their sea voyage is matter for some surprise. They are nearly always
wooden boxes hardly stronger than a sound packing-case, with a front of
strong iron rails. The secret of their safe carriage lies in their own
stupidity. Like a lobster in a pot, they always endeavour to escape from
the front, springing towards the light, and it is precisely at this
point that the strongest part of the case, the iron bars, blocks the
way. When the last black leopard arrived at the Zoo, as a present from
the Duke of Newcastle, who had purchased it at Singapore when on a tour
round the world, it was soon shifted from its travelling cage into the
fine new den it was to occupy in the Lion House. As it was known to be a
violent and savage creature, an inner lining of steel netting about
eight inches across the mesh had been fixed inside the vertical bars.
The leopard on being turned into the den at once made a violent spring
towards the light, and pitching head-foremost against the netting
screen, bulged it out to the exact contour of its face. It never seems
to occur to these creatures that they could easily gnaw their way
through the wooden sides of their temporary prisons and escape, like the
hyena which recently maintained itself for a week in the hold of a large
cargo steamer, and was kept in a good-temper by joints of prime New
Zealand mutton, until on the unloading of the vessel the hyena was
captured in the congenial cavern in which it had taken up its residence.
The well-known escape of the tiger which the elder Mr. Jamrach
recaptured in the street, was partly due to the weakness of a cage. An
Indian tiger had been brought up from the docks, and was about to be
transferred to a larger den in the “stables.” This animal showed more
judgment than most of its kind, for it used its back in the fashion of a
lever, and burst the rear of the cage. It then trotted down the narrow
passage, and into the main street, then known by its old name of
Ratcliffe Highway. The only person who waited its approach was a little
boy of eight years old, who had put out his hand to touch it. The tiger
patted him with his paw, and of course the child fell on the pavement,
though the blow was so gently given that the child was stunned but not
injured. The tiger then picked him up by the loose part of his jacket,
and was trotting off with him, exactly like a cat carrying a mouse, when
Mr. Jamrach the elder came running up in pursuit. He at once sprang on
the tiger’s back, and grasping its throat with both hands drove his
thumbs into the soft part below the jaw. The tiger dropped the child,
and Mr. Jamrach literally “drove it home” like some domestic animal,
only with a crowbar instead of a stick.
The courage and readiness of Mr. Jamrach’s attack can hardly be
over-estimated. The creature was an absolutely new arrival, as to whose
temper nothing but the worst could be imagined after so prompt an escape
and the attack on the child. The native coolness and indifference to
human powers of resistance of the tiger could hardly be better
illustrated than by the unabashed impudence with which this tiger, after
months of captivity by human beings, after being fed, moved hither and
thither, lowered into ships and hoisted on to quays, by men whom it was
powerless to injure, picked up the first nice little boy it met after
two minutes of freedom, and trotted off to make a meal of him in a city
of four millions of people.
Mr. Jamrach has been good enough to give the writer details of another
and less well-known tiger escape, which took place on the North-Western
Railway near Weedon Station about fifteen years ago. The tiger was being
sent to a dealer in Liverpool, and was in a cage fastened to the bottom
of an open truck. The cage was amply strong, but another train, loaded
with huge iron girders that had been improperly packed, and projected
from the sides of the trucks, passed that in which the tiger was
travelling, and one of the girders struck the cage and smashed it to
pieces. The tiger was unhurt, but the cage fell to pieces round it, and
left it sitting on the truck like a pigeon when the “trap” is pulled.
The tiger at once bounded off, and by a strange chance alighted almost
in the middle of a flock of sheep. It knocked down half-a-dozen, and
after making a meal off one of these, trotted off up the line. “The news
soon spread,” writes Mr. Jamrach, “and caused the greatest consternation
everywhere. Fortunately a troop of soldiers happened to be quartered at
Weedon, and these were called out and packed away in a railway train,
which followed up the tiger at a slow rate, and out of the railway
carriage the soldiers potted away at the tiger until they killed him. My
father always considered he had a good claim against the Railway Company
for damages, but did not follow it up, and consequently was a heavy
loser.”
The most troublesome arrival to recapture which ever escaped from the
“stables” in London was a large baboon. It contrived to get clear of its
cage over-night, and opened the window of the room in which it was
confined. Thence it leapt on to the roof of a house opposite; “crawling
over the tiles,” says a writer to whom Mr. Jamrach told the story, “it
ensconced itself among the chimneys, pleased with the warmth, and
chattered defiance at its pursuers. Then a grand commotion ensued among
the neighbours. Letters and messages of horror and entreaty poured in to
Mr. Jamrach; he was even threatened with legal proceedings. All sorts of
methods were tried to catch the fugitive; but an ape’s feet are more at
home on narrow ledges and steep inclines than feet cased in
boot-leather. For days the baboon kept his liberty, consoling himself
for the chilliness of the nights by abundant frolics during the day.
