Fastidious Eaters In The Zoo

Taranaki Daily News, 4 August 1934, Page 3 (Supplement)

Fastidious Eaters In The Zoo

PYTHON WHICH WOULD EAT NOTHING BUT GEESE

THE ELEPHANT; Some like onions. > : THE MONKEY: Unlike the curate, he will not accept an egg which is “good in parts” only. * * •» THE PARROT; Nuts! But only the best, please. * * * SNAKES: The most fastidious of all diners, with, in some species, a regrettable .taste for cannibalism! THE DRAGON: Prefers poultry. TN a walk round the Zoo ultrafastidious diners meet one on every hand. A remarkable instance of discrimination was offered some years ago by the first reindeer to reach the Regent’s Park menagerie. It was assumed that these animals wouhi eat nothing but Greenland moss, their sole source of sustenance in their native land, and a supply of this comestible was obtained by the authorities at enormous trouble. and expense. Yet, strangely enough, the chance scraps of grass and clover which came within reach of the animals from an adjoining compartment of their house made such an appeal that they discarded entirely the hardearned moss, and to-day will eat nothing but English meadow fare. The elephant is regarded as little less omnivorous than the pig, yet few creatures are more fastidious over their food than this animal (writes Mr E. G. Boulenger, director of the Zoological Society’s Aquarium, in a recent issue of the “News-Chron-icle.”) Some elephants delight in oranges, others eschew them. A few enjoy onions, many dislike them. Zoo elephants, when confronted with this odoriferous bulb have been known to crush it underfoot and return it to the donor with more dispatch than courtesy. To most of us with all our experience the egg and the nut must still be classed among life’s minor lotteries. Unless the egg is noticeably odoriferous or the nut evidently below standard weight, both of these commodities are, as regards humans, enigmas until the shells have been broken.

But among such habitual nut and egg eaters as the monkeys and parrots there is no hesitation in declining or accepting such food. A monkey will never sample the contents of an egg which is in the least doubtful. Similarly, a parrot may often be seen to drop a proffered nut, even one of the hard-shelled Brazilian variety, after merely trying it with its beak. In every case the nut if opened will prove to be inedible. One of the Zoo’s most remarkable egg-eaters is the egg-eating snake of Africa, which subsists on nothing but eggs. Given one which is past the “new laid” state —even by a few hours —it is simply ignored. One occasion only is on record when this snake is said to have been deceived — when a specimen came to an untimely end as a result of engulfing a china nest-egg, odourless, no doubt, but fatally indigestible. Snakes are, indeed, the most fastidious of all diners. The king cobra, for example, is a cannibal, yet it is by no means content with any snake offered it. One now at the Zoo refuses to touch any but snakes of a particular species. Since these cost the society £5 each this particular cobra is a somewhat expensive boarder, even though it is content with a single meal a fortnight. A python kept many years ago in the Paris Jardin des Plantes caused much anxiety by hunger-striking for a very long period, refusing chickens, ducks, pigeons and other fare acceptable to most giant snakes. After nearly a year’s captivity it broke its fast with a goose which was on exhibition in the menagerie, and which accident had obliged the authorities to destroy painlessly. Apparently this bird appealed so powerfully to the snake that it again went on hunger-strike until another goose was forthcoming, and from that time onward it consented to eat geese and nothing but geese, feeding regularly and with relish so long as this particular form of poultry was provided. In the Aquarium some fishes show I

a like preference for certain particular foods. The octopus is a confirmed shellfish eater, and will only accept fish in the direst emergency; whereas a cuttlefish is equally pleased with either fish or crabs. The motives for dietetic idiosyncrasies are undiscoverable, but there is no doubt that form and, especially, colour, play their part, and this is often very true as regards ourselves. Thus, there is a quite unreasoning prejudice against green and yellow

mottled oranges, however exquisite their flavour, and a similar dislike of yellow tomatoes. At the Zoo it is found that humming birds can be lured to food simply by colouring the receptacles containing their meals red. In the Reptile House the common iguana has a positive mania for yellow or orange flowers, fruits and vegetables; while the Komodo dragon will ' select a white fowl, pigeon or rabbit in preference to one of a grey, brown or black hue.