Читать книгу Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens - C. J. Cornish - Страница 11

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[“Hic habitat leones.”—Old Map of Central Africa.]

Just fifty years ago, when the best means of keeping wild animals in health and vigour when confined was still matter for experiment, an interesting set of statistics of the length of life of the large felidæ in the Gardens was submitted to the Society by Mr. Rees. It appeared from the records of the menagerie that lions, leopards, tigers, and pumas only lived, on an average, for two years in the Gardens, which gave a rate of mortality of about one per month. The value of lions and tigers was then about £150 each, and of leopards and pumas £15.

The system which led to this great mortality was one of confinement in small stuffy cages, in a room artificially heated throughout the year, and much was hoped from a complete change of treatment which had just begun.

Pumas. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.

The new principle was one of “free exposure to the outer air, with no artificial heat whatever,” and the range of dens now known as the “Terrace,” on either side of which the bears are kept, was built for the accommodation of the lions and tigers. The cages do not strike us as particularly roomy or comfortable now, but at that time they were looked upon as unusually spacious, and the unfortunate carnivora, which had been boxed up in stuffy rooms and narrow cages, soon felt the benefit of the change. The African leopards, which were emaciated and sickly before their removal, became plump and sleek in a fortnight, and the appetite of all materially increased. The most convincing proof of this gratifying change was that a tigress, feeling hungry in the night, killed a tiger, and a puma did the same, and partly devoured its mate. The Society took the hint, and increased their rations, and for some time the new method of lion-culture answered well.

The rough-and-ready expedient of exposing the great cats to all the changes of an English climate had a greater measure of success than might have been expected. One is apt to forget that though the tropics are the main home of the tiger and the leopard, both wander far into the northern mountains, and that the former, if brought originally from Turkestan or China, can stand an English winter as well as the Chinese monkeys. During the year after the removal of the animals to their new house there was not a single death, and the system promised so well that artificial heat was for a time discontinued, both in the Monkey House and the Giraffe House, except that given by open fires. That the health of all the animals improved is shown by the list of creatures which lived in the Gardens, including brown and black bears, leopards, and ocelots.

The present Lion House, with its fine outdoor summer palaces, and its indoor winter cages, in a house warmed with hot water, is a combination of the two previous systems, and so far as health goes it seems to leave nothing to be desired. The Zoo of the future will probably contain lion houses of vast size, in which the creatures are allowed to live together in large numbers. This is the system adopted by the largest owner of wild animals in the world, Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, of Hamburg and New York. In his gardens at Hamburg, six lions, two Bengal tigers, and one from Siberia, live harmoniously in society with a polar bear, a Thibetan bear, and a number of leopards. The chance of a battle royal at meal time seems too great to be risked; but Mr. Hagenbeck says, that provided the animals are associated when quite young, and that each addition to the family is a young one, there is no danger. Meantime the space and freedom of the great cages, and the absence of that ennui to which animals are subject when confined separately, or even in pairs, have the best effect on their growth and vivacity. In the Hamburg cage the polar bear will play and romp with the tigers for hours, and most wonderful exhibitions of strength may be seen daily in these wrestling matches between such gigantic and dissimilar creatures.

Mr. Hagenbeck is the Moltke of the wild animal trade. His menagerie at Chicago attracted more visitors even than the “gigantic wheel,” mainly because the creatures had more liberty and more space than they enjoy in any other “gardens”; and it is probable that he will effect a marked change in the modes of animal exhibitions now in use.

Meantime, whether in summer or winter, the Lion House is perhaps better worth seeing than any branch of the Society’s menagerie.

Few public characters are “at home” to visitors during so many hours of the day as its inmates; who might with justice enter a protest against the incivility of the public, which insists on taking the notice that “The lions will be fed at three o’clock,” as a pressing invitation to be spectators of their manners at mealtimes. Yet the economy of the Lion House so far differs from the ordinary life of the other inmates of the Zoo that, for an undiscerning public which wants excitement and has no time for observation, there is every inducement to confine its visits to a particular hour. The cattle-sheds, the Antelope House, the Monkey Palace, or the Aviaries, present much the same appearance at any time of the day. The pleasant round of comfort—eating, drinking, playing, or sleeping—goes on without variety or long cessation. But the life of the great carnivora is ordered differently, and with greater exactness. In the morning, in the Lion House, all is quiet. The animals are resting or sleeping, and the only visitors are artists or photographers, whom the lions “oblige” with a sitting at a cheaper rate than any professional models in the trade. We wonder in how many characters the old Nubian lion, “Prince,” appeared? He has striven with Hercules, carried Una, been vanquished by Samson, and shot by Nimrod. He has roared at Daniel, and eaten martyrs innumerable; and he still lives on canvas to entertain Androcles in his den, or dies, the last of his race, in the desert cavern of some artist’s fancy.

