DARK DOINGS AT THE ZOO.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXIX, Issue 10783, 3 June 1911, Page 3 (Supplement)

DARK DOINGS AT THE ZOO.

(By L. G. Mainland.)

It is high time we ceased to talk nonsense about the beautiful moral lessons which may be learned (so we tell children) from the lower animals at the Zoo. ••

For lack of temptation the reptiles behave themselves with fair decency while engaged upon their winter sleep, but. with this doubtful exception, all the inhabitants form a gang of criminals richly deserving their sentences of penal servitude for life. _ ■■ Their crimes vary from High Treason to Child Desertion, but the Zoo's Newgate Calendar also includes:, fancy felonies such as Obtaining Buns under False Pretences and Forcible Resistance to Lawful Eviction. ;; a .$1

I myself can bear witness to the high' treason. The Prince of Wales —then Prince Edward —his brother, tyid Princess Mary were inspecting their father's collection of Indian animals, and liad reached a series of cages constructed- of frail-looking but strong steel netting. Prince Edward paused and granted an audience to the occupant, a fine,young Indian tigress. The steady gaze of those young-eyes roused the beast, to extraordinary fury, and she dashed herself at the pliant wirework in a murderous ecstasy of rage. The boy looked her straight in the eyes without winking, the great, teeth snapping out six inches' fr<Jm. his nose. Wife.-murder is disgracefully common. It was quite a recreation with Sam, tlie late Polar bear. He would end all his domestic arguments by taking his wife into the middle of the pond and there, meditatively, sitting on her head- When he thought he had sufficiently convinced her that his view of the case in dispute was the right one, lie . got up.and renewed his appeal for biins; -Onefatal morning lie overdid it by about five minutes, and his wiff iieyer, discussed that or any other matter agaiii. Sam was also convicted on several counts for obtaining goods by ; means of a trick. He collected umbrellas and walking-sticks as a hobby. ' - To obtain them he resorted to particularly mean strategy. He placed a piece of. fish/, high up in the bars and then sat still and pretended it was beyond his reach. The kind-hearted stranger,, forcibly denouncing the keeper for tormenting a poor dumb animal (Sam cordially assenting), introduced the point of his umbrella to dislodge the morsel. In one second Sam had enriched his collection by another umbrella. The keeper assured me that he had known Sam get as many as three or four in a day by this piece of low cunning. . It- is to the Monkey House -that we naturally turn for tlie most depraved examples of theft from the person. Ig T noring the common practitioners, let us recall the case of Daisy, the Cliacma baboon. A visitor for sentimental reasons carried a half-sovereign on Ms watch-chain. This Daisy annexed and concealed in her cheek pouches.. As the grip of her jaws was at least equal to a healthy bulldog's, she was allowed to retain possession. She demoralised the younger ones by taking it out and gloating over it now and then, and for weeks she was seen playing with it. Her victim spent at least 8s 6d on admissions to find out if she had tired of it, but it was never recovered. On another , day she seized a man's watch-chain, dragged him to the b«rs (for she was a powerful brute, and at least as strong as a man), and then made a skilful snatch at his valuable t.iepin. Jack, once a pet of the C.l.V.'s in South Africa, was another criminal of the Monkey House. Nursing a grievance that his services during the war had gone unrecognised by a slothful War Office, he snatched a soldier's South African medal —feeling he was equally entitled to it. Jack became a thoroughly worthless scoundrel of the Fagin type, arid all the loot of his smaller and weaker associates ultimately found its way into his hands as a receiver of stolen property. It is a melancholy fact that chiklmurder or cruelty to children is a frequent offence in the Regent's Park charge-sheet Barbara, the female Polar bear, has three convictions to her discredit. But this is adjusted somewhat by assaults on parents. The infant camels are notable offenders in this way, and they are always sold before they are big enough to commit downright murder. There is the historic case, too, of the bison who was left too long with his mother, and who butted her halfway across the paddock when' she suggested that he should abandon a-milk diet for the fodder that became, his years. At this time of the year the kangaroos are particularly prone to leave their offspring "chargeable to the rates," by not allowing them to re-enter their pouches. The keeper, in flagrant cases, grips the mother by the tail and forces lier to resume lier maternal responsibilitics. . . Resistance to lawful eviction is a wellknown misdemeanour in the gardens — and is frequently aggravated by common assaults. A whole cageful of monkeys refused to obey an ejection order not long ago, and took refuge ill an inner sleeping box. Paralelling the tactics of some Saxon landlords, the keepers knocked the wooden box to pieces over their heads, and the shrieking crew bit and scratched until they were enveloped in nets and taken to their new quarters. Prison-breaking is fortunately comparatively rare, but Barbara (see also Child-Murder) once spent an energetic morning in the gardens chasing keepers and loafing round the refreshment rooms until she ate her way back into captivity by following an artfully laid track of fish and fat which led her inside her cage again. ' _ A Goffins cockatoo holds tlie record for this branch of the industry. He has escaped by cutting the wire-netting of the open-air aviary with his beak on five separate occasions. He always revisits the scene of his crime (a familiar criminal trait), and I have seen him during one of his spells of liberty actually biting the repaired netting of the great cage to assist his "pals" to escape. It is almost impossible to find a good word to say of a single creature in the Zoo. I certainly did hear of what some optimists might consider an example of spontaneous goodwill ; .on- tlie part of one animal. A prison-breaking porcupine, having burrowed under his fence, met a keeper as dusk was bringing the man's labors to a close. Like an affectionate tabby cat, the porcupine .arched its back and rubbed itself against the keeper's leg. After the poor fellow's wounds had been dressed, he kept to his bed for three weeks. lam not denying that the porcupine's motive was good, but its' action was certainly ill-con-sidered. • ' Still, I feel it is only fair to record . this one bright spot' in this gloomy catalogue of animal felonies;