Читать книгу The Zoo Book - Enid blyton - Страница 4

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There are three kinds of people who go to hunt animals—there are those who go to kill them for the sake of sport or for their skins, those who go to take photographs of the animals, and those who go to capture them alive for show purposes. All these things are difficult and dangerous.

When animals are captured in order to be taken to Zoos, it is usually the young ones which are caught. They are more easily tamed, are not so much trouble to cage on the journey, and have longer to live. But even so, it is a very difficult business, and not one half of the animals caught, live to be placed in a new home.

Running animals, such as giraffes, antelopes and buffaloes, are chased in herds. Gradually the young ones become tired, and drop behind. Then they are seized and captured fairly easily. Young elands are caught by seizing them by the tail. But capture is not so easy in the case of animals who turn to protect their young ones. Rhinoceroses and elephants will fight for their young and usually the baby animals can be taken only after the old ones are killed.

Hyænas, panthers and baboons, are usually caught in carefully built traps. Birds too, are snared in many different ways. Crocodiles and hippopotamuses are often attacked in the water. Natives are very clever at this. They choose a young animal, and harpoon it so as to make as small a wound as possible. Then they surround it and push it ashore, where it is roped and bound. The wound is attended to, and soon heals up. The animal is then sent off to its new home, in company with many others caught.

Baboons are caught in an interesting way. First of all their drinking-places are found. Then all but one are closed up with thorn bushes, so that the whole company is forced to come for water to the same place. After a time, a cage is placed by this pool, and food is scattered around and inside it. The baboons explore it suspiciously at first, but gradually become used to it, and soon go in and out for the food. Then one day a rope is tied to the pole which keeps the cage door open. This rope, covered loosely by sand, runs along to the hunter’s hiding-place. At evening time, along come the baboons as usual. Two or three run into the cage to find the food they know will be there. The watching hunter pulls the rope. Click! The pole falls and the trap is closed! And the baboons inside begin to yell and bark, trying to find a way out. Up come the hunters, and with forked sticks catch each baboon by the neck and pin him to the ground. Then the top of the cage is taken off, and the baboons are bound and muzzled. For a day or two they are terrified, but they soon recover, and get used to captivity.

Drawn by Warwick Reynolds, R.S.W.

Giant Python.

A young hippopotamus is sometimes caught on land by means of a pit. The mother hippo always makes her baby trot in front of her so that she can look round for any danger, and does not need to turn round at all. Hunters find out the path she often uses, and in the middle of it they dig a pit which they hide with branches. When the pair come along, the mother hippo suddenly sees her baby vanish into the ground, and she is so terrified that she turns and runs. Then comes the job of getting the hippopotamus out of the pit. It has to be taken out as soon as possible, otherwise a lion will find it and eat it. Even a baby hippo is tremendously heavy, and it takes about twenty men to pull it out of the pit by means of a noose of thick rope round its body. Before it is taken right out, its legs and jaws are bound, for an angry hippo is a dangerous beast. When it is at last out of the pit, it is put on a stretcher of strong poles and branches and carried away to the nearest river, where it is placed on a river barge. As it probably weighs half a ton, you can imagine that the men are glad to get rid of its enormous weight.

Wild horses are caught by suddenly startling a herd during their rest hours by shouts and yells. They start up in alarm and race away, with the hunters riding after them on their own horses. Soon brown specks are seen lagging behind the herd away in front, and these become larger and larger until the hunters catch them up and see them to be foals. These young horses become worn out and at last stand still and panting, unable to move a step further. A noose is flung round their necks and they are led back to the camp and given to tame horses to nurse. After a little, they become used to their new life, and are taken away to be shipped to Europe.

You might think that snakes would be difficult and dangerous to catch, but they are not. In the marshes of India, natives, during the cool season, go out before dawn in search of snakes. When they find them, the creatures are so numb and helpless with cold that it is easy to catch them by means of a forked stick which pins them by the neck to the ground, or else by means of a net at the end of a long pole. Large snakes are caught in another way during the dry season. Nets are laid out round a certain spot in which snakes are known to be. Then the place is set on fire, and the snakes come hurrying out and become entangled in the nets.

A python is usually caught after it has had a meal, and is sleepy and lazy. A large net is thrown over it, and drawn tight, until the snake is thoroughly tangled in the meshes. Then it is put in a big bamboo basket, and carried off. There are some natives who find pythons and other snakes by smelling them at a distance. They go out with ropes and baskets, and directly they smell a snake, they track the smell down and catch the snake!

Seals are usually caught at night. They come out of the water and sleep on sand banks. Men creep up and place nets on one side of the bank. Then hunters on the other side begin shouting and yelling. The seals wake up in a fright, and make for the sea, becoming entangled in the nets. The hunters pounce on the young ones and throw net bags over them, letting the others escape. The men have to wear strong Wellington boots when they catch seals, for their teeth are so very sharp.

Difficulties are not over even when the seals are captured. They have to be taken away in sealing ships, and these have special water-tanks in which to keep the seals. Some of the animals pine for their home, and refuse to eat anything at all. The younger ones usually recover their spirits very soon, and are very playful and quick at learning tricks. It is very difficult to move them from the ship’s tank when they reach port. Fortunately they have to come up to the top of the water every few minutes to breathe, and men stand ready with ropes or nets to catch them one by one as they come to the surface.

