JARDIN ZOOLOGIQUE, GHENT, FOUNDED 1851: DIRECTOR, M. NIEPELS
It was simply pouring with rain when I left Brussels to visit the
Zoological Garden at Ghent; but, as luck would have it, I had scarcely
paid my franc and passed the turnstile into the Garden when the rain
ceased and the sun popped in and out of clouds.
Passing a duck-pond covered with pochard, the visitor comes to a café
and the usual concert-hall found in all zoological gardens on the
Continent. In front of the hall is a large open space with a band-stand
in the middle. Just beyond is the parrot and small-bird house, in
which one of the parrots was imitating a cuckoo to perfection. In the
centre of this house was a large case containing stuffed animals and
birds, which had lived at some time or other in the Garden. Close by
was a large pheasant and peacock aviary, with indoor pens fitted with
plate-glass sides.
After passing a quantity of poultry pens, the next objects which
attract the visitor’s attention are the well-filled brown-bear cages.
Behind them, in a house rather difficult to find, is a remarkably fine
Indian elephant. We next come to a pretty pond with a variety of
ducks, mostly sheldrake, swimming upon it. There is a good bird-of-prey
aviary, containing, amongst other birds, a remarkably fine condor.
[Illustration: BARBARY SHEEP, GHENT.]
The next house contained zebus, wapiti, Japanese deer, and
black-and-white African sheep with fat tails. The extraordinary
abundance of fat on the tails is a provision of nature, and enables
the animal to go without food for a considerable period when making
long marches from one patch of long grass to another, which is of
frequent occurrence in the arid deserts where they live. I frequently
gave as little as three arms’-length of common American sheeting for
one fat-tailed sheep in Somaliland, North-East Africa, one of the
principal homes of these black-and-white sheep.
In the centre of the Garden is another pond, upon which were ducks,
swans, pelicans, storks, and cormorants. There was a pen of Angora
sheep, the old ram having most beautifully twisted horns. In a rockery
was one of the prettiest sights in the Garden--a herd of Barbary sheep,
a favourite animal in Continental zoos; behind them were a herd of yak,
and one of white llamas.
Anyone who happens to find himself in Ghent with an hour to spare
should visit the Garden. It is close to the railway-station.