Circus Animals

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22661, 16 March 1939, Page 4 (Supplement)

Circus Animals

The Gaged and the Uncaged

Those who have visited the circus] this week, have seen clowns ana acrobats and performing animals such as ; ponies, elephants, tigers, and monkeys. And those who have gone to the meal sessions have seen many'more animals being fed m their cages. It is the habit of circus managers to take with them on

1 colour. But it is possible to imagine them gleaming with gold and brown lights as they _ run rapidly through the pale dry jungle grasses with the bright sunlight striking on their rippling skin. It is sad to see them dolefully pacing ; round and round; the onlooker is i forced to wonder, is' there any need

B t^“ y d h to Griper whe^he^a^tw^montfe^W. 01 The scried* backchanged to str.pcs

to cage these creatures? Has man any right to do so? Next door is the lioness, a paler colour,, slimmer, smaller, more restless than her lords. But what she lacks in ■ colour and size and abundance of mane the lioness makes up in noise; for of all the animals in the zoo she is the noisiest and the most clamorous, the first

tour, more animals than the trained t ones to be seen performing m the c sawdust covered ring. There are, for instance, the two black Russian c bears with long heads and bristly fur and more than bristly tempcrs. These two ungracious creatures arc < kept in a cage and because of their i bad tempers are not asked to per <■ form. They have small eyes and . long mouths which open often T.nc openings may easily be mistaken for smiling gestures; but it seems that a bear’? open mouth may wear a very disguising look, and everyone is warned to beware of those teeth and the claws under those black furry pads. Unfriendly Cats There are several cages of cats. They are not the small purring ones we see sleeping in the sun at home on the lawn or on a brick path, but; if you look at their eyes and their paws and their ears you will see that they are large relations of these lazy home friends of ours. Messrs Lion, for instance, those two large maned fellows jn the first cage, are lying, with then heads against the bars andtheu great fore-paws stretched through. The curve of the paws is beautiful, and the colour rich and golden; but . if. you* watch the eyes you will not believe that those lazy, soft, and attractive’ looking paws will always stay in a safe position while you stroke and fondle the cars of their owners. Round and deep ana golden brown the eyes turn from ' side-to side, back and_ forth continually while the head is kept pcxfcctly still. Sometimes an. ear —rounded, tufted, soft-looking twitches forward in a listening attitude; and then the head Hit* and turns, the muzzle quivers and ; the beast rises lithcly to his feet ; and begins his restless pacing i I'ound and round the cage. His tail ■ is held flat and close to his hind • quarters, his skin ripples loosely ! over his bones and muscles, and his legs go smoothly, stealthily, with : little sound from his padded paws. ' In the dark inside of the cage, ' made darker still by contrast wit a ■ the brilliant red paint of the outside, the lions are a dull tawny

Madame Elephant takes a mouthful

to stir up trouble, and the most gifted in setting the other animals to work—to bark, bray. roar,.scream jabber, and growl the days and nights into an uproar of untuneful sound. , - ~ Two very quarrelsome leopards live next door to an old, very quiet, mother leopard. She is Kilty, an old favourite with the keepers. She secs, a keeper coming towards her cage, and playfully she rolls over, hiding the beautiful brown and white of her back and showing the black and white splashes and spots of her under side. Her legs paw

the air, her head rubs the' straw* and she behaves exactly as a playful kitten does. She allows the keeper to scratch and rub her ears, to stroke her paws and to brush her forehead. But when her neighbours become very rowdy she can show that she is not all soft paws and playfulness, but that she also has a wide throat, and a mouth . lined with teeth, and whiskers that stand out fiercely sideways. . Training is Dangerous Tigers, leopards, and lions used in the circus ring are all young. It is generally found that an animal of three years begins to grow savage and must be discarded. “How do you know when he is going to become dangerous?” we ask the keeper. , * “There are various signs,’ he says. “Now, for instance, if I brought a dog in here the tigers would crouch low and growl just as they would if I brought a cat or a horse. But they don’t growl at me or at the visitors. They growl at their trainer, but they do not crouch. They mutter away and grumble, but do not prepare to spring.” “And how does the trainer manage them?” * , . “She uses a chair and a whip, keeping the chair; always between .her and the animals: If they come too close she thrusts the legs of the chair at them and they move back at once. The four legs are very much better than - a single stick or the whip handle.” “And where did the trainer learn her work?” “In South Africa. There are numbers of women trainers in -the world. They mostly belong to families who have tamed lions and tigers for generations. The work is very dangerous, but the trainers are always very heavily insured against any kind of harm.” The Elephants Sway Out in the elephant yard two huge African elephants of a pale grey colour and two smaller Indian ones of a darker grey sway backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards on their huge five-toed feet, while the people put nuts and apples and pears and straw into their, outstretched trunks. To see these supple trunks curl up, whish! and thrust the food into the large pink cavern of a mouth and then dart back, flip! is to be astonished at the speed with which those wrinkled, bonding, swaying trunks can move. Anyone with a camera wanting to get a picture of Madame Elephant feeding herself must be very quick indeed; more often than not the large creature will be convinced that the camera is the next item of food and that she must be in a particular hurry if she is to snap it up. Only female elephants are brought round with the circus; the male ones grow fierce and wild and cannot be trusted. Ponies of all kinds, white ones that stand still as statues, little brown agile ones for jumping, and charming piebald ones for tricks, are bought in all parts of the world 11 and trained for circus work. They ~ vie with the large families of monkeys for pride of place in ls popularity with the thousands of V children who everywhere love the ■, circus.

Yoghoiirt . Yoghourt is a form of soured milk fermented by bacillus bulgaricus, and recommended as an aid to long life. It is much used in Eastern nations, and now consumed in England in the popular restaurants, and sold in the leading dairies. It is a very healthy food.