“Ars longa, vita brevis,” is, perhaps, a saying which would appeal to the hungry lions equally with the artistic visitors to the Zoo, as feeding-time approaches. At two o’clock p.m., the animals awake, stretch themselves, and yawn, showing the width of their enormous jaws, and rows of gleaming teeth. The public grows interested, and the artists desponding. Even the little lad in knickerbockers, the work on whose easel suggests the story of Michael Angelo’s first essay in sculpture, drops his brushes and runs to the steps at the back to watch his sitters in action. Then follows the mauvais quart d’heure before dinner,—in this case unduly protracted. All the beautiful lithe creatures, pacing ceaselessly to and fro, noiseless as ghosts, seem to be performing a kind of “grand chain,” which becomes faster and faster as their impatience and hunger increase. As the howling of the wolves in their distant cages is heard by the lions, excitement breaks beyond control, and the roars of the hungry beasts only cease as the truck of food is emptied. As a spectacle, the sight has a certain interest. But except for those whose imagination can picture no other side of animal life in daily contact with man, it is, perhaps, the worst moment to select in order to appreciate the real character of those most friendly beasts, the lions and tigers at the Zoo. In the early morning hours, when their “sitting-rooms” have been duly swept and strewn with fresh sawdust, and their toilet—which is always completed in their sleeping-chambers—is finished, the iron doors are opened, and the owners of the different cages come leisurely out to greet the day, each in its humour as the night’s sleep or natural temper dictates.

On the last occasion on which the writer waited on the tigers’ levée, it was evident that some disagreement had marked the morning hours. The tigress from Hyderabad came out with a rush, and greeted the world with a most forbidding growl. She then stood erect, like a disturbed cat, switching her tail to and fro, and after examining every corner of the cage, summoned her mate with a discontented roar. The tiger then stalked out, and endeavoured to soothe his partner with some commonplace caress, which apparently soothed her ruffled nerves, for after sharpening her claws upon the floor, she lay down, and, rolling over on her back, with paws folded on her breast, and mouth half-open, went most contentedly to sleep. The pair of tiger-cubs in the next cage were still sleeping the long sleep of youth, one making a pillow of the other’s shoulder. Tigers, it may be observed, do not sleep like cats, but resemble in all their attitudes of repose the luxurious languor of some petted house-dog, constantly rolling over on their backs, and sticking up their paws, with heads upon one side, and eyes half-opened. This pair of cubs was presented by the Maharanee of Odeypore in 1892. Both cubs, when called by the keeper, can be stroked and petted like cats. But no tiger which has yet lived in Regent’s Park has been so completely tamed as the fine northern tiger “Warsaw” from Turkestan, which died last winter, after living in the Zoo since 1886. Taking into account the hardships endured by a wild animal in its transport from the distant steppes of Central Asia, across the Caspian Sea, thence by rail to the Euxine, and finally by ship to England, it is difficult to maintain the belief in the “innate ferocity” of the tiger after making the acquaintance of “Warsaw.”

