Basil’s Glumness

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 805, 28 October 1929, Page 10

Basil’s Glumness

WEATHER AFFECTS SUPPLY OF FREE FOOD FOR ZOO ANIMALS FEWER BUNS AND BISCUITS This weather is as popular at the Zoo as it is with Labour Day picnickers and cricketers. Take the case of Basil, the brown bear. While the cricketers and the picnickers peered from windows, muttering their opinions of this morning's rain clouds, Basil was sprawled disconsolately at the entrance to his cubby-hole in the bear pit. A question Was coursing through his mind. “How many biscuits am I likely to get today?” Basil asked himself glumly. He remembered that people simply will not stand in the rain to throw buns and biscuits to bears with healthy appetites. ' September and October have been lean months for animals who" noise their approval at the approach of happy matrons and children, laden with buns. The animals can t be sure of the weather. What they want is summer heat, unbroken weeks of it. to permit the matrons and the children to throw acceptable food. Sammy, the sooty mangaby monkey, shares Basil’s despair. Sammy has just been presented to the Zoo; hut several tremendously wet days have depressed him. The health at the Zoo. in spite of the weather, is wholly satisfactory. The lion cubs and the tiger cubs are active. In their appearances in the enclosure so far, the youthful tigers have kept close to their parents, but, Zoo officials expect, in another week or so they will lose their shyness.