NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2173, 17 October 1895, Page 48

NATURALIST.

How Wild Animals Lie off in Captivity.

Apart from accidents, the lossea of tho dealer in strange animals are very heavy. The animals do not' belong to this countrj and they are in oaptivKy, while their natural state is freedom. Even at the Regent's Park Zoological Gardens, where the utmost care is exeicis-ed, and where evcry:hine possible Is done to remind the animals of thtir natural surrounding?, three corpses on an average are taken to the dead- house every morning.

The deaths amongst a dealer's s*ock figure much higher, bis animals being moro exposed, and at the same time lens accustomed to the climate. Chill seems to ba the chief cauee of death to wild animal* in captivity, la this way Janintcb, the dealer in Ratcliffe Highway, London, loet 18 lion cubs worth £30 each in a few days ; in one week five giraffes worth £100 each (giraffes would now, throngh the clo&ing up of the Soudan, fctcla £400 apiece— not £1000, as some reports say); and in a similarly short dime four elephants which bad been sold for £800, and were on the point of befog shipped to America.

Another heavy loss accrued through the death of a rhinoceros, valued at £800. Tbis animal died in so mysterious a manner that its corpse was sent to the Zoological Society's prosector for post mortem examination.

The prosector still remembers that posb mortem. How he had to get right inside the carcase of the huge, monster to perform tho autopsy, and how, even so, the muscular exertion was more like what a navvy might put forth in opening- a drain than the skilled operator with the scalpel. The cause, of deathvwas found to be suffocation, an abscess in the rhinoceros's throat having eaten its way into and perforated the windpipe.^. The origin of the abscess was due to its treatment while still in the hands of the natives'. They had tied it by the neck to a tree, and its continual tugging had set up the irritation that led to the cancerous growth. Thus the real hide of the rhinoceros, unlike the proverbial one, is penetrable ! Chill has already been instanced as a leading cnuae of death to rare animals in the hands of dealers. In zoological gardens deaths often happen through the mistaken condact of visitors. R-jc^nfcljr a hippopotamus died at the Berlin Gardens. 16 was opened, and an indiarubber ball was found inside it. Now the hippopotami are covered in with wire netting at Berlin. In our cwn gardens, overfeeding by visitors I» a frequent cause of death.

At one time Jamrach bad an ostrich with the run of the ground floor of his stables. In a post on that floor waa usually stuck, when not in use, the butcher's knife wherewith tho meat was out for the carnivora. The knifa suddenly disappeared, and could not ba foun 3. The ostrioh died, was cut open, and the knife was found Inside.— Oasiell's Magazine. ' Lumtkous Fungi.— A man travelling fn Australia found a large mushroom of this genus weighing 51b. He took it (sayp a writer in Sv Nicholas) to the house where ha

was stopping, and hang It up to dry 1& the Bitting room, "Bntering after dark he was ftmaasd to see a beautiful soft light emanating from the fungus. He called In the natives to examine it, and at the first glance they crlea out in great fear that it was a sphit. It continued to give out light for many nights, gradutUy decreasing until it was ffholly dry. DlrtJardner, while walkicg through toe streets of a Brazilian town, saw proas boys playing with a luminotfe object, which he at first thought was a large fire fly ; but be found on inspection it was a brilliant mushroom (Agaric), which now bears bis same. It gave out a bright light of a greenish hue, and was called by the natives " flor do coco," as it grew on a species of palm. The young plants emit a pale greenish light. Many kinds of fargi are phosphorescent. Humboldt describes some exquisitely beautiful ones he saw in the mines. The glow in rotten wood is caused by it containing the threads of light-giving fungi.