The way in which this tiger found its way to the Zoo is typical of the unexpected means by which the menagerie is supplied with rare animals. Colonel Stafford, who had been engaged on the Afghan Boundary Commission in 1885, was returning by land through Central Asia, when he found the tiger, in a little cage, waiting at the terminus on the eastern side of the Caspian, and destined for some scientific gentleman at Warsaw. As the northern tiger was almost unknown in England, and there seemed some delay in the arrival of the purchase-money, Colonel Stafford bought it for the Indian Government, who approved of his investment, and presented it to the Zoological Society. To get the tiger by the Russian Central Asian railway to the Black Sea, and thence to England, was no easy matter. In the first place, the railway officials objected that tigers were not scheduled in their bill of charges, and unlike the English station-master, who held that cats is dogs, and rabbits is dogs, and parrots is dogs, maintained that tigers were tigers, and ought to be paid for at exceptional rates, including, of course, a bribe to the officials. This view being disputed by the tiger’s owner, it remained at the station, where, being not only quite tame, but an adept at small tricks, it became a general favourite. Its great performance was that of raising a basin of water and pouring it over its head; and this accomplishment, displayed before the daughter of the superintendent of the line, ultimately secured the tiger a passage to the sea. At Poti it was shipped for Constantinople, being supplied with a small flock of sheep as food in case the voyage was protracted. The animal remembered and recognized his first purchaser long after it had found a resting-place at the Zoo, though not at so long an interval as that after which the lion in the Tower showed its affection for its old keeper. This lion, which a certain Mr. Archer, employed at the Court of Morocco, “had brought up like a puppy-dog, having it to lie on his bed, until he grew as great as a mastiff, and no dog could be more gentle to those he knew,” was sent to the Tower, where, after an interval of seven years, he recognized one John Bull, a servant of his master, who, according to Captain John Smith, “went with divers of his friends to see the lions, not knowing that his old friend was there. Yet this rare beast smelt him before he saw him, whining, groaning, and tumbling with such an expression of acquaintance, that, being informed by the keepers how he came, Bull so prevailed that the keepers opened the grate, and Bull went in. But no dog could fawn more on his master than the lion on him, licking his feet and hands, and tumbling to and fro, to the wonder of all the beholders. Bull was quite satisfied with this recognition, and managed to get out of the grate; but when the lion saw his friend gone, no beast, by bellowing, roaring, scratching, and howling, could express more rage and sorrow; neither would he either eat or drink for four whole days afterwards.” “Warsaw’s” affections were not put to so severe a test; but his forbearance may be judged from the fact that he would allow his paws to be pulled out between the bars, and his toes to be examined, to see whether his nails wanted cutting.

This amiability is very difficult to explain, unless on the ground that the tiger was captured when very young, though many cubs are ferocious when only a few months old. Another northern tiger, from China, which came as a half-grown specimen to the Gardens three years ago, was as tame as “Warsaw,” though it had suffered much in captivity, and died before attaining its full size. It was starved in China, and never recovered this early ill-usage, its brief life being a succession of illnesses; but its temper was never soured, and it was far more demonstratively affectionate than any cat. For some months it was kept in invalid quarters at the back of the house, and its loud “purrs” could be heard at the end of the passage the moment its keepers entered. It ran up and down its cage, rubbing against the bars, with its tail standing stiffly up, and delighted to have its head and ears rubbed and patted. Sutton, and the keepers more especially concerned with the Lion House, took all possible care of it, and after nursing it through an illness in which it lost all its fur, they succeeded in bringing it into condition to be shown. But the tiger soon became sick again, and after a long illness, in which it was kept alive mainly by the care and affection of the keepers, it died, much lamented.

Tameness is by no means confined to the northern species of tiger. “Jack,” an Indian tiger, which died in the same year as “Warsaw,” was quite as friendly to its keepers, and surpassed him in beauty. For some time it shared with the Sokoto lion the place of honour as the finest creature in the Gardens. When it arrived, in 1888, as a five-months-old cub, it was led by a chain and collar like a big dog, and was for some time taken to and from its cage by the keepers with no other precaution, until its reluctance to be shut up when it preferred to walk at large, and the difficulty of “coercing” so large an animal, led to its permanent incarceration. “Jack” was the tiger which, in the experiments with different musical instruments subsequently described, displayed so marked an objection to the sounds of the piccolo.

In spite of the deaths of the three tigers, of “Duke,” the old lion, and of a jaguar and puma, the years 1892-1894 have seen an increase in the numbers of the inmates of the Lion House greater than at any period since the return of the Prince of Wales from his Indian visit, and the collection of so many fine young animals gives a good idea of the difference in “points” and form in creatures of the same species. There is as much difference in lions as in horses or in dogs of the same breed, and they are by no means uniformly noble or impressive to look upon. Some are “down at heel,” some narrow-chested, others have Roman noses, a very ugly feature in a lion; some, on the other hand, are all that a lion should be.

Lion and Lioness. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.

By far the finest pair in the Gardens are the lion presented to the Queen by the Sultan of Sokoto, and the pale lioness bred in the Amsterdam Zoological Gardens. Those in the “fancy” say, that if the Sokoto lion had a black mane it would be the finest in Europe, except that in the Clifton Zoological Gardens. Its coat and mane are the colour of red gold-dust, its head twice the size of that of the lioness, its eyes a clear brown, and its gaze steady and tranquil. Its body is compact, its limbs straight, and its attitudes unconsciously striking and magnificent. The lioness is a very pale fawn, almost cream colour, and the damask spots of cub-hood were still visible on her legs and feet when she was three years old. In temper she is as savage and ferocious as her partner is gentle. As far as points go she is almost perfect, with a long straight back, round black-tipped ears, short strong legs, square head, flat forehead, rounded, cushioned feet, and a chest like a bull-dog’s.

