“ZOO” BABIES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 2489, 12 July 1909, Page 7

“ZOO” BABIES.

“Born in the menagerie.” Just now, when baby beasts and birds are arriving almost daily at the Zoological Gardens, the official label-writer must be quite tired of painting the above little legend for the cages. Almost every section of the gardens has its young family, from the placid Gayal cattle, who never bother their heads about anything, to the mother wolves who are now raging at the , bars scenting danger to their cubs in every voice and footstep. For the most part, the mothers tackle the problem of rearing a family under necessarily unnatural conditions with considerable success, but sometimes human intelligence and science must be called in to supplement instinct. The camel is a specially capable mother, and the result of her training may be studied in the humpless, unsteady infant she is now rearing. Already the baby is well able to take care of herself. When the spring dust whirls into his enclosure the infant camel lies down back-to-wind and hermetically seals his mobile nostrils, laying his snaky neck flat on the ground. So his cousins in the desert weather the stinging torture of the sandstorm, and this baby has already picked l up the family methods. The mother enforces discipline by thoughtful and accurate lovekicks, but later on the adolescent camel will repay these with interest, and then he will be “disposed of” by sale or exchange. Most young camels turn ungratefully on their mother if left with her too long. For some mysterious reason wolf cubs do not flourish in the ‘“Zoo,” when left to their own mothers, and at the present moment two collie mongrel foster-mothers are bringing up respectively litters of young timber wolves and prairie wolves. In both cases one cub has been left with the savage mother, while one puppy is also kept with its own parent to struggle and tussle for its share of nourishment among the baby wolves. Though the cubs are younger than the puppies, their strength is extraordinary, and it is well that the latter have a start in point of age. Centuries of domesticity have evidently “softened” the canine babies/ for the darkhued, sharper-headed wolf babies hold their own with a puppy twice their weight. ' A few years ago an interesting but illfated experiment was tried at the wolves’ dens. When the younger wolves had been transferred to the foster-mother the latter’s three puppies were placed in the mother wolf’s body-warm sleeping den, together with one cub. Half an hour was allowed so that the little ones might absorb the “scent” of the wolf, and then the fierce parent was admitted. It was hoped that a pretty little adoption scene would result, but as a matter of fact the shewolf gave one dubious sniff at the tiny intruders and then slashed thrice with her fangs. The puppies were dead and the cub untouched. Adjoining the baby wolves a family of bright young jackals prospers, • also under the care of a collie foster-mother. The maternal jackal has twice previously failed to rear her babies, which wasted under some skin trouble, and as she ate in an ab- , normal fashion she was placed, under chloroform for a few days. Then it was found that the jackal—either congenitally or by misadventure—had no tongue. She was, therefore, unable to lick their coats, though she had made pathetic attempts to do so, and they had died from this curious cause. It would seem as if naturalits have rather overlooked the vital importance of this maternal “licking into shape.” Another mother jackal, of the blackbacked variety, has just lost a cub—not primarily by death, but just by ‘‘losing’ him. She changed from one burrow to another in her sandy enclosure three times in three days—a sheer mania for senseless moving, apparently. In the bustle of packing her household goods she miscounted her family, and one poor little cub was left behind and has not since been seen. Extraordinary maternal devotion is displayed by the seemingly stupid female penguins which inhabit the sea-lions’ enclosure. Towering at the back of the pond stand twelve craggy feet of artificial rock work, from the lower slopes of which the sea-lions dive for fish. When the penguins wanted to deposit their eggs they toiled on their stumpy legs right up the face of this crag to the very pinnacle, seeking a man-less 1 solitude in the crowded gardens. On land these birds (which are wingless save for a skin-covered “flipper’) can only move with a clumsy upright waddle, and it was marvellous to watch them stumbling and clambering up the sharp rocks to find a safe “nursery.” When they needed food they descended in a series of fiat-footed jumps, varied by an occasional solemn stagger, a sight of pathetic comedy. 1 Of a downright brutal mother, Bulbar a, the Polar bear, stands as a terrible example. When her cub was born in the recent bitter weather she carried it in her mouth for a few moments by one leg, and then callously flung it aside. As she paced past it she spurned it with her foot, while the wretched little mite cried on the concrete of the pond. It was half an hour before the puny little thing could be rescued. Mrs R. I. Pocock, the wife of the superintendent, with warm-hearted charity, donned a knitted jacket and tucked inside the poor little morsel, which ceased its wails and went to sleep. When I saw the baby Polar bear, which was not a shapeless lump, but a perfect reproduction in miniature of its parents, there were on its tender body damning evidences of the brutality of the mother —then fawning on visitors open-mouthed for buns at the bais of her cage. The young bear died next morning. „ While recording the cruelty of a Zoo mother to her child it is only fair to give the other side of the picture. An American bison (the buffalo of popular fiction) was a perfect brute to his poor mother. Though two years old and nearly full grown, the Dodger (as he was called) had never given up the nourishment of his infancy. He weighed a full ton, and his mother (as is the case with all bison cows) was only half as big. when matters reached a crisis. ‘When his mother refused to feed him he butted her across the paddock. _ So the Dodger, with the assistance of thirty keepers and a two-inch hawser, was formally weaned. It was an affecting parting of mother and son. No human baby gets better attention than do baby apes. Fanny, the young chimpanzee, and Delia, the infant ourangutan, are fed on much the same food as a real child. Lime water, the good old family recipe for rickets, is added, to their milk, and were they ailing a Harley street specialist would be summoned instead of a “vet.” When “Miss Crowtheer,” the baby gorilla, was ill, a lady doctor, a wellknown specialist in children s complaints, was in attendance daily. Just like a child, the sooty little ape was coaxed back to health with cod-liver oil and patent foods. Mickey, the chimpanzee, who has broken all records by living ten years in the “Zoo” is a cripple through rickets, and the best medical advice is being sought to save Fanny from a like fate. The young African elephant (now growing quite a big boy) suffered from the same "complaint, "and for a season wore “leg-irons” just like any other orthopaedic patient in a London hospital. “Zoo” parents are not allowed to shirk their responsibilities. A kangaroo once abandoned her baby, which was found piteously trying to crawl into the alreadyoocupied 1 pouch of a total stranger. The graceless mother was caught by the tail and sternly compelled to resume her maternal duties. Such is the justice of the Zoological Society. .• ’

The characters of great men are the dowry of a nation;