HIPPOPOTAMUS BORN AT AUCKLAND ZOO

Dominion, Volume 22, Issue 93, 14 January 1929, Page 6

HIPPOPOTAMUS BORN AT AUCKLAND ZOO

HOPES OF REARING IT WEIGHS EIGHT STONE Dominion Special Service. Auckland, January 13. An eight-stone baby, possibly a boy, now noses round tlie huge bulk of Bella, the benign-looking female hippopotamus wallowing in her pond out at the Auckland Zoo. The interesting event took place early this morning. The mother is not so bright as usual, but Superintendent T. Aldridge is quite satisfied with the way things are going. “She is an excellent mother,” he remarked, “and the little fellow has already taken nourishment.” It will be remembered in September, 1926, when Bella brought the first miniature of herself into the world the father got annoyed about something and did the poor little thing to death the day after it was born. These births only happen every two years under the most favourable circumstances, so that Zoo authorities take the keenest interest in them. In the London Zoo, where only one hippo baby was born in fifty years, they made almost as much fuss over it as they would over the heir to the throne. Charka. the father who murdered his one-day-old infant in 1926, has, during the past three months, been discreetly withdrawn, and has occupied the bachelor pond higher up, but an iron grating between did not prevent him taking note, of what went on in the old home. “Does he know what happened in the next pond?” the superintendent was asked. “Well, I rather think he does. He has been very restless, all the morning.” Charka is only five years of age, while Bella is two years older. He yawned several times in the most bored manner while the mother and child were getting all the attention this morning. One of the bystanders, remembering the fate of the last baby, suggested, when Charka opened a bon I a square yard of mouth showing teeth as thick as fencing-posts, that perhaps it was not a yawn. In order to accommodate the little stranger the water in Bella’s pond was lowered, and when he walks round his back is just out of the water. Most of Bella’s bulk stands out even when she is lying on her side, which seemed to be her favourite attitude, with one-half of her head under water, but with an eye in the other half frequently seeking her offspring, nosing about alongside her. The baby is a perfect replica in miniature of his parents, and does not give that suggestion of “all head and feet” that a puppy does, for instance. He was born under water, feeds under water, and will probably spend next week in the same manner. When the time comes for his first jaunt ashore he will make it pick-a-back. His mother will manoeuvre under- water until she gets the little one on her back, and from . that elevated post he will survey the scenery as he will not have then found his land legs. No trouble is anticipated when the time comes to introduce-the baby to its father. It is confidently expected to rear this’interesting little new-comer.