When animals are taken across land before they are shipped, they have to be very carefully looked after. The young animals are fed with milk, and if there are a great many, a whole herd of goats has to be taken in order that goat’s milk can be given to the baby animals. If the goats die, or if there are more than are needed, they are given to the flesh-eating animals, such as lions or tigers, to eat, should the caravan happen to be taking some of those along too. Sheep are also taken to feed these animals. Running animals have to march, but savage animals are carried in boxes or cages. Rhinoceroses, after a time, learn to know their keepers, and will follow the caravan like dogs! Snakes are carried in boxes which have holes pierced in to let air through, and are very little trouble.

Sometimes the distance over which the animals have to be taken is very great, and many beasts die on the way. The heat kills a great many. Unsuitable food causes the death of others, and some die of fright and homesickness. But as the trader loses money on every animal that dies, every possible care is taken of them, and they are looked after and tended as if they were delicate babies!

Just imagine a trader who has to take a whole menagerie of animals he has caught, over a desert where he knows there will be little food, and hardly any water. He has to make his plans very carefully indeed, and take all his food, and a great deal of water with him. If he has a hippopotamus in the caravan, he must not only take water for drinking purposes, but also water in which the hippo can take a bath every day. The bath is made of tanned ox-hide, and the hippo greatly enjoys it, after he has been travelling for hours.

Usually the party travels at night when the hot sun is out of the sky. Cattle, heavily loaded animals, sheep and goats, captured animals, and many men, make up the long caravan. A giraffe needs three persons to drive it along, an ostrich one or two, an elephant two, three or four, and an antelope two! Savage or small animals are carried in cages on the backs of camels. Hippos are carried in cages slung on poles between two camels.

When the caravan at last reaches the sea, the animals are shipped for Europe. Elephants and camels are swung across from the shore to the ship by cranes, and they don’t like this at all! The cages containing the other animals are swung or carried into the ship, and placed in the care of the ship’s butcher whose duty it is to look after any animals on board. It is sometimes a dangerous job, and certainly not an easy one. The feeding is difficult in many cases, and often the animals suffer from seasickness and from having no exercise.

A ship’s butcher once had the care of three cheetahs. The sea splashed their fur, and they washed themselves as cats do. But the salt of the sea made them ill, and although everything was done to prevent them it was impossible to stop them licking their coats. Only one lived to reach land.

Sometimes animals escape from their cages on board ship, and then there is a very exciting time for the sailors. It is not very nice to have a bear or baboon loose, waiting to spring out round a corner! Once a bear got loose and fought so savagely that at last he was left to himself in a corner of the deck. The ship’s butcher decided to try a quieter plan. He took a tin of treacle and poured it out in a long stream from inside the bear’s cage to near where the bear sat growling. Then he left the tin in the cage and waited. After a time, the bear wandered out from his corner and discovered the treacle. He began licking it up in delight, and at last he licked himself right into his cage, when slam! the door was shut, and bolted! But he didn’t seem to mind a bit, he just sat and licked out the treacle tin as happy as could be.

Young giraffes are difficult to bring safely through a long sea journey. If they happen to be valuable ones, and show any signs of being unwell during the voyage, the ship puts in to land, and the giraffes are taken ashore for a few weeks until they are fit to stand the sea journey again.

Unshipping animals is just as dangerous and difficult as shipping them. They don’t realise at all what is wanted of them and become terrified. It is the big animals who are especially troublesome, for they cannot be carried, and have such strength that they are very dangerous when they lose their tempers. A rhinoceros can give a great amount of trouble. There was once one which had to be moved from the ship to a van. She was well roped and her keeper held out some food to her, walking backwards as he did so. The rhinoceros followed, eating, and went down the gangway. Through the docks she went, still eating, and everything seemed to be going splendidly. Then the keeper noticed a goods train coming down a nearby railway line. He knew the rhinoceros would be terrified and probably turn and run. So he, with the other helpers, hauled hard on the ropes, and just got the animal into the van in time. Unfortunately the engine-driver blew the steam whistle of his engine, and terrified the rhinoceros so much that she flew into a wild temper in the van, charged the coachman’s box, and threw it right up into the air! Then she tried to charge right through the front of the van, but was prevented by every one hauling on the ropes. At last, by fastening cords and ropes to all her legs, she was held a close prisoner, and after some time, was safely delivered to her stables.

Drawn by E. Mansell.

The Leopard or Panther.

A small hippopotamus was once fetched from Bordeaux by a keeper, packed up in a large travelling trunk, registered as luggage, and taken to its new home in that way. Another hippo was not so easy to deliver. She behaved all right until the van arrived at her stables. Then she refused to come out. The keeper gave her food and tried to make her walk down the gangway into her stable. She ate the food and went back into the van. This went on for eight hours, until the keeper tired of it and told his men to prod the animal from the back and make her come out. She lost her temper, turned on the keeper, and came flying out of the van after him, like a jack-in-the-box! He swung round and ran for his life. He ran straight into the hippo’s stable and out between the bars, which were very wide. The hippo pounded after him, but was stopped by the bars. The keeper slipped to the stable door, slammed and bolted it, and there was the hippo, safely caged at last!

It is not easy to send large animals by train. Giraffes, for instance, are too tall. Their heads would bang against the roofs of the tunnels. Elephants, too, are difficult to take by railway. Special low trucks are sometimes used for very big animals. These have to be very strongly made, of course. Maharajah, a well-known elephant, was once put in a closed railway van, and didn’t like it. She wanted more air, so she just lifted the roof off! After that, it was decided to take her by road and not by rail!

I think you will agree that catching and delivering wild animals is not a safe or an easy job. The traders who catch the animals and ship them to Europe, and the keepers who fetch them and bring them home, have a much more exciting and thrilling time than the keepers at the Zoo who look after the animals when they are safely caught and caged.