40 chapters
7 hour read
Selected Chapters
40 chapters
PREFACE
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 se
1 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE ZOO IN A FROST
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
13 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE GHOSTS OF THE TROPICAL FOREST.
THE GHOSTS OF THE TROPICAL FOREST.
Perhaps the rarest, certainly the least known to man of all the creatures which, by a strange chance, find their way to the Gardens of the Zoological Society in Regent’s Park, are the denizens of the Tropical Forest. We say forest, because, though divided by the dissociable ocean, there is only one great forest which belts the globe. The notion of the physical symmetry of the world, which fascinated the old geographers, and led Herodotus to surmise that the course of the great river of Africa mu
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO
THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO
A collection of tropical butterflies and moths reared in the Zoological Gardens was exhibited in the rooms of the Royal Society at their annual soirée in 1893. The fact that such perfect and beautiful examples of the frail and fantastic forms which by night fill the place taken by the humming-birds by day, in the steaming tropical forest, have lived in the precincts of a London park, is sufficient justification, if any be required, for their presence among such practical and progressive surround
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
PATTERNS ON LIVING ANIMALS.
PATTERNS ON LIVING ANIMALS.
Early in the spring of 1893, the Marquis of Hamilton brought with him from Trinidad a number of little fish, less in size than a half-grown minnow, which were presented to the Zoological Society, and were to be seen at Easter swimming in a glass bowl, among a thin growth of water weeds, in the warm chamber in which the tropical moths and butterflies are hatched. Being small and elegant, they have a long and ugly scientific name, the Girardinus Guppyi . In the absence of a label, the writer misto
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE GIRAFFE’S OBITUARY.
THE GIRAFFE’S OBITUARY.
The winter of the year 1892, like the days of pestilence before the walls of Troy, was fatal both to man and beast. Even the carefully tended inmates of the Zoological Society’s Gardens did not escape; and as the new year opened with the death within a week of “Sally,” most human and most intelligent of apes, and of her neighbour “Tim,” the silver gibbon, who was almost as great a favourite of the London public as the educated chimpanzee, so the spring saw the death of the two beautiful giraffes
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE ELECTRIC EEL.
THE ELECTRIC EEL.
If the rational basis of legend and fable is worth exploring at all, we may well ask why the possession of electric power, the most strange, and until recently the most inexplicable, attribute of any of the inhabitants of the water, does not play a greater part in the marvellous narratives of ancient voyages? The remora , or sucking-fish, magnified a thousand times in imaginations excited by a world of strange and new experience, was the besetting foe of mariners in Northern waters. Clinging to
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
DEEP-SEA LAMPS.
DEEP-SEA LAMPS.
The possibility of exhibiting the powers of electrical fishes in the tanks at the Zoo, suggests the question whether, in the progress of marine aquariums, we shall ever see the luminous creatures of the deep seas exhibited alive before air-breathing mortals in this upper world. Virgil’s Sybil set the depth of Tartarus at twice the skyward gaze to the summit of Olympus. But the profundity of the ocean abyss is such that in the deep Atlantic Olympus might be imposed upon itself, and Ossa piled abo
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE LION HOUSE AT THE ZOO.
THE LION HOUSE AT THE ZOO.
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 th
18 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
DIVING BIRDS AT THE ZOO.
DIVING BIRDS AT THE ZOO.
Submarine boats, according to the naval architects, would be the fastest in the world, if only their crews could work them. This seems a hard saying; but the fact can be proved by theory, and seen at work in nature. On the surface most of the work done goes to form waves. Below, no waves are made, as, for example, when salmon are travelling up a stream. There remains, of course, some resistance to the submerged boat or bird, but so much less than on the surface, that, given the same driving powe
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TAME DIVERS.
TAME DIVERS.
When an ideal home for the diving birds is constructed at the Zoo, we may hope to see them sitting in the sunlight on the flat rocks they love, and watch the guillemots and razorbills rearing their young, or swimming on the surface with their offspring sitting on their backs as they do off the cliffs of Freshwater and Flamborough Head. These rock-fowl, unlike the gulls and terns, are more easily tamed, and in a sense domesticated, than any other bird except the parrot. But unlike the parrots, th
5 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE QUEST FOR THE WILD HORSE.
THE QUEST FOR THE WILD HORSE.
The sustaining hope of the discoverer of the unknown is seldom wholly vague or visionary. No man, as a rule, breaks into a new world by accident or hap-hazard. New worlds, or lands, or men, or beasts, have lived in the imagination, and been foreshadowed and foretold by a hundred minute and subtle inductions, grouping themselves round the central idea in minds so set on finding what they felt was to be found, that in the end their quest was gained, and they have been able to tell the world that w
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO. THE ANIMAL SENSE OF BEAUTY.