Little wonder if the children were afraid to go to bed at the top of the
house, or if the servant-girls looked up nervously from their toilets at
any sound on the tiles outside, fearing to see the face of that ‘odious
creature’ glaring in through the glass pane. There could be no rest till
he was caught and caged. Eventually he was enticed into a room through
an open window, and a blanket having been thrown over him, he was caught
and carried home in triumph.”
The panic caused by a big monkey at large is almost equal to that which
follows the escape of some really dangerous beast. Only in the present
year a large mandrill owned by a lady was pursued and shot without mercy
in Essex, as a precaution against “its well-known ferocity.”
“The most interesting side of our profession,” says Mr. Jamrach, “is the
possible arrival of _new creatures_, animals never seen alive in Europe,
or new to our experience.” The chance of such an event is never quite
absent. Even in 1894 he received a strange deer from Japan. He sent this
at once to Professor Milne Edwards at the Jardin des Plantes of Paris,
who pronounced it to be a new species.
The prices of rare animals, often differing little in general appearance
from common species, are high enough at present to make the wild-beast
trade a lucrative business. But it would be a mistake to suppose that
the pursuit of this profession, or even the business of owning and
exhibiting wild beasts, is solely a matter of sale and barter, or mere
money-making. In all connected with the sale or management of wild
animals with whom the writer is acquainted, there is a genuine
naturalist’s appreciation in the creatures they deal in, often existing
side by side with something of that pride in maintaining animals in good
condition which they share in common with the whole race of breeders of
prize cattle, race-horse trainers, masters of hounds and huntsmen, down
to the labourers with their pigs. From the highest to the lowest, they
seem to know most of what is going on, not only in the different
menageries of England, but also on the continents. The masters and
owners will meet one another often in the course of business, and the
men pay cross visits to rival establishments, and discuss the latest
additions or losses. We seldom fail to see at a circus or exhibition of
performing animals the well-known faces of some of the keepers at the
Zoo; and when going round the houses at the Gardens, the best-known
owners of circuses, the lion-tamers or elephant-trainers of the ring,
may often be seen musing in front of the cages and taking stock of their
inmates. A Suffolk villager in London nearly always chooses the
meat-market at Smithfield as the first place in which to spend a happy
day; and a wild-beast keeper goes naturally for change of scene to
another wild-beast menagerie.
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EXPRESSION IN THE ANIMAL EYE.
THE wonderful compound eyes of insects recently formed the subject of a
paper read by Lord Rayleigh before the Royal Society, recording
observations of minute accuracy and ingenious measurement by Mr. A.
Mallock. The general conclusions formed as to the actual power of these
complex organs rather raises than lessens the claim to efficiency of the
simpler vertebrate eye. The compound eye pieces together the separate
impressions of the object seen, and should any of the facets be out of
order, a blank must be left in the corresponding part of the picture.
The only advantage which is claimed for insect-sight is that at the
shortest distances the object seen is still in focus, which partly
accounts for the “short-sighted” manner in which most insects seem to
examine any object in which they are particularly interested. Seen under
a powerful microscope, and measured by the delicate instruments so
skilfully employed by Mr. Mallock, these insect eyes are marvels of
geometrical symmetry. But they are merely organs of sight, not of
expression. They are beautiful with the beauty of cut gems, and as
devoid as a brilliant of any power of expression of character or
emotion.
A very brief visit to the stalls and cages of the Zoo, shows that the
importance of the eye in the physiognomy of the higher animals is even
greater than in the human face; for in the greater number of even the
best animal types, the play of feature is so limited, that expression is
conveyed mainly by the eye, to which the movable ear plays an important
and connected but always subsidiary part. By what seems almost a
paradox, many human eyes, which produced a first impression of beauty,
but are soon discovered to be singularly lacking in expression, are
afterwards felt to have a strong resemblance to the eyes of certain
animals,—of deer, for instance, or of birds; yet in the very animal
which suggests the resemblance, the eye often possesses great intrinsic
beauty, which is increased and dignified by a peculiar fitness for the
face in which it appears. It is in keeping with the limits of animal
expression that the actual size of the eye should bear a greater
proportion to the area of the face than it does in man; and it will be
found that the general estimate of animal beauty varies in the main with
the size of the eye; the giraffe, whose immense orbs exceed those of any
other animal in size, perfection of shape, convexity, lustre, depth of
colour, and length of eyelash, being perhaps the most general favourite
in the rivalry of beauty, and the almost eyeless moles and manatees
those which stand lowest as judged by the presence or absence of
expression, without the accession of hideous deformity.
