[Illustration:
MARTIAL HAWK EAGLE. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.
]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIFE AT THE ZOO
NOTES AND TRADITIONS
OF THE REGENT’S PARK GARDENS
BY
C. J. CORNISH
With Illustrations
from Photographs by GAMBIER BOLTON, F.Z.S.
and from Japanese Drawings
LONDON
SEELEY AND CO. LIMITED
ESSEX STREET, STRAND
1895
------------------------------------------------------------------------
PREFACE
IT may be said that some of the subjects of these notes are not
obviously part of life at the Zoo, and this remark would be well
founded. They have in the writer’s mind a connection with the Zoo, which
perhaps is not obvious, and might not appeal to the majority of readers,
and would certainly take more time to set out than its value warrants.
So that if any reader or critic cares to press the point, he is prepared
to say at once, _mea culpa_.
The chapters on Animal Æsthetics, dealing with the sensibility of the
inmates of the Zoo to music, will be found under the title of “Orpheus
at the Zoo,” by which they originally appeared in the _Spectator_, to
the editors of which paper the author owes his thanks for suggesting
many subjects of interest at the Zoo which would not have occurred to
him, and for their kind permission to publish these, as well as other
chapters in an extended form. He hopes that both these, and the
unpublished chapters which are now added, present a fair picture of the
many-sided present, as well as some glimpses of the past, of the famous
menagerie in Regent’s Park.
For the insertion of animal drawings by Japanese artists, in addition to
Mr. Gambier Bolton’s photographs, the writer must plead the conviction,
which he has long maintained, that their truth to Nature is of its kind
unrivalled.
C. J. CORNISH.
Orford House, Chiswick Mall,
September 28, 1894.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE ZOO IN A FROST 1
THE GHOSTS OF THE TROPICAL FOREST 13
THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO 20
PATTERNS ON LIVING ANIMALS 29
THE GIRAFFE’S OBITUARY 38
THE ELECTRIC EEL 48
DEEP-SEA LAMPS 55
THE LION HOUSE AT THE ZOO 62
DIVING BIRDS AT THE ZOO 77
TAME DIVERS 86
THE QUEST FOR THE WILD HORSE 91
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO—THE ANIMAL 99
SENSE OF BEAUTY
ÆSTHETICS AT THE ZOO—SCENTS AND 109
SOUNDS
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO—THE FIRST VISIT 115
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO—THE SECOND VISIT 123
ORPHEUS AT THE ZOO—THE CHOICE OF 131
INSTRUMENTS
TALKING BIRDS 139
ELEPHANT LIFE IN ENGLAND 146
WANTED—A NEW MEAT 162
AN EXPERIMENT IN ANIMAL 170
PRESERVATION
“JAMRACH’S” 177
EXPRESSION IN THE ANIMAL EYE 192
LONDON BEARS 200
YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO 210
ANIMAL COLOURING 222
WILD-CATS AT THE ZOO 229
THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS 240
RARE AND BEAUTIFUL MONKEYS 248
THE LARGER MONKEYS 255
LIZARDS AND CROCODILES AT THE ZOO 263
FROM THE ANIMALS’ POINT OF VIEW 270
POSSIBLE PETS 278
THE PARIS ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS IN THE 287
TWO SIEGES
OTHER BEASTS OF BURDEN 293
THE SOLDIER’S CAMEL 302
THE CANADIAN BEAVER 311
THE TEMPER OF ANIMALS 318
CRIMINAL ANIMALS 325
A YEAR AT THE ZOO 334
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
MARTIAL HAWK EAGLE Frontispiece
POLAR BEAR 6
THE LAST GIRAFFE 38
PUMAS 62
LION AND LIONESS 72
TIGER AFTER SMELLING LAVENDER-WATER 110
AXIS DEER LISTENING 118
TIGER LISTENING TO SOFT MUSIC 136
JAPANESE PUG AND CAT 180
THE QUEEN’S LION CUB 210
OTTER PURSUING FISH 220
ARABIAN BABOON 240
MACAQUE MONKEYS 248
MONKEYS PELTING COOLIES WITH 258
FIR-CONES
ALLIGATOR 264
BACTRIAN CAMEL 302
------------------------------------------------------------------------
LIFE AT THE ZOO
THE ZOO IN A FROST
SUDDEN and severe cold, however trying to human constitutions, seems
almost harmless to animal health, provided the weather be dry, frosty,
and undimmed by fog. On the last Friday of November 1893, the
thermometer fell so rapidly that in a few hours it registered sixteen
degrees below freezing-point. On the following morning, though the sun
was shining brightly, every pool and pond was sheeted with ice, and the
gravel walks were as hard as granite. Yet at the Zoological Gardens,
birds and beasts from tropical or semi-tropical regions, such as Burmah,
Assam, Malacca, and Brazil, were abroad and enjoying the keen air; and
others, which are usually invisible and curled up in their sleeping
apartments till late in the day, were already abroad, sniffing at the
frost and icicles, and as indifferent to the cold as Mr. Samuel Weller’s
polar bear “ven he was a-practising his skating.” A visit to the Gardens
in such weather suggests a modification of too rigid ideas of the
limitation of certain types of animals to warm or torrid climates, and
illustrates the gradual and reluctant character of the retreat of
species before the advance of the glacial cold in remote ages. No