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO. THE ANIMAL SENSE OF BEAUTY.
That sense of beauty to which the gorgeous plumage of the male birds in many species is an obvious and direct appeal, is by no means limited to the knowledge so naïvely shown by resplendent husbands and adoring wives, that fine feathers make fine birds. So common and varied is the pleasure derived from this sense, that in many kinds it extends to the conscious search for and appliance of beautiful objects in the decoration of nests, of pleasure-houses, and the enrichment of collections. This tas
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO. SCENTS AND SOUNDS.
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO. SCENTS AND SOUNDS.
One of the oddest tales in the “Bestiaries,” or stories of Bible animals written by the monks, is the legend of the panther. “The panther,” so the homily runs, “is the most beautiful of all beasts. More than this, when it goes abroad it diffuses a marvellous sweet perfume. This odour is so sweet that all the other beasts and birds follow the panther wherever it goes. Wherefore the panther is a type of Virtue.” Perhaps the old monks who borrowed and embellished this story had heard and misunderst
6 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO. THE FIRST VISIT.
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO. THE FIRST VISIT.
In making trial, with the aid of a skilled musician, of the effect of sweet sounds on animal ears, we knew that there was good reason to doubt whether Orpheus himself might not fail to charm within the precincts of the Zoo. For if, on the one hand, the creatures so far share the blessings of the golden age that they entertain a liking rather than a fear of man, and have no dread of a possible enemy behind the mask of music, many of them are no strangers to such forms of it as are produced by the
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO. THE SECOND VISIT.
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO. THE SECOND VISIT.
The result of the first experiments made upon animals with musical sounds, was such as to invite a second visit by the violin-player to the inmates of the Zoo. The sun was shining brightly, and most of the animals were just awaking from their morning sleep. Some were not yet awake. The two Polar bears were lying fast asleep in an affectionate embrace, their noses touching, and each with one paw laid on its companion’s side, while the other grasped its friend’s. Both were dreaming, like dogs on a
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO. THE CHOICE OF INSTRUMENTS.
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO. THE CHOICE OF INSTRUMENTS.
In a former trial of the effects of sweet sounds on animals’ ears at the Zoo, our Orpheus was so far in character that he played but one instrument; and though the violin did duty for the classic lute, the audience was in many cases as responsive as in the groves of Thessaly, when music still was young. Our object so attained, curiosity went no further, though if a matter-of-fact and scientific age demands “results” as a natural sequence to experiments, however playful, we would sum up the concl
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
TALKING BIRDS.
TALKING BIRDS.
The parrots and macaws which live in the Parrot House at the Zoo are so numerous and noisy that the keeper has no leisure to teach them to talk. But a parrot which can say a very few words is very quickly imitated by its neighbours, and a new phrase or word travels from cage to cage, should the birds in the immediate neighbourhood of the accomplished talker be of one of the imitative species. Among birds there are progressive and non-progressive races, which are indifferent to “self-improvement,
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ELEPHANT LIFE IN ENGLAND
ELEPHANT LIFE IN ENGLAND
The strangely artificial revival of elephant life in the countries north of the Mediterranean, and in districts where the bones of the fossil species show that they once lived and flourished naturally, is yearly more remarkable. The European elephant herd in the present year numbers one hundred and thirteen, or about thirty less than the annual catch in the keddahs of the Indian Government. Their health seems quite independent of climate, to judge from the countries in which they are kept, often
17 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
WANTED—A NEW MEAT.
WANTED—A NEW MEAT.
The lack of variety in those meats which, whether flesh or fowl, must always form the ground-work and basis of an English bill-of-fare, is a want keenly felt, but most difficult to remedy. To judge from the list of fresh food which the improved transport of the last few years has made available for the London dinner-table, a natural inference would be that, so far as novelty has been studied, we had made provision, not for man as humanized by Schools of Cookery, but for a race of fruit-eating ap
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
AN EXPERIMENT IN ANIMAL PRESERVATION.
AN EXPERIMENT IN ANIMAL PRESERVATION.
When the founders of our Zoological Gardens formed plans for acclimatizing foreign animals in England, they could scarcely have imagined that the Gardens might form almost the last preserve of animals then living in enormous numbers in America. Yet it is not beyond the limits of possibility, that our Zoological Gardens may within a few years contain the last living specimens of the American bison. It is said that thirty of the surviving herd in Yellowstone Park were recently killed by poachers f
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
“JAMRACH’S.”
“JAMRACH’S.”