The only other creature which is equally ferocious is a very old tigress, called “Minnie.” The writer has seen her “stalk” a keeper, when his back was turned, and there is little doubt that the scene was an exact reproduction of what takes place in an Indian jungle. She crouched down on the floor of the den, her body gradually flattening out until she seemed all head. The jaw was flat on the ground, and the tail also, with only the tip moving, and the profile of the head seemed flattened as well as the body. Thus she remained for a minute or more, the only movement besides that in the tip of the tail being the rush of dust upon the floor, as a blast of growls sent the sawdust flying which strewed the planks. This was followed by the spring, which was of course interrupted by the bars. But the whole performance was an instructive lesson in tiger tactics.

Over-feeding in youth is almost as bad for the future health of a tiger or lion as starvation. In 1893 three very fine tiger cubs, about five months old, arrived as a present to the Princess Henry of Battenberg from an Indian prince. They had been so lavishly fed on mutton during the voyage, that they were immensely fat and heavy when they reached the Gardens. A few months later they all developed weakness in the hind-quarters, and though they may in time recover, the effects of over-stimulating food taken too early are very noticeable.^[2]

2.One has since died.

In the last cage of the house, at the eastern end, took place the celebrated fight in November 1879, between a tiger and a tigress, which resulted in the death of the latter. An account of this scene, derived from Sutton the keeper’s description of what took place, is almost the last thing written by Frank Buckland, who himself died in the December of the next year. The description of the fight as it appears in the collection of Notes and Jottings from Animal Life, selected and arranged by Buckland shortly before his death, and edited by Mr. G. C. Bompas in 1882, agrees very closely with the description given verbally by Sutton himself. But the most curious point in Buckland’s account is, that he apparently forgot that the tigress died from her wounds, though he himself paid his last visit to the Lion House in order to see the suffering animal. The tigress began the quarrel by sticking one of her claws through the tiger’s nostril. The male tiger immediately pulled back his head with a jerk, and the claw cut its way through the nose, causing great pain and bleeding. The only people in the house at this time—Sunday morning—were Sutton the keeper and a Frenchman, and the two tigers at once joined battle with very little chance of interference by outsiders. The male used his feet, and throwing the female down, gave her several heavy blows and scratches, and then, having asserted its power, gave up the combat. The tigress got up, followed him, and bit him in the thigh. This made the tiger furious. He rushed at the other, and bit her through and through the neck, while the most fearful growls and screams came from both. This set a lion (Duke) and lioness fighting at the opposite end of the house, while the Frenchman, shouting and gesticulating, rushed up and down, and further excited the animals. Sutton quieted the lions, and then managed to drive the tiger off his victim. The moment he let go his hold the blood spouted from the tigress’s throat up to the roof, and she fell down apparently dying, while the tiger was driven into one of the sleeping compartments. The tigress was also moved into a room at the back. Buckland in his short account says, that “though of course her nerves were considerably shaken, she was soon all right again.” As a matter of fact, she died ten days later, having been unable to swallow food during that time, and being dreadfully exhausted from her wounds. The strangest thing in connection with this encounter and Buckland’s note is, that his visit to see the wounded tigress was his own last day in the Lion House. He was anxious to do what he could for the creature, and volunteered a visit, though so ill himself that he had to be pushed into the passage between the dens and the outdoor runs in a bath-chair. But his nerves were so shaken by illness, that when the iron shutter was about to be opened which led into the tigress’s sick chamber, he begged that it might be kept closed; and though assured that the animal could not move, he would not see it or have the door unclosed. A year later he himself was dead, by no one more regretted than by the keepers of the Zoo.

The paragon of the Lion House at the present moment is the snow leopard. It is a most lovely creature, and deserves all the praises lavished on it. It is exactly like a grey but spotted Angora cat, six feet long from its pink nose to the tip of its bushy tail, and of an exquisite pearly tint, just dashed and spotted with black. Its eyes, liquid and large, with swimming black pupils, are the colour of a greenish-grey aqua-marine, and its expression as gentle as its ways. It was a lady’s pet in India, and still remains the same gentle, aristocratic, languid creature that it was when the favourite of the “Mem Sahib’s” drawing-room. Its neighbour, the pure black leopard from Singapore, sent to England by the Duke of Newcastle, is a strange contrast in colour and character. It is so ferocious, that when let loose in the cage it sprang at the bars with such force as to bulge the steel netting with which they had been covered, by the mere shock of contact with its head. It sulks day and night, and is no more admirable in appearance than a morose and gigantic black tom-cat.