NOBODY’S DARLING

Evening Star, Issue 22893, 26 February 1938, Page 8

NOBODY’S DARLING

Fifi, one of the Zoo chimpanzees, has become the mother of a baby chimp, but, as sometimes happens to other animals in captivity, she cannot bear the sight of her offspring, and has refused to attempt the task of rearing it. The wonder men at the Zoo, however, can do almost anything with infants and invalids, and they are bringing up the baby chimp on a bottle, as they have brought up scores of other baby animals, . „ The little stranger has an electricallywarmed. co kj i.spt at a constant ternperature; it is petted and guarded as a precious thing, 'and at the_ time of writing it is putting on weight ana showing every prospect of surviving its sad handicap. . . It is supposed that the domestication of animals began in some such way as this. Puppies, kittens, lambs, calves, foals, and other helpless creatures could be nurtured by rough skill and kindness, to grow up inmates of a human circle. It would be easy to add to the number of domesticated species. One of our readers brought up by hand five orphaned hedgehogs. They squealed like tiny pigs; their prickles were like batteries of needles to the hand that fed them; but they made fine hedgehogs.