“ Jamrach’s ,” the ancient and original centre of the wild-beast trade in London, lies in what is now called St. George Street, but was until late years known as Ratcliffe Highway, not many minutes’ walk beyond the Tower. It existed when the King’s lions were kept in the Tower itself, and was established thirty years before Sir Stamford Raffles conceived the notion of the Zoological Society. The shop itself is almost the oldest building in the street, far older than the docks and their lofty war
16 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
EXPRESSION IN THE ANIMAL EYE.
EXPRESSION IN THE ANIMAL EYE.
The wonderful compound eyes of insects recently formed the subject of a paper read by Lord Rayleigh before the Royal Society, recording observations of minute accuracy and ingenious measurement by Mr. A. Mallock. The general conclusions formed as to the actual power of these complex organs rather raises than lessens the claim to efficiency of the simpler vertebrate eye. The compound eye pieces together the separate impressions of the object seen, and should any of the facets be out of order, a b
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
LONDON BEARS.
LONDON BEARS.
“ Never make a pet of a bear,” is the advice given by the experienced “bear-ward” at the Zoo. But though his conclusions are the result of longer and closer experience of the animals than is possessed by any one person in Europe, there is something so attractive in the apparent simplicity and bonhomie of the comfortable, warmly-clad, deliberate ursine race which appeals irresistibly to animal-loving Englishmen. Ever since the early middle ages the performing bear has been a favourite; and to thi
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO.
YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO.
Artemis , protectress of all young wild beasts, should be honoured with a statue at the Zoo; for the cages are yearly filled by the graceful young of wild creatures native to every quarter of the globe. The greater number are born in the menagerie, honest little British lions and the rest, of the true Cockney breed. Others come from the Gardens on the Continent, notably from Amsterdam, where, for some reason, the wild-beast farm thrives amazingly; and others, mainly the whelps of the fierce carn
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
ANIMAL COLOURING.
ANIMAL COLOURING.
The conclusions of naturalists as to the laws which govern the colouring of animals must, it seems, be modified. There is no reason, however, to fear any loss of interest in one of the prettiest and most attractive sides of natural history. The collection and comparison of the wonderful analogies in colour between animals and their environment, and between one animal and another, will still be guided by the leading principles which Bates and Wallace detected; and the delight and surprise with wh
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
WILD-CATS AT THE ZOO.
WILD-CATS AT THE ZOO.
The reservation of one-tenth of the area of Scotland for deer-forests has probably arrested the extermination of three, if not of four, of the largest and rarest of our birds and beasts of prey for at least a century. The great increase in the numbers of the golden eagle, and the migration of the ospreys from the lakes to the forests, are among the results of the protection so afforded. It was reasonable to expect that the wild-cat would also benefit by the policy, now generally in favour with o
12 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS.
THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS.
Mr. Garner’s claim to have gained a clue to a form of language understood by monkeys for a short time excited more interest than any subject of natural history in recent years. It was based on such ingenious experiments, including the practical use of such an invention as the phonograph, and was based on methods so pleasing to the scientific mind, that there seemed more than a probability that he was on the verge of a great discovery. On the other hand, men like the keepers of the monkeys in the
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
RARE AND BEAUTIFUL MONKEYS.
RARE AND BEAUTIFUL MONKEYS.
Among the hundred inmates of the Monkey Palace at the Zoo, more than half the species shown may claim a place among the more elegant animal forms; and an acquaintance with the smaller and squirrel-like members of the tribe which abound in the forests of Central and Southern America, and which, in spite of their delicate constitutions, are generally represented in greater or less numbers in the Society’s collection, shows that in at least three elements of beauty, the delicate modelling of the ha
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE LARGER MONKEYS.
THE LARGER MONKEYS.
Though most of the best specimens of monkey beauty belong to the New World, the richness and variety of the colouring of one or two of the African species is not surpassed by that of any American species. Yet the ornamental value of their skins is little known, even among those professionally engaged in the fur trade. In the catalogues of the great sales at Sir Charles Lampson’s in College Street, there is always a column headed “various,” to which the visitor, tired with the enumeration of the
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
LIZARDS AND CROCODILES AT THE ZOO.
LIZARDS AND CROCODILES AT THE ZOO.
