UNUSUAL PETS.

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIX, Issue 10912, 1 June 1929, Page 7

UNUSUAL PETS.

CROCODILE AM) LEOPARDS

Ablin Sill tells in “Blackwood” of many experiences in the East with strange pets, from cobras and jackels to the armour-plated pangolin and the unahapulawa. otherwise known as the loris. . Among all the wild animals he has kept the three cNceptioiKs which refused to react to kijid treatment were one crocodile and two leopards. Fresh from the egg, the crocodile was only, llin. long, but out of the mouth of that babe proceeded a concentrated hatred of .the universe that never abated. The crocodile never learned *o love or even to tolerate his owner, and continued to hiss and snap as he was set free into a neighbour’s pond- What the neighbour said latex is not stated.

At different times John Sill kept seven leopards, never more than two at a time, and of these five were comrades and two were untouchable. One friendly pair. Hero and Leandck\ would 1 jump On his shbulders and kiss his ears, and they lapped milk on the tablo . while; he ‘had his tea. Ebxing and wrestling with one another they protruded the tips of their claws enough to be felt, bu t when playingr;with th® inferior softskinned creature' :matf they kindly kept their claws sheathed. Their favorite gam© -was to pretend that their owner was a deer, and to stalk him from hush to bush and from stone to ' stone, s-At the end they would rush at him and pretend to grasp his legs; or perhaps they would dash past, strikyag and barely missing,, and then suddenly and immediately c&lm down and stand indifferently gazing -into the fax- distance as if. they had second sight.