creatures are, as a rule, more sensitive to cold than the whole monkey
tribe. Yet there is at least one species of monkey which habitually
endures the rigours of a northern winter. One of the cleverest antique
Japanese drawings at South Kensington represents a troop of monkeys
caught in an avalanche of snow. The grotesque discomfiture of these
pink-faced monkeys rolling down the hillside, helplessly clutching at
each other’s bodies and limbs, grinning and grimacing as their heads
emerge from the powdery snow, is something more than the fancy of a
Japanese painter. The incident is probably drawn from an actual scene,
and one of the creatures, the Tcheli monkey from the mountains of Pekin,
was in an open cage in the gardens, and in far better health and spirits
than in the height of summer. Its fur had grown thick and close, and the
naked face had assumed the dark madder-pink with which it was adorned in
the drawing. When presented with sticks crusted with frozen ice, it
sucked the chilly dainty with great relish, and only showed signs of
sensitiveness to cold by putting its fingers in its mouth, and then
sitting on its hands to warm them. The behaviour of this northern monkey
is only strange by contrast with the general habits of its kind. But the
indifference to cold of the capybara, a gigantic water guinea-pig from
the warm rivers of Brazil, is not easy to explain. Two of these quaint
creatures had left their snug sleeping apartments, and were stepping
gaily among pools of half-frozen water and broken ice. One had gained an
extra coat by burrowing in its straw and then emerging with a pile upon
its back; and, when this fell off, retired and shuffled on another pile;
but the other seemed quite content to sit without protection in the
sunniest corner of its enclosure. The whole colony of porcupines (six in
number), which, like most semi-nocturnal animals, are very loath to
appear in public during the day unless enticed by food of a more than
usually tempting character, were abroad and in the highest spirits,
erecting and rattling their quills, and sitting up to inspect their
visitors like gigantic rabbits. It is difficult to conceive that a coat
of quills can impart much warmth to its wearer; but towards Christmas
the quaint black-and-white garment of the porcupine has almost the
appearance of a mantle of stiff feathers; and the crest on the head and
shoulders, sloping backwards along the spine, combines, with the black
face and Roman nose, to suggest a comical resemblance between the
fully-fledged porcupine and one of Buffalo Bill’s Sioux warriors in full
costume of eagles’ plumes.
During the first cold of winter the plumage of the birds and the coats
of the fur-bearing animals in the Zoo are hardly inferior to those of
their wild kindred. Both the eagle and the American bison are in
condition to excite the cupidity of an Indian brave. The bull bison,
which in summer has a strangely ragged and “moth-eaten” appearance, with
big patches of bare skin showing on its flanks, is now covered with a
“buffalo-robe” of magnificent proportions and the richest colour and
texture. From shoulders to tail, the body is wrapped in a mass of brown
felted fur. The mane hangs down below the knees, and a shock of black
and silky hair covers the head and face, almost concealing the horns and
the sullen, bloodshot eye. This bull is said to be the largest of its
race in this country, and is probably as fine a specimen of the male
bison as ever led its band across the frozen plains of the North-West.
It was brought to England by Lord Lorne after the completion of his stay
in Canada as Viceroy of the Dominion, and spent its earlier days at the
Home Park at Windsor, whence it was transferred on exchange to the Zoo.
The golden and sea-eagles never present so fine an appearance as in
these bright winter days. Those who see them with their wings and tails
ragged and broken in the summer and early autumn, would hardly recognize
them in their compact and close-set winter plumage, as they scream aloud
in the frosty air, and fly to and fro in their large aviary on pinions
undisfigured by a single broken feather. The Gayal, an immense bison
from the jungles of Assam, with a coat as smooth and sleek as the
bison’s is shaggy and unkempt, drinks the iced water in its pen, and
stamps the frozen ground—while the steam rises from its broad nostrils
into the cold English air—with all the vigour of a shorthorn bull in a
Surrey straw-yard; and the wild swine, whether from India or Europe, are
equally indifferent to the weather. It would seem that all those
species, such as the wild boar, or the buffalo and bison, which are
widely distributed on many continents, adapt themselves rapidly to
changed conditions of climate; and those wild boars which have been bred
for several generations in this country and in Scotland, are rapidly
developing a thicker and rougher coat of hair than their Indian cousins.