It is hardly matter for surprise that the colubrine snakes, with their gorgeous colouring and wonderful form, or the poisonous cobras, rattlesnakes, and puff-adders which inhabit the closed cases in the Reptile House at the Zoo, excite more interest and comment among visitors than the four-footed reptiles, ranging from the alligators of South America to the tiny “gecko” lizards of Southern Europe, which have their abode under the same roof. Yet there is something peculiarly interesting in these
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
FROM THE ANIMALS’ POINT OF VIEW.[13]
FROM THE ANIMALS’ POINT OF VIEW.[13]
13 . The immunity of the keepers at the Zoo from serious injury or attack by the animals in their charge is à priori evidence that the animals’ point of view is not necessarily hostile. One of the most curious and unconsciously paradoxical claims ever advanced for man in his relation to animals is that by which M. Georges Leroy, philosopher, encyclopædist, and lieutenant des chasses of the Park of Versailles, the vindicator of Buffon and Montesquieu against the criticisms of Voltaire, explains
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
POSSIBLE PETS.
POSSIBLE PETS.
The number of animals which with ordinary tact and kindness can be tamed by man is so great, that the range of possible pets would seem almost co-extensive with the limits of the animal world. But tame tigers must, as a rule, remain a luxury for Sultans and Sarah Bernhardts, and the sociable bear be left to the professional gentlemen who make a living from his society. We say “as a rule,” not without reason, because there is hardly any limit to an Englishman’s fancy for pets. The writer was requ
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE PARIS ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS IN THE TWO SIEGES.
THE PARIS ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS IN THE TWO SIEGES.
Here is an odd scene in the Jardin des Plantes at the end of April 1871. The communards were defending the ramparts, and a steady rain of shells had been pouring in from the Versaillist batteries for a week. Every one in Paris was “stale” from continued siege and bombardment. War had lost all its excitement, and nothing relieved its squalid discomfort. An order to impress all citizens for the National Guard had just been issued, and one of these, M. Henri de Goncourt, an author, a man of taste,
6 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
OTHER BEASTS OF BURDEN.
OTHER BEASTS OF BURDEN.
The failure of the Zoological Society to establish any new draught animal in this country seems to show that as long as an Englishman can get a horse, he tries to do without any other beast of burden. The use of dogs is no longer legal, and we have nearly discarded the sturdy ox, even for ploughing. A few are to be seen in Wiltshire and on the Cotswold Hills; in Berkshire there are some half-dozen teams, among them a famous quartette of red steers belonging to Sir William Throckmorton; and Mr. B
10 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE SOLDIER’S CAMEL.
THE SOLDIER’S CAMEL.
“ Bactrian camels,” says Major A. Leonard in his work on the Camel, its Uses and Management , [14] “or those from Afghanistan, or any such cold climate, would thrive just as well in a re-mount depôt in England as they do at the Zoo. What in the world is to prevent their introduction into this country, and the formation of camel and mule transports? Nothing, that I can see.” 14 . Longmans, Green and Co., London. 1874. Major Leonard speaks with the authority of one who has spent sixteen years as
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE CANADIAN BEAVER.
THE CANADIAN BEAVER.
Indian tradition ascribes the rescue of the world from its aqueous ages to the industry and intelligence of the beaver, the animal which first learnt to control and turn to account the opposing elements of land and water. The beavers were of gigantic size, before the Great Spirit smoothed them down to their present dimensions, after they had completed his work on the unfinished earth; and they, with their fellow-workers, the musquash and the otter, dived and brought up the mud, and with it made
7 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
THE TEMPER OF ANIMALS.
THE TEMPER OF ANIMALS.
The old theory that animal good-temper might be accounted for on the ground that animals are sensible of pleasure and pain, but not of advantage and disadvantage, was only a half-truth, for animals are subject to jealousy, and jealousy is the direct result of a feeling of personal disadvantage. But it draws attention to the fact that occasions for disagreement in the case of most animals are rare and unusual. Questions of domicile are almost the sole ground of discord in the animal world, with t
8 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
CRIMINAL ANIMALS.
CRIMINAL ANIMALS.
“Mr. Gladstone narrowly escaped a serious accident when taking exercise in Hawarden Park. A cow, which had escaped from its owner when being driven to market, had taken refuge in the park, and attacked Mr. Gladstone when passing. Fortunately, though knocked down, Mr. Gladstone escaped unhurt.”— Daily Paper. The general view of good or bad in animal disposition is, no doubt, mainly determined by their behaviour to ourselves. That is the fixed opinion of the moral relation of animals to man. But t
9 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter
A YEAR AT THE ZOO.
A YEAR AT THE ZOO.
The Report of the Council of the Zoological Society for the sixty-fourth year of the existence of its “Gardens” in Regent’s Park will be read with interest by those whose curiosity extends beyond the menagerie which they see, to its management which is unseen. The public are only dimly aware of their debt to Dr. Sclater, the honorary secretary of the Zoological Society, and to Mr. Bartlett and his son, managers of the Gardens; and the glimpse of a twelvemonth’s history—animal, personal, and fina
14 minute read
Read Chapter
Read Chapter