Z-0-0 CALLING

Dominion, Volume 19, Issue 57, 29 November 1924, Page 18

Z-0-0 CALLING

BROADCASTING THE MUSIC OF THE MENAGERIE

Tho first radio “concert” by zoo animals broadcast throughout England, was a signal success. All the soloists, with the exception of the walrus, were in good voice, and were clearly heard. How was it done ? About five o’clock a procession of men, carrying bamboo pole aerials and a tripod microphone, and pushing a lieav.v transmitting vehicle, took up a posi' tion in front of the laughing jackasses’ cage in the western aviary. A keeper entered the cage, clapped his hands, and immediately the birds fluttered round threw back their heads, opened wide their beaks, and laughed rapturously. Their laughter waa retceived at the zoo curator’s house and transmitted by land-line to 2LO. Followed by many zoo visitors, the wireless pram team then went to the sea-lions’ enclosure. The appearance of a keeper with a basket of whiting brought the sea-lions with a rush te the rocks. Tho bull barked continuously, in a deep bass, and was joined by his consort with a higher squeak, relieved now and again by the suggestion of a sneeze. There was a snarling passage between two of them over a tit-bit. A fish thrown by the keeper, to a higher ledge set one of the sea-lions chasing a Press photographer; the camera-man, apparatus and all, beat a hasty retreat amid general laughter. “Punch,” the Gambia hyena, was the next soloist. ’ Incited by ribs of meat, held outside the cage, he kept up a blood-curdling song for several minutes. The walrus was not so obliging, and to induce him to make his few suffocating gurgles he had to have his muzzle stroked. This is what it sounded like to a “Daily News” reporter who listened in :— The Laughing J(ackasses.—A few screeches, then a long gurgling ripple such as a flapper make? when she spies a box of chocolates ... a cacbinnatory duet . . . hee, heo, heo, ha, ha, ha,” . . . then silence. The Sea-Lions.-—A cold, wet, barking sound—ark, ark, ark, like the noise a little dog makes when it has been in swimming too long. The Hyenas.—What the women novelists would describe as “sinister laughter.” A shrill howl, like that of a dog in pain; then a snarling jabble of sound which tailed off into a no. ho, ho, of satisfaction as the bone “went west.” “Old Bill,” tho Walras. —Obviously a “Veteran of Variety,” . but a bit rusty about tho vocal hinges nowadays. The sort of noises, the old gentleman who falls asleep in the corner of tho railway carriage makes.