THE PETER PAN HIPPO

Evening Post, Volume CIV, Issue 68, 17 September 1927, Page 20

THE PETER PAN HIPPO

WILL NOT LEA YE HIS MOTHEB.

A quarter of a ton of young hippopotamus is nearly ready to leave his mother at the London Zoo, but there are all kindß of problems to be solved before the infant can be weaned "(declares the "Weekly Dispatch"). Jimmy, the baby, is already cutting his tusks—a very critical business with these young monsters—and eats quite well, but he still turns to Joan, his mother, for part 'of his rations. As he is 10 months old, it is quite time he were put into knickerbockers, as it were. Besides, there is the gross injustice to Bobbie, his who has. now been.cut off from his family for over a year. Bobbie's efforts to rejoin his mate have made it necessary for the barrier between them to be strengthened with timber and sheet steel on three different occasions. After the long parting there is almost certain to be- a battle of giants when Joan and Bobbie are reunited, but these domestic squabbles seldom lead to serious injuries. After a few flesh wounds and they like each other better than ever. But the child stands between them.. He.has no home where he. can spend his boyhood, since the second warmed pool in the Zoo is already split into two so that'a pair of pigmy hippos can be kept apart for the same reason as that which lea to the separation of Bobbie and Joan. It does these giant youngsters no good when they ire kept too long at their mother's apron strings. There is the historic case of "The Dodger," a young American bison who stayed with his mother until he was

two:,years old. He then weighed about a ton,. and his mother was less than half: his weight. It took about 20 unsentimental perspiring keepers with a six-inch rope.to wean "The Dodger."