“PIGS MIGHT FLY”

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3767, 10 June 1936, Page 6

“PIGS MIGHT FLY”

WILL SOON BE TRUE. OTHER ANIMALS DO. r The other day, sayc a London correspondent, the Imperial Airways department which handles livestock sent by air, worked out a list of some of the odd “passengers” with which they have been called upon to deal from time to time. It included dogs, cats, mice, day-old chicks, pigeons, cagebirds, tropical fish, bees, turkeys, locusts, mosquitoes, lions, tigers, and monkeys. A feature of animal transport by air is the contrast between some of the consignments which have to be handled. One moment the officials may by dealing with a number of racing pigeons, going out in their cages to some point on the Continent to be released for a race back to England. And then, walking across to an incoming machine, they may find among its cargo a number of live crocodiles, monkeys, and tropical fish in tanks.

Not long ago a clever chimpanzee flying to London to take part in some films in this country, walked up to the airliner captain and shook hands with him solemnly after its keeper had led it from the machine. Regular dispatches are made to London by air, from the Bay of Biscay, of the queer little fish known as sea-horses, which are needed to replenish the tanks in the aquarium at the Zoo. They travel in metal containers full of Bay of Biscay water.

Performing animals, travelling to and from menageries and circuses on the Continent, often make their journeys by air. Not long ago a fully grown lion flew over to London in a cage inside one of the cargo planes, its trainer travelling with it, sitting just outside the cage. It had been feared that the lion might become upset during its flight. But actually the animal seemed soothed, rather than otherwise, by racing up in the air, and fly the time it reached Croydon it was so quiet that its trainer went into the cage, put a chain’ on the lion’s collar, and walked out with it, just as though the lion was a big dog. And the lion, perfectly docile, stood looking quietly round until it was led into a travelling cage to be taken up to town.