The analysis of beauty must always be approached with diffidence. There
is always the danger that, like the crystal drop, it may, on the
displacement of a single component part, rebuke the impertinent inquirer
by the shivering and resolution of the perfect whole into fragments
which baffle reconstruction and defy recognition. Common opinion, the
fairest arbiter in a matter of such general interest, is probably
agreed, that in the human eye, colour does not control our estimate of
beauty. “Black eyes or blue eyes, hazel or grey,” as the song says, are
equally admired in the proper setting. But in the eyes of all other
creatures colour does make a marked difference in the impression which
they convey to us, though the reason for this difference is obscure.
Light-coloured eyes of any shade seem to detract strangely from the
depth and significance of animal expression. The usual tint in these
light-coloured eyes of animals is a bright golden yellow. Creatures of
very similar form and almost identical shape of head and face, appeal,
or fail to appeal, to us by the expression of their eye largely on
account of this slight difference, though the probable range of emotion
and scope of intelligence in the one can hardly be believed to differ
greatly from the same powers in the other. The yellow eyes of the sheep
and the goat have probably never been the subject of a word of
commendation, while poets and painters have never tired of celebrating
the dark eyes of their cousins, the roebuck and the gazelle.
In birds the contrast is even more marked. As a rule, the eyes of the
hawks are light-yellow, bright, and piercing, with wonderful powers of
vision. The true falcons, which do not surpass the hawks either in size
or courage, have black eyes, which lend a nobility and dignity to the
expression of the bird which the goshawk, with all its pride of
carriage, never attains. There is something infinitely roguish and
mischievous in the light-blue eye of the jackdaw, which would be pure
ruin to the character of its grave cousin “parson” rook, if, by some
unkind freak of nature, one were born with such disfigurement; indeed,
it may be doubted if the colony would not pronounce sentence of
execution at once upon such a discredit to the tribe. There seems good
reason to believe that this feature, often the only obvious mark which
distinguishes young nestlings of one species from those of another, is
that which leads to the detection and prompt destruction by birds of the
newly-hatched young, from alien eggs which have been placed for
experiment in their nests. There is, however, one middle shade found in
birds’ eyes which is singularly beautiful, the so-called
“gravel-coloured” eye of certain breeds of pigeon. This is really a
brilliant shade of tawny-red, and though unshaded by lashes, and set in
the centre of the bare “cere,” gives to the birds a bold and intelligent
appearance in complete contrast to the vapid effect of red eyes in most
animal faces. We believe that the countenance of a pink-eyed albino
guinea-pig is as nearly devoid of expression as it is possible for the
face of a quadruped to be; and whenever the pink eye accompanies
albinism there is an obvious loss of interest in the face, though the
eye, considered as an object apart, may have the depth and lustre of a
smooth garnet. Where albinism develops blue eyes, as in white cats, and
sometimes in white horses, the loss of expression is less; but even in
the horse, the blue eye, ringed with pinkish-white, is too like that of
fish to suggest a tenth part of the intelligence and power of emotion
latent in the face of the dark-eyed Arabian. Even dogs with light eyes
have less of the _appearance_ of truth and trustfulness than others,
though the pale eye is seen in some of the most ancient and valuable
breeds, such as the lemon-and-white Clumber spaniel. In the case of the
dog, the human preference for the dark over the light eye is perhaps
explained by the affinity which the last has with that of the wolf and
the common fox. The cunning, shifty look which the last animal
possesses, is largely due not only to the yellow colour, but also to the
shape and mechanism of the vulpine eyes. They are set close together,
and the inner corners run down almost parallel to the muzzle. In
addition, the pupil of the fox’s eye expands and contracts like that of
a cat.[6] By day the eye is a mere yellow orb, with a narrow line of
black in the centre. The reason that the stuffed foxes’ heads to be seen
in so many country houses bear the amiable and most un-foxy expression
which they do, is that the “artist” who stuffs them, sticks in nice
brown glass eyes with black pupils, which he takes from the compartment
labelled “dogs” in the curious box in which glass eyes for all
creatures, from tom-tits to stags, are kept duly sorted for use. Cats’
eyes are by no means devoid of a pleasing expression, except in strong
light; but among them the dark-grey iris of the Angora and some of the
“blue” cats give a look of repose and serenity which the brassy orbs of
the yellow-eyed varieties never possess. A larger and more striking
example of the same difference is found in contrast of the yellow eyes
of the black leopard at the Zoo, one of the most unpleasant-looking of
the big _felidæ_, and the dark, convex eyes of the ocelot. But the most
striking instance of the immense difference between the effect of the
light eye and the dark, is seen in the case of a new species of
eagle-owl which has just been brought to the Zoo from Mashonaland. The
great brown eagle-owl of Northern Europe, with its huge, round,
yellow-and-black eyes with which it sternly stares the visitor out of
countenance, has a fierce, wide-awake, resentful expression exactly in
keeping with its character. The “milky eagle-owl,” a splendid bird, with
plumage barred with wavy lines of grey from crest to talons, has oval
eyes of the deepest black, soft and lustrous, and shaded with eyelids
and lashes. The result is a change of expression to something quite
unlike the face of any bird, and more human than that of most beasts. It
is certainly the finest bird-eye yet discovered.
