A LIONESS AND HER CUB

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 124, 21 November 1925, Page 16

A LIONESS AND HER CUB

.-COMEDY. IN THE LONDON ZOO. ;-;'.The chief event"at the Regent's j Park Gardens (the Zoo) recently,says the "Morning Post," has been the first public appearance of a most j attractive little lion cub, only six weeks old. The birth had been kept a, strict secret. The fact that too: early a public welcome to lion cubs nearly always ends in their dying in early infancy has caused the authorities to insist on the strictest privacy and non-interference with the lioness's own nursery arrangements; and no announcement in the happy event of a birth is now ever made until the cubs are at least six weeks old and the mother has ventured to bring them out into the open from her sleeping den entirely of her own accord. In the present case two cubs were actually born to .."Fay," but only one of them has survived. The new cub is a charming little creature measuring from twelve to fourteen inches in length; and it has the usual spotted fluffy coat of all young lions, and will not get its plain tawny garb for a couple of years to come. Whenever "Fay" prefers to keep the cub in her inner nursery compartment no attempt is made to entice her out, or the lioness's temper would, suffer considerably, and possibly she might even lose interest in her offspring. At present she simply adores the youngster, and it is a delightful sight to watch the pair at play together.