

STRIPED HYÆNA 71

HYÆNA-DOG 77

SPOTTED HYÆNA 81

Part 2

AFRICAN BLOODHOUND 83

WOLF 89

CLOUDED BLACK WOLF 93

JACKAL 97

CIVET, OR MUSK CAT 99

JAVANESE CIVET 103

GRAY ICHNEUMON 105

PARADOXURUS 107

BROWN COATI 109

RACOON 111

AMERICAN BLACK BEAR 115

GRIZZLY BEAR 121

THIBET BEAR 129

BORNEAN BEAR 133

EGRET MONKEY? 144

COMMON MACAQUE 145

BONNETED MONKEY, VAR. 146

BONNETED MONKEY 147

PIG-FACED BABOON 148

BABOON 149

WHITE-HEADED MONGOOS 151

KANGUROO 155

PORCUPINE 161

ASIATIC ELEPHANT 163

ZEBRA OF THE PLAINS 177

LLAMA 181

RUSA-DEER 185

INDIAN ANTELOPE 191

Part 3

AFRICAN SHEEP 197

GOLDEN EAGLE 201

GREAT SEA-EAGLE 202

BEARDED GRIFFIN 203

GRIFFON VULTURE 205

SECRETARY 209

VIRGINIAN HORNED OWL 213

DEEP-BLUE MACAW 215

BLUE AND YELLOW MACAW 217

YELLOW-CRESTED COCKATOO 219

NEW HOLLAND EMEU 221

CRESTED CRANE 225

PELICAN 227

ALLIGATOR 231

INDIAN BOA 233

ANACONDA 237

RATTLESNAKE 239

INTRODUCTION.

The origin of Menageries dates from the most remote antiquity. Their existence may be traced even in the obscure traditions of the fabulous ages, when the contests of the barbarian leader with his fellow-men were relieved by exploits in the chase scarcely less adventurous, and when the monster-queller was held in equal estimation with the warrior-chief. The spoils of the chase were treasured up in common with the trophies of the fight; and the captive brute occupied his station by the side of the vanquished hero. It was soon discovered that the den and the dungeon were not the only places in which this link of connexion might be advantageously preserved, and the strength and ferocity of the forest beast were found to be available as useful auxiliaries even in the battle-field. The only difficulty to be surmounted in the application of this new species of brute force to the rude conflicts of the times consisted in giving to it the wished-for direction; and for this purpose it was necessary that the animals to be so employed should be confined in what may be considered as a kind of Menagerie, there to be rendered subservient to the control, and obedient to the commands, of their masters.

In the theology too of these dark ages many animals occupied a distinguished place, and were not only venerated in their own proper persons, on account of their size, their power, their uncouth figure, their resemblance to man, or their supposed qualities and influence, but were also looked upon as sacred to one or other of the interminable catalogue of divinities, to whose service they were devoted, and on whose altars they were sacrificed. For these also Menageries must have been constructed, in which not only their physical peculiarities but even their moral qualities must have been to a certain extent studied; although the passions and prejudices of the multitude would naturally corrupt the sources of information thus opened to them, by the intermixture of exaggerated perversions of ill observed facts and by the addition of altogether imaginary fables.

If to these two kinds of Menageries we add that which has every where and under all circumstances accompanied the first dawn of civilization, and which constitutes the distinguishing characteristic of man emerging from a state of barbarism and entering upon a new and social state of existence, the possession of flocks and herds, of animals useful in his domestic economy, serviceable in the chase, and capable of sharing in his daily toils, a tolerable idea may be formed of the collections which were brought together in the earliest ages, and were more or less the subjects of study to a race of men who were careless of every thing that had no immediate bearing upon their feelings, their passions, or their interests.

But as civilization advanced, and the progress of society favoured the developement of mind, when those who were no longer compelled by necessity to labour for their daily bread found leisure to look abroad with expanded views upon the wonders of the creation, the animal kingdom presented new attractions and awakened ideas which had before lain dormant. What was at first a mere sentiment of curiosity became speedily a love of science; known objects were examined with more minute attention; and whatever was rare or novel was no longer regarded with a stupid stare of astonishment and an exaggerated expression of wonder, but became the object of careful investigation and philosophic meditation. Such was the state of things in civilized Greece when the Macedonian conqueror carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Indus, and penetrated into countries, not altogether unknown to Europeans, but the natural productions of which were almost entirely new to the philosophers of the West. With the true spirit of a man of genius, whose sagacity nothing could escape, and whose views of policy were as profound as the success of his arms was splendid, Alexander omitted no opportunity of proving his devotion to the cause of science; and the extensive collections of rare and unknown animals which he transmitted to his old tutor and friend, in other words the Menagerie which he formed, laid the foundation of the greatest, the most extensive, and the most original work on zoology that has ever been given to the world. The first of moral philosophers did not disdain to become the historian of the brute creation, and Aristotle’s History of Animals remains a splendid and imperishable record of his qualifications for the task.

Very different were the feelings by which the Roman generals and people were swayed even in their most civilized times and at the height of their unequalled power. Through all the gloss which history has thrown over the character of these masters of the universe there appears a spirit of unreclaimed barbarity which was never entirely shaken off. From the scenes of their distant conquests their prætors sent to the metropolis of the world bears and lions and leopards and tigers; but a love of science had no share in the motives for the gratification of which they were transmitted, and the chief curiosity manifested on such occasions by the people of Rome was to ascertain how speedily hundreds or thousands, as the case might happen, of these ferocious beasts would destroy each other when turned out half-famished into the public amphitheatre, or how long a band of African slaves, of condemned criminals, or of hired gladiators, would be able to maintain the unequal contest against them. The consul or emperor who exhibited at one time the greatest number of animals to be thus tortured before the eyes of equally brutal spectators was held in the highest esteem among a people who regarded themselves as civilized, and whose chief delight was in witnessing these wanton effusions of blood. It was only under the later Cæsars that a few private individuals brought together in their vivaria a considerable number of rare and curious animals; and the Natural History of Pliny derives most of its zoological value from the opportunities which he had of consulting these collections. But the monstrous fables and the innumerable errors, which the most superficial examination would have taught him to correct, with which every page of this vast compilation absolutely teems, speak volumes with regard to the wretched state of natural science in the most splendid days of Roman greatness.

From the unsuspecting credulity with which this textbook of the naturalists of the middle ages continued to be received, it is evident that the science remained stationary, if it did not actually retrograde, during the lapse of fourteen or fifteen centuries. The want of opportunities of investigation may be regarded as the principal cause of this lamentable deficiency. Some of the rarer animals, it is true, were occasionally to be seen in Europe; but Menageries constructed upon a broad and comprehensive plan were as yet unknown. The first establishment of modern days, in which such a plan can fairly be said to have been realised, was the Menagerie founded at Versailles by Louis the Fourteenth. It is to this institution that we owe the Natural History of Buffon and his coadjutor Daubenton; the one as eloquent as Pliny, with little of his credulity, but with a greater share of imagination; and the other a worthy follower of Aristotle in his habits of minute research and patient investigation, but making no pretensions to the powerful and comprehensive mind and the admirable facility of generalising his ideas which so preeminently distinguished that great philosopher.

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