FASTIDIOUS EATERS OF THE ZOO

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 36, 11 August 1934, Page 25

FASTIDIOUS EATERS OF THE ZOO

lii a walk round the Zoo ultra-fas-tidious diners meet ono on ovory hand. A remarkable instance of discrimination was offered somo yoars ago by tho first roindeor to reach , tho. Regent's Park monagerio, writos E. G. Boulonger, director of tho Royal Society 'a Aquarium, iri the" Nows-Ohronicle." It was assumed that those animals would eat nothing but Greenland moss, their solo source of sustenance in their native land, and a supply Of this comestiblo was obtained by tho author!-' ties at enormous trouble and expense. Yet, strangely enough, the ehanco scraps of grass and clover which cailio within roach of tho animals from an adjoining compartment of their house mado such an appeal that they discarded entirely tho hard-earned moss, and today will cat nothing but English meadow fare.

" Tho cluphautj is regarded as littlo loss omnivorous than the pig, yet few creatures are more fastidious over their food than this animal. Somo olephants delight in oranges, others eschew them. A few enjoy onions, many dislike them. Zoo elophants when confronted with this Odoriferous bulb have been known to crush it underfoot and return it to the donor with more dispatch than courtesy. . : ' ' ■<: ■ y ■

To most of us with all our experience -the egg and the nut must still .be classed among life's minor lotteries. Unless the egg is noticeably odoriferous or the nut evidently below standard weight, both of theso commodities aro, as regards humans, enigmas until the shells have been broken.

But among such habitual nut and egg enters as the monkeys and parrots there is no hesitation in declining or accepting such food. A monkey will never sample the contents of an egg which is in the least doubtful. Similarly, a parrot may often be seen to drop a proffered nut, even ono of tho hardsliolloa Brazilian variety, after merely

trying it with its beak. In ovory ease the nut if opened will prove to bo inedible. '

One of tho Zoo's most remarkable ogg-oatora is the egg-eating snake of Africa, which subsists on nothing but eggs. Givbu one .which is past the "new laid" state —oven by a few hours —it is simply ignored.' One occasion only is on record when thia snake is said to havo been deceived—when a specimen came to an untimely end as a result of engulfing a china nest-egg, odourless, no doubt, but fatally indigestible. . . Snakes aro, indeed, the most fastidious of all diners. The king cobra, for example, is a cannibal, yet it is by no means content with any snake offered' it. One now at the Zoo refuses to touch any but snakes of a particular species. Since these cost tho socioty £5 each this particular cobra is a somewhat oxpensivo boarder, even though it is content with a single meal a fortnight.

A python kept many years ago in tho Paris Jardin dcs Plantos caused much anxiety by hunger-striking for a very long period, refusing chickens, ducks, pigeons,, atodro.ther faro acceptable to most giant snakes. After nearly a year's captivity it broke its fast with a goose which was on exhibition in the menagerie, and which accident had oblieed the authorities to destroy painlessly.

Apparently this bird appealed so powerfully to tho snake that it again went on hunger-strike until another ?ooso was forthcoming, and from that timo onward it consented to eat geeso and nothing but gesso, feeding regularly and with relish so long as this particular form of poultry was provided. In tho Aquarium some fishes show a like preference for certain particular foods. Tho octopus is a conflrmod shellfish eater, and will only accept fish in the direst emergency; whereas a cuttlefish is equally pleased with either fish or crabs.