It is probable that the tiger from Turkestan, if allowed the use of the
outer cages, from which the Indian tigers and other large carnivora are
withdrawn during the winter, would develop the thick and beautiful coat
with which the northern tiger is represented in Chinese paintings. The
bears, though so well wrapped up, take the frost as a hint to hibernate,
and were for the most part fast asleep. Those which occupy cages facing
the morning sun uncurl as the day grows brighter, and exhibit coats in
the utmost perfection of winter growth. The black, brown, and cinnamon
bears have at this time a bloom upon their fur which the utmost skill of
the furrier fails to reproduce if the animal is killed at any other
period of the year. In Southern and Central Russia many proprietors own
large estates devoted to breeding horses and cattle. A menagerie of
bears is often added to this. These are killed at the right season, and
their skins sold in the best condition. Cloaks made from the skins of
the six-months-old cubs have been sold for from £600 to £1000. Of the
Polar bears, one, the older and larger, seems disposed to follow the
example of the brown and black species, and to doze through the cold
weather. The she-bear, much smaller and younger than its mate, takes its
bath as usual, and plays with the floating ice like a baby with the
soap. There it exhibits the most astonishing antics, turning
back-somersaults, and standing on its head, or flinging out plates of
ice with its nose and paws. No creature suggests such perfect
indifference to cold as this Arctic bear, with icicles hanging to its
fur, as it plunges again and again into its freezing bath.
The beavers are, of course, invisible, having long ago provided against
the frost by plastering the wooden sides of the new house with mud and
turf, and dragged a supply of dead branches as far as they could be
forced to enter the narrow door. Though they are fed every day, and have
nothing to fear from the weather, the instinct of winter storage is as
strong as in the wild state. One is tempted to speculate whether this
prudence is accompanied by any rational knowledge of the probable
inadequacy of their stock to meet their natural wants. If their sense of
quantity bears any proportion to their industry and skill in
engineering, they must be full of anxiety and misgivings, for the few
branches given to them are only make-believe, and they are wholly
dependent on their captors for food. For some reason the rare European
beavers, from the banks of the Rhone, have not thriven at the Zoo. Four
out of six had died at the date at which this visit was made, and only
one is now left in the Gardens.
[Illustration:
POLAR BEAR. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.
]
The demeanour of the inmates of the artificially-warmed houses ought not
to differ greatly in frost, as the ordinary temperature is nominally
preserved. In the Elephant and Antelope Houses such a day as that which
we describe has little effect beyond giving an added briskness of
demeanour to such creatures as are not, like the elephant and
rhinoceros, too bulky and majestic to be exhilarated by mere accidents
of temperature.
The Antelope House is redolent with a delicious perfume of the finest
hay, and its graceful inmates nibble at their fragrant breakfast with
the same dainty selectness which marks their habits at meals on less
appetizing days. Many of the larger kinds, lying in their neat stalls,
look like some glorified form of Oriental cattle. The eland, couched
placidly on a bed of golden straw, with its satin-like biscuit-coloured
skin gathered into soft little wrinkles at the folded joints, and its
dark full eye turned to gaze mildly at the visitors, seems a type of
what the domesticated antelope should be, shielded from the weather,
eating artificially prepared food, lying on the straw of civilization,
and dependent for its food on the stockman’s punctuality. The only
creature which showed some effects of the exhilaration in the frosty air
was the beautiful little Nagore antelope, the only living specimen, we
believe, of this rare animal now in Europe. In form it is almost like a
large gazelle, with lyre-shaped horns, a golden fawn-coloured skin, of
perfectly uniform tone, set off by large and brilliant black eyes. This
antelope was unusually active and friendly, standing on its slender hind
feet, and reaching its head up to be caressed and fed.
In the open paddocks and runs of the smaller deer and wild-fowl, there
was great good-temper and content. The Japanese deer were all curled up
sleeping in the cold air round their food-box, which was filled with
chopped straw, bran, and oats, and swarming with impudent Zoo sparrows.
These little robbers, as also the Zoo starlings, are in such good case
from the abundance of food left at their disposal by the fastidious
strangers in the cages and paddocks, that, like the owls during the
plagues of mice on the Pampas, they defy the weather and the seasons,
and marry and bring up irregular families irrespective of the almanac.
Dozens of them, as well as many of the starlings, had selected this
particular cold morning of all others to take a bath. The gradually
sloping drinking-pools in most of the runs, especially the tortoises’
baths, which have a wide shallow entrance, exactly suit their wants.
Many were washing and splashing in the pools in the swine runs, while
others were drying themselves in rows on the sunny wall above the styes,
with an immense amount of fuss and vulgarly loud conversation.
The gulls were particularly noisy, and playing at a new game with bits
of ice, which they picked up from the broken edges of their ponds, and
let fall on the sound ice. They then scrambled and fought for the pieces
as they slid on the slippery surface. One big gull swallowed a large
triangular piece, which stuck for some time in its throat, and evidently
gave it much discomfort until the sharp edges melted. The ravens in the
crow-cages were also much pleased with the broken ice, and were busy
hiding all the pieces in holes round the edges of their aviary. One of
the birds was evidently not satisfied with the concealment offered by
the cranny into which it had poked a large fragment, so after
considering for some time, it drew it out again, rubbed it in sand till
it was well covered with grit, and then pushed it back, protected by a
coating of colour “adapted to environment.”