Footnote 6:
The miniature Asiatic foxes which are often shown in numbers at the
Zoo seem less affected by bright sunlight than the English species.
The eyes of Homer’s goddesses must not be judged too literally by the
animal model in the standing epithets by which he loves to describe
them. Γλαυχῶπις Ἀθήνη was the “bright-eyed” goddess; and the owl
probably had its Greek name from the brightness of its eyes. So Hera was
ox-eyed—that is, with round dark eyes—fine to look at, but if we may
judge from her character, perhaps equally without expression, with those
of the animal which they resembled. Helen, when restored to Menelaus,
and playing the part of hostess to Ulysses, artlessly apologizes for the
trouble which the Greeks had incurred on her account,—
“κυνώπιδος εἵνεκα κούρης,”
in which the word κυνώπιδος, “with dog’s eyes,” may be taken to mean
what would now be described as “rather a forward young person.” Yet in
the recognition of Ulysses by the old dog Argus, there is a feeling for
the pathos of animal expression which finds adequate interpretation in
the beautiful picture in which Mr. Briton Riviere has depicted the
longing look of recognition in the eyes of the dog, and of pity in those
of the hero, who sees in the first the sole signal of welcome to his
island home. The charm of this picture lies in the truth that in the
eyes of the dog and in the eyes of the King the same emotion is actually
present, and exhibited naturally and spontaneously by the organ of
sight, without transgressing the limits of expression in the animal,
which one of the greatest animal-painters not unfrequently ventured to
do, by transferring to it modifications of feature only possible in the
human eye. The expression which is associated with the most beautiful of
animal eyes, those of the horse, the stag, and the eagle, is so
dependent upon particular differences of shade and setting, in creatures
whose emotions and intelligence cannot greatly differ in degree,—that
its common interpretation must be due rather to analogy than to any
appreciation of its meaning.
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LONDON BEARS.
“NEVER make a pet of a bear,” is the advice given by the experienced
“bear-ward” at the Zoo. But though his conclusions are the result of
longer and closer experience of the animals than is possessed by any one
person in Europe, there is something so attractive in the apparent
simplicity and _bonhomie_ of the comfortable, warmly-clad, deliberate
ursine race which appeals irresistibly to animal-loving Englishmen. Ever
since the early middle ages the performing bear has been a favourite;
and to this day there is in Turkey and Bulgaria a wandering race of
gipsies who are known by the common name of “bear-tamers,” from their
traditional occupation of catching the young cubs in the forests of the
Carpathians, and leading them through the villages as performers in all
the feasts, whether Christian or Mussulman, of the ancient land of
Thrace.
The tame bear, which for the greater part of 1891 and 1892 was exhibited
in the London streets, and ultimately had an audience from her Majesty
at Windsor Castle, was also a familiar acquaintance of most of the
London police magistrates. Its popularity was such, that whenever
exhibited it instantly became the centre of a crowd, which increased
until the police constable on duty felt it incompatible with his
position not to take it into custody. Then came the scene in the dock
next morning, and the “dismissal with a caution” as a sequence. Meantime
the bear had usually held a reception in the police-station the night
before; and so much did its endearing ways win the hearts of the
“force,” that on one occasion the constable who had run it in made a
collection for its benefit the moment the case was dismissed.
This was a small Pyrenean bear, about three years old, with a rough coat
the colour of a dusty cocoa-nut fibre door-mat, and though it had a
strong steel muzzle of apparently needless severity fixed round the base
of its nose, the genial Provençal who owned it, and whose bed it usually
shared at night in the quarters of the foreign artists in street music
and ice-creams in which he dwelt when not employed in exhibiting his pet
before royalty, or elsewhere, declared that it was a “_brave bête, doux
comme un enfant, et doué de traits de caractère tout à fait
remarquables_.” The behaviour of the street urchins to the _brave bête_
was perhaps a reminiscence of the days when bear-baiting was looked upon
as an exhibition calculated to maintain the pugnacious character of the
true-bred Englishman; for, once assured that it would not hurt them,
they stamped on its toes as occasion offered, until the bear rose on its
hind legs and assumed an attitude of defence, which drove the malicious
tribe to a safe distance. “_Pauvre bête, il a peur_,” said his owner;
and it was evident not only that the bear was afraid of the brutal
children of the street, but that it looked to the “grown-ups” for
protection.