TREE-CLIMBING LIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20306, 13 July 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

TREE-CLIMBING LIONS.

PHOTOGRAPHED FACTS.

BY r. B. FORESTER.

It is strange, yet should scarcely bo so, considering tho present-day advance of science, to find old beliefs and as sertions, onco accepted as undisputed facts, now contradicted flatly ill tho light of modern research and discoveries. In no way is this more plainly ovident than in tho field of natural history. For years naturalists —or, more correctly, writers of natural history books—havo mado statements accepted ns positivo facts by thousands of readers, and by them passed on to tho younger generation. In this way error grows. For then como tho big-gamo hunters, and tho camera men, to throw new light upon theso implicitly believed " facts," and these old-time truths aro now seon to bo inaccurate, based as they aro upon insufficient knowledge. Ono such assertion, believed in and accepted by natural history writers for many a year, is to-day startlingly refuted in a series of remarkable photographs, published in tho London Times, which have arrived by a recent mail from Eng land. One can remember how in child hood's clays and later, when looking with wonder and fascination at the' pictured representations—there wore no photographs of wild beast 3 in those days, still less "close-ups," taken by daring men only a fow yards from their dangerous sitters—of tho great cats, wo accepted, as an unquestioned truth, tho statonients of our elders, that whilo leopards, cougars or' pumas, jaguars, not to mention a host of smaller cats, aro as much at home among tho branches of trees as on tho ground, lions and tigers do not, be causo they cannot, climb. Now, in this sorics of wonderful photographs, lions aro to bo seen not only in tho branches of trees, but to all appearances very much at home there.

In tho first of these photographs wo sec a troop, technically, perhaps, wo should say a " prido" of lions, thero being ten in all, resting beneath a spreading low-branched tree. One, how over, seized with an ambition to rise in tho world, is to bo seen couched com fortably along one of the branches. Another photograph shows a lion actually walking along a bough; while tho third, and most remarkable, illustrates one of tlm beasts in tho very act of climbing the tree. Testing Their Powers. It 13 impossible to over-estimate the importance of these photographs overthrowing as they do so many preconceived theories, now shown to bo ontirely wrong. Tho ono in question, taken fiom a wonderful series obtained by Colonel M. Maxwell, in Kenya and Tanganyika, has aroused great intorest in England, particularly among tho authorities of tho Regent's Park Zoo. So much so. indeed, that tho Royal Zoological Society—which has. by tho way just celebrated its cen tenary, having been founded by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1829 >s intending to make a scries of experiments, with tho view to ascertaining if tigers, too, can climb. With this object a set of high branches has been fixed in ono of tho out-door dens, with a kind of platform at tho top, on which meat is to bo placed, in order to tempt Stripes to show what ho can do by way of rivalling tho lions. It would bo interesting if the Auckland Zoo, too, would follow this example, and equip tho largo outdoor lion's den, in which the great beasts disport themselves at will, or recline in massive easo along the rocky terraces there, with ono or two strong boughs in order to show to tho public that apparent contradiction in nature, a tree-climbing lion. Tho experiment might bo useful, too, bv way of proving that, for safety's sake, theso outside dens ought to bo barred across at tho top. It is nowhere asserted, bo it noted, that a lion would or could climb a trco with tho easo of a leopard or jaguar; and in all probability tho straight cylindrical trunk of a palm tree, say, would baffle tho great beast But, as tho Times comprehensively put 3 it; "It has been stated that lions do not climb trees, and that this inability has saved many sportsmen and travellers, but Colonel Maxwell's pictures confirm other and contrary opinions, howover raro it may bo, that lions do climb." Other Surprises. Theso photographs, affording proof of a truth hitherto supposed to bo impossible, havo also a secondary interest, suggesting that thero aro other questions which may require a possible rovision, or contradiction. Wo know of a few already. Only a fow years ago stay-at-homo naturalists calmly contradicted the statements of travellers who had declared that in the vast unexplored South American forests thero lurk enormous serpents, anacondas, reaching a length of over fifty feet. Such statements woro poohod-poohed by armchair scientists as impossible, yet in a recontlypublished book of travels in that very rogion tho oxistenco of such monsters is proved beyond doubt. So with the gigantic calamary, or squid, (he prey of tho mighty sperm whale. Stories of its existenco woro regarded only as idlo tales; and it remained for Frank Bullen, iri his " Cruiso of the fachelot," to prove that in tho unknown depths of the ocean monstrous cephaiooods do exist, fully capable of capsizing and dragging down a small vessel. No need to go farther than theso for tho origin of tho old-world legend of tho kraken. Mention has boon made in this article of the centenary of tho Regent's Park Zoological Gardens. Tho following amus ing skit is perhaps worth quoting from the Times, by way of conclusion to these notes.

THE ANIMALS' POINT OP VIEW,

*' Dear friends of feather, fur nnd fin (The King of Beasts began). The meaning of this hundredth your Is strangely missed by Man. Our follows, who, wo all agree, Aro erudite and kind, Seem, when you como to think ol it, Most singularly blind.

"They boast they keep us! Fond deceit Which sober (nets condemn, For by their annual balance-sheet "J'is plain that wo keep them. Thfso pardons may bo theirs in naino, That much must bo allowed. But, if wo did not play the game. Who else would draw tlio crowd?

" Tlio motion thcji I rise to movo Runs, simply worded, thus: Whereas their own statistics prove This olaco is mado by us. 'Tis right that, when tlioy hold high feast In honour of tho Zoo, They give us all. Fish, Bird and Beast, A special dinner too."

That motion, although put in Regent's Park, might with equal cortainty 6f finding favour bo proposed in tho Auckland Zoo.