The heating of the Monkey House had been carefully looked to during the
night, and beyond showing a disposition to huddle together and sleep,
the common monkeys betrayed little obvious sensibility to the bright dry
cold outside. But the delicate little marmosets and small tropical South
American species were, with the exception of the Capuchins, removed to
the warmer inner room behind the glass palace. One creature only seemed
penetrated by the frost, a sleeping lemur. It was clinging to the bars
of its cage, its hands grasping the rods, its two front arms stretched
out, and its head, heavy with sleep, drooping between them. Yet, though
steeped in slumber, it was shaken from moment to moment by spasms of
shivering, its body conscious and responsive to the cold, though its
drowsy brain was insensible to the warnings of physical _malaise_.
Winter in the Insect House is the time of incubation and sleep. All the
beautiful forms of tropical moths and insects, which burst into life in
the butterfly form in May, are sleeping in their pitcher-shaped cocoons,
or buried in moss and mould. Only the great Goliath beetle, with a body
like a well-blacked boot on which cream has been spilt, and immense
stag-like horns, was alternately eating melon and sipping
highly-sweetened tea, two indigestible forms of food on which it had
made an almost uninterrupted meal for seven weeks.
From another point of view the demeanour of the semi-tropical birds in
this sudden wave of cold was even more interesting than the power of
adaptation to climate shown by so many quadrupeds. The whole pheasant
tribe, perhaps the most beautiful, as a class, of any family of birds,
are in the acme of plumage and condition. The Himalayas and China are
the main homes of these gorgeous creatures, and we are not surprised to
see in Regent’s Park the metallic lustre of the Monauls, or the scarlet,
orange, and gold of the rarer Chinese varieties, in equal perfection
with that attained in the glens of Nepaul, or the mountains of Pekin.
But the Argus pheasant is a native of Sumatra and Borneo, the companion
of the trogons and the ourang-outang; yet the cock-bird was displaying
its beauties in the open air, among leaves and grass tipped with
hoar-frost, and showed plumage so close and perfect, that it was
impossible to doubt that the colder climate had, if possible, added a
lustre to its unrivalled wealth of ornament. It is to be regretted that
the eggs laid in the previous summer were not fertile, else the
development of perhaps the most perfect instance of animal pattern might
have received further explanation from the processes of growth in the
plumage of the young. One tender nestling from the tropics was being
reared at the Zoo, though not exposed to the rigour of December frost.
In October 1893 a young king vulture arrived from South America—a round,
fluffy ball of white down, with a smooth black head like a negro baby,
and as helpless as a young pigeon. It grew rapidly, and at the time when
this paper was written, was the most interesting and intelligent
specimen of a young carnivorous bird that the writer has yet seen. As a
rule nothing could well be more morose and forbidding than the eaglet or
the young of any hawk or falcon. They are helpless, savage, and
unresponsive to any form of kindness. But the young vulture is almost as
tame and intelligent as a puppy. It follows its keeper in the warm
house, which it shares with the tortoises, sitting down when he stops,
and rising and running with a half-bird, half-quadruped gait which is
irresistibly comic. When frightened or shy in the presence of strangers,
it lays its head on the ground and “shams dead,” like a young plover,
though almost as large as a turkey. But it soon loses all fear, and
takes food or pulls at the garments of its visitors with amusing
confidence. But the young vulture is an accidental visitor. The frosts
of winter are mainly interesting at the Zoo as the time when the inmates
exhibit the full beauty and vitality of vigorous maturity.
NOTE.—Since the above notes were written, the young king vulture
has grown to full maturity, and is an even more interesting bird
than its early promise indicated. At the end of July 1894 it was
full-grown and in perfect plumage, every feather being distinct
and unbroken. It is black from the crown to the legs, without a
single white feather, and has none of the unpleasant appearance
of the less noble vultures. So devoted is it to its keeper, that
when some of the gigantic Seychelles tortoises were introduced
into the large house in which it lives, it rushed at them to
drive them away the moment he entered the house to feed it, and
stood between him and the horny monsters, its wings wide
stretched and its beak open and hissing. It still lies down to
be caressed, and is in every way a very handsome and interesting
bird.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE GHOSTS OF THE TROPICAL FOREST.
PERHAPS the rarest, certainly the least known to man of all the
creatures which, by a strange chance, find their way to the Gardens of
the Zoological Society in Regent’s Park, are the denizens of the
Tropical Forest. We say forest, because, though divided by the
dissociable ocean, there is only one great forest which belts the globe.
The notion of the physical symmetry of the world, which fascinated the
old geographers, and led Herodotus to surmise that the course of the
great river of Africa must of necessity conform in the main to that of
the Danube in the opposite continent, was wrong in theory and
application. But shifting the guiding forces from the control of
original and plastic design to the influence of the dominant Sun, the
theory still holds good; and while the tropical heats remain constant
and undisturbed, so must the tropical forest flourish and endure, with
its inseparable concomitants of vegetable growth overpowering and
replacing the marvellous rapidity of vegetable decay.
