AQUATIC REVELS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 126, 24 November 1923, Page 16

AQUATIC REVELS

HIPPO FIGHT ENDS IN A HONEY-

MOON.

Mixed bathing of a riotous kind has taken place at the Zoo since the mating of Bob and Joan, two young hippos, states A..E.H. in the "Daily Chronicle." For the past three years the ponderous pair have gazed at each other through intervening bars, and not until a day or two ago was it decided to let them share the same cage. Bob was leisurely munching the concrete steps, as is his wont, when the gate was thrown open and Joan waddled in. Blinking his piglike eyes with surprise at Joan's audacity, Bob advanced as though to satisfy himself that the vision was not merely one born of indigestion. Joan, though only half the age of her six-year-old mate, rudely convinced him by charging for his stubby legs—a favourite attack with hippos—causing Bob to beat ail undignified retreat to the water. Plunging in, Joan chased him' round and round, round the- pond, which, for a- thrie resembled a troubled sea with a couple of cavernous islets in convulsions. Having effectually impressed Bob that she intended to "rule th© roost," Joan behaved more becomingly. Later on, it is hoped, there may be a-baby hippo to join in the aquatic revels, for in the annals of the- Zoo there have already been two such ■ arrivals. One young hippo— christened "Guy Fawkes," as he was bom on sth November—lived for 42 years m the Gardens.