THE WRONG ANIMAL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume IX, Issue 19, 7 May 1892, Page 478

THE WRONG ANIMAL.

One day a celebrated naturalist entered the shop of the late Charles J amraeb, the noted London collector of animals, and said : ‘ Now, Jamrach, about the muscular power of the boa constrictor, I suspect it has been exaggerated.’ ‘ Not a bit, sir,’ said the collector, taking a very fine specimen out of a box. ‘He seems very lazy and sleepy,’ said the professor ; • I don’t think he could exert himself in this cold climate if he tried.’

‘ You bet, sir,’ Jamrach said, and wound him gently round the professor’s body. He laughed. ‘ I thought so, Jamrach,’ he says : ‘ I feel nothing.’ But presently he sings out: ‘ Take him off, Jamrach ! take him off, man ; he’s strangling me !’ So Jamrach just caught hold of the boa’s tail and unwound him off the professor, ring by ring. When he had got his breath again the professor admitted that there was more ‘ latent muscularity ’ about the creature than he had suspected. ‘ Now, sir,’ said Jamrach afterward, ‘ that boa was half asleep and stupid, for he had just swallowed two rabbits, six guinea pigs, and thirteen pounds of raw beef. If he’d been fasting it’s my belief he’d have swallowed the professor himself bodily, for he was a small gentleman.’ Upon another occasion a quiet family bought a wild beast warranted to be a quiet and manageable pet—perhaps a sloth or a tapir. Some days after Mr Jamrach, examining his books perceived that the item tapir or sloth, or whatever the animal may have been, was not entered with proper regularity in the ledger and day book—was, indeed, mixed up with some other entry. Suspecting something wrong, Mr Jamrach called a hansom and drove at once to the suburban residence of his customer. His ring was not answered ; but at length the cook, pale and trembling, appeared behind the area railings. ‘ For God’s sake, Mr Jamrach,’ she cried, ‘save us from that awful wild beast ! Master and mistress couldn’t stand it any longer and have gone to the seaside, and the housemaid and I daren’t leave the kitchen for fear of being eaten.’ At that moment a very fine and very hungry puma—the fiercest, perhaps, among all the carnivora—put its head out of the drawing room window. The mistake was a clerk’s—the wrong beast was sent home.