To the naturalist, the most marked feature of the great tropical forest
south of the Equator, is the inequality in the balance of Nature between
vegetable and animal life. From the forests of Brazil to the forests of
the Congo, through the wooded heights of northern Madagascar, to the
tangled jungles of the Asiatic Archipelago and the impenetrable woods of
New Guinea, the boundless profusion of vegetable growth is unmatched by
any similar abundance in animal forms. A few brilliant birds of strange
shape and matchless plumage, such as the toucans of Guinea and the
Amazon, or the birds of paradise in the Moluccas or the Papuan
Archipelago, haunt the loftiest trees, and from time to time fall
victims to the blow-pipe or arrow of the natives, who scarcely dare to
penetrate that foodless region, even for such rich spoils, until
incantation and sacrifice have propitiated the offended spirits of the
woods; but except the sloth and the giant ant-eater, there is hardly to
be found in the tropical regions of the New World a quadruped which can
excite the curiosity of the naturalist, or form food even for the
wildest of mankind. In the corresponding tracts of Africa and the
Asiatic Archipelago, the rare four-footed animals that live in the
solitary forests are, for the most part, creatures of the night. Unlike
the lively squirrels and marten-cats of temperate regions, they do not
leave their hiding-places till the tropical darkness has fallen on the
forest, when they seek their food, not on the surface of the ground,
but, imitating the birds, ascend to the upper surface of the ocean of
trees, and at the first approach of dawn seek refuge from the hateful
day in the dark recesses of some aged and hollow trunk. There is nothing
like the loris or the lemur in the fauna of temperate Europe. We may
rather compare them to a race of arboreal moles, the condition of whose
life is darkness and invisibility. But, unlike the moles, the smaller
members of these rarely seen tribes are among the most beautiful and
interesting creatures of the tropics, though the extreme difficulty of
capturing creatures whose whole life is spent on the loftiest forest
trees, is further increased by the reluctance of the natives to enter
the deserted and pathless forests. The beautiful lemurs, most of which
are found in Madagascar, are further believed by the Malagasi to embody
the spirits of their ancestors; and the weird and plaintive cries with
which they fill the groves at night, uttered by creatures whose bodies,
as they cling to the branches, are invisible, and whose delicate
movements are noiseless, may well have left a doubt on the minds of the
first discoverers of the island as to whether these were not in truth
the cries and wailings of true _lemures_, the unquiet ghosts of the
departed.
Several of the larger lemurs are to be found at the Zoo, and though
these suffer so much if unduly exposed to the light that before long
they lose their sight, they may occasionally be seen in their cages.
Others, the rarest and most delicate members of the race, are so
entirely creatures of darkness that their exposure to daylight seems to
benumb all their faculties. They appear drugged and stupefied, and,
though capable of movement, seem indisposed either to attempt escape
when handled, or to move in any other direction than that of shelter
from the odious day. Even food is refused before nightfall, and, unlike
the epicure’s ortolans, which awake and feed in a darkened room whenever
the rays of a lamp suggest the sunrise, the lemur only consumes its meal
of fruit and insects when nightfall has aroused its drowsy wits. These
midnight habits clearly unfit it for public exhibition at the Zoo, and
the last and rarest of the tribe which have arrived in London occupy a
private room adjacent to the monkey palace, in common with other lemurs
and loris, and a few of the most delicate marmosets and tropical monkeys
which have escaped the rigours of an English winter. One large cage,
which, in spite of the label “Coquerel’s Lemur” placed upon it, seemed
at the time of our last visit to contain nothing but a pile of hay, is
the dwelling-place of these latest guests. After displacing layer after
layer of the hay, the two sleeping beauties were discovered lying in a
ball, each with its long furry tail wrapped round the other, in the
deepest and most unconscious repose. When at last the two were
separated, and the least reluctant was taken in the hand, the extreme
beauty of the little “ghost” was at once apparent. In colour it is a
rich cinnamon, fading to lavender beneath. The texture of the fur is
like nothing but that of the finest and best-finished seal-skin jacket,
only far deeper and closer, so that the hand sinks into it as into a bed
of moss. The head is large and most intelligent, the face being set with
a pair of very large, round, hazel eyes, in which the lines of the orbit
seem not to radiate from the centre, but to be arranged in circles, like
the layers of growth in the section of a tree. The long tail is at the
base almost as wide as the body, tapering to a point, and covered with
deep fur. But the greatest beauty of form which this lemur owns is the
shape of its hands and feet. These exquisite little members are so far
an exact reproduction of the human hand, that not only the hands, but
also the feet, own a fully-developed thumb. But each finger, as well as
the thumb, expands into a tiny disc, as in certain tree-frogs, so that
the little hands may cling to the tree with the tightness of an
air-pump. It is plain, as the half-sleeping lemur climbs over the arms
and shoulders of its visitor, that it takes him for a tree. The arms are
stretched wide apart, the thumbs and fingers are spread, and grasp each
fold of the coat with the anxious care of one who thinks that a slip
will cause a fall of a hundred feet, and the soft body and tail half
envelop the limb down which they are descending, fitting to the surface
like some warm enveloping boa. As soon as it reaches the hay-pile in its
cage the lemur instantly burrows, its long tail vanishing like a snake,
and in a minute it is once more asleep, and unconscious of the world.
