A WORLD-KNOWN MENAGERIE.

Cromwell Argus, Volume XLIII, Issue 2337, 27 January 1913, Page 7

A WORLD-KNOWN MENAGERIE.

Carl Hagrnbeck’s wonderful menagerie at Thierpark, Stcllingcn, near Hamburg, is known all over (he world, civilised and uncivilised. There is no country on the globe from which it does not get animals of some kind, and the natives of them all know that it will take anything they can capture.

Hagenbrek’s business is to sunpl y menageries and zoological gardens with wild animals of all Kinds, ami he is always ready to hay them from those that capture them. He has his agents everywhere, who are constantly looking for rare animals, or for specimens of those that are already known.

Hagenbeek is the man that first suggested the training of wild beasts and it was his success in the business that encouraged others to attempt it. It is hardly necessary to mention 1 lie wonderful things that' have been accomplished in this way. (if course lie has had hundreds of adventures with animals, and his share of narrow escapes. He tells a startling story of his experience with some pythons one day. He had sol i eight to a menagerie, and, when it was time to put them into a box for shipping, he opened the cage in which they were confined, and began the work of transfer alone. All of them went into their now quarters rather quietly but one the eighth ; it Hew at him viciously. The bite of the python, or I un. is not poisonous, but beware of the fearful power of its muscular folds ! This rebcli'ous snake threw its tail and the lower part of its form around Hagenbeek's legs, and held him so that he could not move. He held it, as is usual, in the clasp of his hands Pack of its neck, but he was utterly powerless to do anything.

Fortunately, several of his keepers, or assistants, were within call, and they came to his relief. U took their united efforts to uncoil the great folds and free Hagenbeek’s from their embrace, and if they had not been present, his life would have paid the forfeit of his boldness in attempting, unaided, to handle the giant serpents. — * Sparc Moments.”