WIRTH’S CIRCUS.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume XIX, Issue 1097, 16 March 1911, Page 17

WIRTH’S CIRCUS.

OPENING IN AUCKLAND ON SATURDAY. A BIG SHOW. Wirth Bros. Circus will arrive in Auckland early on Saturday by special trains from Ngaruawahia where they are showing on Friday. The circus will be camped on Victoria Park (Freeman’s Bay) and opens with a matinee performance on Saturday afternoon, continuing nightly until further notice, with matinee’s on the Wednesdays and Saturdays. One of the attractions of the circus is the famous hippopotamus (the first introduced into New Zealand) Lizzie. Messrs. Phil, and George Wirth paid for this fine animal to Carl Hagenbeck, of the Hamburg Zoo, £1250. The animal, which is only a little one, two'"'years old, and weighs three tons/; arrived in the best of health in two- huge boxes, which were kept on deck. One served as its bath, being lined with zinc, and filled with fresh, clean water daily, and the other servas its cage, where it returned every evening into a nice dry bed of straw. These animals live in water by day, and on dry land at night, and require great care and attention, for although not so delicate as the giraffe, (the 'firm’s previous venture), it must have a man continually in attendance, and special food and regular hours for dining. There can be no doubt as to the rapid extermination of the animal; as it can be easily shot, and as it lives in or near the water it is much, fought alter. The flesh is considered good as an article of food, the hide and tusks are of considerable value, and its presence in the rivers is considered undesirable to boatmen and others. The influx of Europeans and the civilisation of Africa will, in a very few years, be the cause of the extermination of this leviathan species, which is not likely to be domesticated, or rendered serviceable to mankind, like the elephant. When these animals become excited or out of temper, the strange phenomenan of “blood sweat” ap-< pears on their skins. The pale, chocolate colour of their skins becomes densely covered with globular red spots which look like plums in a huge plum pudding, and which leave a stain upon a handkerchief or cloth.