A near relation of the lemurs is a beautiful little creature, whose
uncouth native name has not been replaced, called the “moholi.” It only
differs from the lemurs in the shape of the ears, which in the moholi
are either pricked up, like those of a bat, or folded down on its head
at will. It has the same wonderful brown eyes, so large and round that
they seem to occupy the greater part of the head; the moholi is, in
fact, “all eyes.” As it stretches its slender arms out wide against the
keeper’s chest, and turns its head to look at the visitors, it has the
most winning expression of any quadruped we have ever seen. The coat, of
a pinkish-grey above, turns into light saffron below, and the texture is
less deep than the lemur’s fur. In touch it resembles floss-silk,
thickly piled. The “Slow Loris,” from Malacca, is a tailless lemur. In
exchange it has received a fretful temper, which seems a permanent trait
in this species. When wakened it growls, bites, and fights, until once
more allowed to sleep in peace. This loris hardly falls short of the
beauty of the lemurs. The fur is cream-coloured, with a cinnamon stripe
running from the head down the back. Of the three species which we have
described, the first seems to combine some of the characteristics of the
monkey and the mole, the second of the squirrel and the bat, the last
those of the monkey and the weasel tribe. The “Slender Loris” is a still
greater puzzle. It has all the characteristic “points” of the lemurs,
without the tail. In size it resembles a squirrel; but its movements are
so strange and deliberate, and so unlike those of any other quadruped,
that it seems impossible to guess either at its habits or its purpose in
creation. Each hand or foot is slowly raised from the branch on which it
rests, brought forward, and set down again; the fingers then close on
the wood until its grasp is secure, when the other limbs begin to move,
like those of a mechanical toy. As we looked, its “affinities” with
other types presently suggested themselves. It is a _furry-coated
chameleon_. The round, protruding eyes, the slow mechanical movements,
and the insect-feeding habits, are identical, except that the loris
hunts by night and the chameleon by day. The loris even possesses an
auxiliary tongue, which aids it in catching moths, just as the
development of the same member marks the insect-catching lizard. From
dawn till dusk all the lemurs are the very bond-slaves of sleep,
hypnotized in the literal sense, drugged and steeped in slumber. Had the
old poets known them, had the Phœnician sailors brought them back when
they visited the land of Ophir, they would have been the consecrated
companions of Somnus. Ovid’s famous picture of the Cave of Sleep, and
the noiseless hall where
“A couch of down, raised high on ebony,
Self-coloured, sombre, draped with sable pall,
Stands in the midst, whereon that god doth lie,
While all his limbs relaxed in slumber fall,”
wants but one touch to complete the drowsy theme—a sleeping lemur curled
up on Somnus’ dusky pillow.
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THE BUTTERFLY FARM AT THE ZOO
A COLLECTION of tropical butterflies and moths reared in the Zoological
Gardens was exhibited in the rooms of the Royal Society at their annual
_soirée_ in 1893. The fact that such perfect and beautiful examples of
the frail and fantastic forms which by night fill the place taken by the
humming-birds by day, in the steaming tropical forest, have lived in the
precincts of a London park, is sufficient justification, if any be
required, for their presence among such practical and progressive
surroundings. Readers of _Kenelm Chillingly_, one of the latest and most
extravagant of Bulwer Lytton’s romances, may remember that one of the
airy fancies of his youthful and impossible heroine, is to keep pet
butterflies in cages, and to shed floods of tears over their untimely
death. They manage things better in the butterfly farm at the Zoo, where
the brilliant insects, after their brief day is over, pass by a kind of
metempsychosis from the catalogue of living to that of dead specimens,
and figure anew in the list of “additions to the collections of the
Society.”
