PORTABLE ZOOS

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 148, 19 December 1929, Page 32

PORTABLE ZOOS

WILD LIFE AND WARDROBE

FASHION AS "HOME BREAKER"

The philosophical naturalist must be tempted to ask himself from time to time if in tho matter of dress we have progressed very much beyond the ideals of prehistoric man, for in spite of the fact that the human masquerade has been running for innumerable centuries, it is still chiefly reliant for its make-up upon the lower animals (writes B. G. Boulenger in the "Daily Telegraph"). I was forcibly reminded of this the othor day when in conversation with a lady who happened to be a rigid vegetarian and a fierce opponent of. the exploitation of animals for any purpose.

The Zoo, of course, was on her black list. Yet in her own person she must have been responsible for many broken homes, for she was carrying about the nucleus of a very promising natural history museum. Eabbits and birds had gone to make and decorate a hat, a turtle and an oyster had contributed towards the adornment of her hair, ears, and neck. A cat, a bear, and several other animals garnished her principal outer garments, whilst a calf, a kid, and a snake all met violent ends in providing her with gloves and boots. More oysters had helped to ornament her fingers, and an elephant's tusk accentuated her shapely wrists. In her hand she carried a lizard-skin bag.

DOOMED TO EXTINCTION.

To-day over 300 different kinds of animals, ranging from colobos monkeys to duck-billed platypus, are slaughtered for clothes that Nature intended them to keep. I have before me an extract of the official figures of the London, JPur Market, published by the Society! for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire. In the past year the following skins were put up for sale by a single firm:— Opossum . 360,000 Marten .. 13 000 Wallaby .. 330,000 Gazelle .. 10,000 Marmot. .. 65,000 Beaver ... 9,000 Musquash . 46,000 Chinchilla. 7,000 Wild cats. 35,000 Ermine .. 6,000 Fox 40,000 Monkey .. 2,000 Flying

squirrel 21,000

Many of these animals arc, as a result, on the verge of extinction. The trade has invented a sort of nightmaro Zoo which to-day fills the gaps made by creatures that have given up a losing fight against gun, trap, and poison. In the tradesmen's catalogue, but nowhere else, one meets such monsters as the electric monkey, tiger giraffe, and flashy zebra. At one period the beaver was a standard of value, all other furs being judged by it. Beaver fur was used in the make-up of hats. 'The rabbit has to-day taken the place of the beaver, so that the time-worn conjuror's trick of getting rabbits out of a hat may be said to have been reversed by the scientific furrier. It is pleasant to turn to the consideration of silk—a commodity that still holds its own in spite of a host of synthetic substitutes. Its history reads like a page from the "Arabian Nights." The original discoverer was the wife of the third Emperor of China, who for her enterprise was deified in about 1700 B.C. For about 2000 years the Chinese kept their secret to themselves, and even when their products were carried westward by the w.andering /Persians, the true nature of the wonderful garments defied explanation for many centuries. Aristotle divined the source of supply, but it was long after his death that any Western nation succeeded in producing silk themselves. THE SIMPLE SAVAGE. Although the penalty for exporting silkworm eggs was death, eventually certain monks successfully ran the gauntlet and brought not only the eggs but the food plant, in the form of the seeds of the mulberry tree. Prom

thence onwards the industry rapidly spread over Greece and Syria, and so into France, Spain, and Italy. The silk worm is no monopolist, as most caterpillars can produce silk "within the meaning of the act." Even the silken threads of the spider's web and those of certain mussels have been turned to account, though scarcely on profitable lines.

In the realms of adornment pure and simple few animal products have not been made use of in some manner. For centuries one of the most popular dyes was obtained from the sea snail. Today there is a demand for reptile skins of any and every kind—a fashion that has been upheld among savages since the dawn of Man. Fiji Island shell necklaces had once a great vogue in this country, but have lately given place to the wings of South American and Central African butterflies.

Cuttlefish eye-lensos are used for adornment in many parts of the world, whilst in South America there ia to-day an ever-increasing demand for fireflies —the insects being threaded upon wires and worn round the arms and necks of the native "belles" at all kinds of evening functions. In night-life loving Vera Cruz fire-fly farming is a regular industry, the insects being caught in vast numbers, being lured by means of small braziers into nets. They are used, not only to adorn the local beauties, but are also employed in festooning garden paths and arbours. We may smile at the savage who smears himself with cochineal, thrusts porcupine quills through his nose, or distends his lips with oyster-shells, but at heart we are all very much the same. The only difference is that from tho ultra-civilisea point of view we do things perhaps a little more gracefully.