It would be difficult to picture a more elegant or more interesting
sight than the hatching of the butterfly-broods in the Insect House
during the first days of summer heat. The glass cases, filled with damp
moss and earth, and adorned with portions of tree-trunks or plants
suited to the habits of the moths, are peopled by these exquisite and
delicate creatures, as one after another separates itself from the
chrysalis-case in which it has been sleeping all the winter, and,
fluttering upwards with weak and uncertain movements, exposes its
beauties to the light. The wings of the largest kind, such as the great
orange-brown “Atlas” moth, are as wide as those of a missel-thrush; and
the great size of this and other species increases the strange likeness
to bird-forms which is so marked, even in the smaller English
hawk-moths. The giant moths of the tropics, unlike the rest of the
insect world, have faces and features not devoid of expression. Some
resemble birds; others cats. Some are covered with long, soft plumage,
like the feathers of the marabout, or the plumes of swans. Others are
wrapped in a silky mantle like an Angora kitten, or clothed in ermine
and sables. The depth and softness of these downy mantles make the
impulse to stroke them suggest itself at once; yet when the head-keeper
lifts them from the branch on which they rest, as a falconer lifts his
hawk, the feeling that they are neither moths nor animals, but
long-winged birds, is equally irresistible. Form and texture suggest
endless analogies with the higher animals; but the scheme of colour is
peculiar to the tribe of which these are the most beautiful examples. In
the Cecropian silk-moths, for example, some five or six of which, at the
time this paper was written, were preening their feathery wings on the
lichen-covered bark of an ancient oak-trunk. The body seems thickly
wrapped in feathers, and, like the wings, is of an exquisite mottled
grey, the colour of the natural wool of the Cashmere goat. But the legs,
antennæ, and parts of the wings are boldly painted a rich red
madder-brown. The Indian moon-moth is perhaps the most delicate in
colouring of all. The wings are of the palest green, and as wide as
those of a swallow, the tint of the aqua-marine. The uniform faint
colour is only broken by a few crescent spots of a darker tint. But the
whole of the front edge of the wing is “bound” in velvet, of the colour
of dark-red wine. The body is wrapped in thick and downy feathers of the
purest white, from which the soft legs and feet emerge, stained to match
the claret edging of the wing. Across the head, and lying back against
the dark shoulders, are the fern-shaped antennæ of pale-green. Thus,
this lovely creature possesses but three hues,—pale-green,
claret-colour, and white; but these are so graded and distributed, and
so modified by the contrasted beauty of the texture of the
semi-transparent wing, the thick and downy body, and the delicate
flesh-like legs, that the creature seems rather the realization of some
painter’s dream than one among hundreds of silk-producing insects. We
once heard the generic difference between angels and fairies stated with
all the certainty which was due to the youth of the speaker:—“Angels
have birds’ wings, and fairies have butterflies’ wings, of course!” was
the indignant answer to the difficulty raised. Imps, too, have bats’
wings. But the wings of the moth have not yet been appropriated to the
human embodiment of the unseen denizens of the air. There is a softness
and reserve of colouring, and an uncertainty of outline in the moth’s
wing, which mark it at once as something distinct from the sharply cut,
and brilliantly coloured forms of their butterfly relations.
Perhaps the most brightly coloured moths which are raised in the house
are the _Eacles regalis_, which are covered with a net-work of orange,
rivalling in colour the inner flesh of a melon, on a ground of
greenish-grey; and the _Eacles imperialis_, in which an exquisite shade
of “old rose” invades and is lost in a rich cream-coloured ground.
Not the least beautiful among the giant moths is the splendid creature
from the cocoons of which the wild silks of India are wound. This is a
far larger and finer moth than that which produces the Chinese
tussur-silk. Its wings are “old gold” in colour, with two large
transparent eyes on each, fringed with rose-colour. These, according to
Hindoo superstition, are the finger-marks of the god Vishnu, and the
Tussur moth is, therefore, sacred to that deity. But it is among the
wild demon-worshipping Santhals that the Indian silk-moth has its native
home. In the boundless upland forests, the trees on which it feeds are
covered with thousands of the cocoons, which are gathered by these wild
tribes, and sold to the silk-winders of the plains. Numbers of these
fine cocoons line the cases at the Zoo, each with living pupa inside.
The cocoons are beautiful objects in themselves, nearly the size of a
walnut in the rind, and hanging by stalks firmly twisted to the
supporting twigs, like rows of melons. Their colour varies through all
shades of silvery or purplish-grey, streaked all over, like the eggs of
the yellow-hammer, with fine irregular dark-purple lines. The silk
threads of which they are woven are flat, like tape, not round, like the
ordinary floss-silk of Europe; and it is to this flat and irregular form
of the thread that the beauty of woven tussur-silk is mainly due. It may
be doubted whether the cultivation of the Tussur moth will spread to the
West, like that of the common “silkworm.” But the time is not far
distant when this, and probably others of the fifty-nine species of
silk-producing larvæ which were exhibited in the Colonial and Indian
Exhibition, will become an additional source of wealth in the wide
forest-regions of our Indian Empire.
The area of the jungle forest in the Santhal country, in which grow the
trees whose leaves form the best food of these silkworms, is vast beyond
any probable use which the most enterprising silk-grower conceives. “As
far as the eye could reach from any rising ground,” writes Mr. Thomas
Wardle, in his _History of the Growth of the Tussur Silk Industry_, “and
for hundreds of square miles, there lay a forest in which it seemed that
any quantity of the tussur of the future might be cultivated, and I
think it is worthy of the attention of the Government of India to
encourage in every way a greatly increased production, and not to be
behind China in this respect, remembering that when I showed how
tussur-silk could be used, the demand which sprang up was chiefly met by
the greater quickness of the Chinese.”
Not only the moths, but even the caterpillars, or larvæ of the various
silk-moths, are as beautiful as any fabric which is woven from the
glossy fibres of their cocoons. Let no one despise “worms and creeping
things” after once seeing these exquisitely formed and coloured
creatures. The larvæ of most may be seen in late July in the Insect
House, feeding on green leaves in the cases. The finest are those of the
Cecropian silk-moth; they are of a blue-green, with a soft bloom like
that on some succulent plant. The whole body is clothed with alternate
lines of turquoise and amber studs, specked with black, polished and
shining like jewels. Those that have spun their cocoons are wrapped in
jackets of light-brown silk, into which strips of green leaves of the
plum-tree are twisted for protection. The Ailanthus silk-moth has a
pale-grey larva, with little ornaments in rows, shaped like the flowers
of the stone-crop, and dotted with black. The moth itself is strangely
beautiful, fawn-coloured, with bold wavy lines of black, grey, and pink.
The Promethean silk-moth has a larva of pale Cambridge blue, with yellow
and crimson studs. Not even the sea anemones in their native waters are
more beautiful than these fugitive forms assumed by the undeveloped
silk-moths of the East.
In their scheme of colour, the butterflies are to the moths what the
fabrics of Europe are to the webs of Cashmere or the carpets of
Daghestan. A score of the lovely swallow-tailed butterfly may often be
seen fluttering in their cage. The bottom of their glass mansion is
covered with short pieces of osier-stick, each one of which is pierced
up the centre with a tunnel, at the end of which lies the pupa of that
strange instance of protective mimicry, the hornet clear-wing. Another
case is full of the scarce pale variety of the swallow-tail, and a third
of the American swallow-tail, the female of which is black, spangled
with what seems a shining dust of sapphires. But perhaps the most
beautiful of all the butterfly broods is the swarm of _Papilio
Cresphontes_. At the time of hatching, the case is full of these lovely
butterflies, black above, with beaded spots of pale yellow; yellow
below, with beaded lines of black. When last seen by the writer, some
were flying from side to side of the cage; some had alighted, or were in
the act of alighting, and others on the moss at the bottom were sipping
the juices of ripe grapes.
Among the butterfly cages is a glass case which, since its inmates first
found their way to the Zoo, has never failed to excite the utmost
interest and curiosity. On the floor of the box, partly sheltered by a
few green plants, are ten or a dozen gold buttons, with a red-gold
centre, on a lighter gold setting, edged by a round, semi-transparent
rim. If watched attentively, the buttons presently move about on
invisible legs, and perhaps one suddenly splits, puts out a pair of
wings, and flies. These astonishing beetles, which are at present
unnamed, are from Ceylon. Above, they exactly resemble an embossed gold
sleeve-button, with a rim of yellow talc. Laid on their backs, the
under-side of a golden beetle appears, surrounded with the same
semi-transparent rim. Trap-door spiders also flourish in the Insect
House, and have made several caves, with most ingenious doors, in a
large piece of rotten wood with rugged lichen-covered bark. The doors
are quite irregular in shape, made to fit the surface of the hole in
which the spider lives, and are of all sizes, from that of a
walnut-shell to a pea. The door exactly fits the orifice, however
irregular its shape, and is so cleverly covered with pieces of wood and
lichen woven into the fabric, that it exactly resembles the surrounding
bark; and even a prying tit might omit to probe it with its bill.
The one hideous and repulsive creature in this good company is the great
tarantula spider. It is like a long-legged, hairy crab, quite seven
inches from claw to claw, with enormous brown poison fangs like a beak.
Two of these spiders, discovered in a tent at Assouan, occupied by
officers of the Heavy Camel Corps, put the whole of the inmates to
flight in their pyjamas, and the only wonder is that they ever ventured
to return before daylight. There is something strangely repulsive in
this low type of life, which nevertheless makes a prey of such beautiful
and highly-developed animals as humming-birds, and even the small and
fragile quadrupeds of the tropical forest.
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PATTERNS ON LIVING ANIMALS.
EARLY in the spring of 1893, the Marquis of Hamilton brought with him
from Trinidad a number of little fish, less in size than a half-grown
minnow, which were presented to the Zoological Society, and were to be
seen at Easter swimming in a glass bowl, among a thin growth of water
weeds, in the warm chamber in which the tropical moths and butterflies
are hatched.
Being small and elegant, they have a long and ugly scientific name, the
_Girardinus Guppyi_. In the absence of a label, the writer mistook them
for the gudgeon, which form the food of the more rapacious fishes, and
was about to suggest that they would be interesting material for an
experiment with the electric eels, when a ray of sunlight flashing
through the bowl revealed the astonishing fact that these tiny fishes
possessed beauties of ornament not exceeded in kind by any of the most
exquisite birds of the tropics.