the avenue, arched with lime-trees, in summer a veritable isle of verdure.
What a charming picture it used to be to see the docile elephant pacing
towards us with ponderous and majestic steps, whilst, in the scarlet
howdha, happy children swayed from side to side as she marched. She, who
was our delight for so many years, died some time since of a storm of
thunder and lightning. Such indeed was what may seem at first the singular
verdict of the medical man who made his _post mortem_. The terror,
however, inspired by the storm appears to have produced some nervous
disease, under which she succumbed. There is a suspicion that the carcase,
five thousand pounds and upwards in weight, which was disposed of to the
nackers, ultimately found its way to the sausage-makers. Do not start,
good reader; elephant's flesh is considered excellent eating by the tribes
of South Africa, and the lion-slayer tells us that the feet are a true
delicacy. He used to eat them as we do Stilton cheese, scooping out the
interior and leaving the rind; he exhibited to his audience some of these
relics, which looked like huge leather fire-buckets. And now we have only
the young animal left, that once sucked his huge mother, to the delight of
the crowd of children, and to the disgust of the rhinoceros, who is the
sworn enemy to all elephants. The little one is growing apace, however,
and has already been promoted to carry the long-deserted howdha. The
rhinoceros, close at hand, is the successor of the fine old fellow
purchased in 1836 for 1,050_l._, the largest sum ever given by the society
for a single animal. The specimen now in the gardens cost only 350_l._ in
1850, so much do these commodities fluctuate in value. His predecessor,
who departed this life full of years, was constantly forced upon his belly
by a pugnacious elephant, who pressed his tusks upon the back of his
neighbour when he came near the palings which separated their inclosures.
This rough treatment appears to have led to his death, as Professor Owen
found, on dissecting the massive brute, which weighed upwards of two tons,
that the seventh rib had been fractured at the bend near the vertebral
end, and had wounded the left lung.
Not far from the picturesque house built by Decimus Burton, in one of the
cages fronting the office of the superintendent of the gardens, is to be
seen a beaver. The wonderful instinct of this little animal is certainly
not inferior to that of the huge elephant. As yet he has not been placed
in circumstances to enable the public to witness his building capacities;
but it is the intention, we understand, of the Council to give him a
stream of running water and the requisite materials to construct one of
those extraordinary dams for which this animal is so famous. In Canada,
where he used to flourish, the backwoodsmen often came upon hill-sides
completely cleared of good-sized trees by colonies of these little
creatures, who employed the felled timber to construct their dams--dams,
not of a few feet in length, but sometimes of a hundred and fifty feet,
built according to the best engineering formula for resisting the pressure
of water, namely, in an angle with its apex pointed up the stream, and
gradually narrowing from base to summit. In short, Mr. Brunel himself
could not outdo your beaver in his engineering operations. Even in
confinement this sagacious Rodent loves to display his skill, as we may
learn from Mr. Broderip's account of his pet Binney:--
"Its building instinct," says that accomplished naturalist, "showed
itself immediately it was let out of its cage, and materials were
placed in its way, and this before it had been a week in its new
quarters. Its strength, even before it was half-grown, was great, it
would drag along a large sweeping-brush, or a warming-pan, grasping
the handle with its teeth, so that the load came over its shoulder,
and advancing in an oblique direction till it arrived at the part
where it wished to place it. The long and large materials were always
taken first; and two of the longest were generally laid crosswise,
with one of the ends of each touching the wall, and their other ends
projecting out into the room. The area caused by the cross-brushes and
the wall he would fill up with hand-brushes, rush baskets, books,
boots, sticks, cloths, dried turf, or anything portable. As the work
grew high, he supported himself on his tail, which propped him up
admirably; and he would often, after laying on one of his building
materials, sit up over against it, appearing to consider his work, or,
as the country people say, 'judge it.' This pause was sometimes
followed by changing the position of the materials, and sometimes they
were left in their place. After he had piled up his materials in one
part of the room (for he generally chose the same place), he proceeded
to wall up the space between the feet of a chest of drawers which
stood at a little distance from it, high enough on its legs to make
the bottom a roof for him, using for this purpose dried turf and
sticks, which he laid very even, and filling up the interstices with
bits of coal, hay, cloth, or anything he could pick up; the last place
he seemed to appropriate for his dwelling, the former work seemed to
be intended for a dam. When he had walled up the space between the
feet of the chest of drawers, he proceeded to carry in sticks, cloths,
hay, cotton, and to make a nest; and when he had done, he would sit up
under the drawers, and comb himself with the nails of his hind feet."
Well done, Binney! If the beaver in the garden will only work out his
natural instincts as perfectly, we may expect some amusement. Up to a late
period the beaver had become rather a scarce animal, the exigencies of
fashion having nearly exterminated him. When silk hats came in, however,
the annual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of his race, for the sake of
the fur, gradually slackened, and now he is beginning to increase in his
native retreats,--a singular instance this of the fashions of Paris and
London affecting the very existence of a prolific race of animals in the
New World! In the very next compartment is a hare, who for years played
the tambourine in the streets of the metropolis, but his master, finding
that his performances did not draw, exchanged him at these gardens for a
monkey; and now, whilst he eats his greens in peace, poor Jacko, in a red
cloak and a feathered cap, has probably to earn his daily bread by
mimicking humanity on the top of a barrel-organ. But the hippopotamus
surges into his bath in the inclosure as we pause, and there is a rush of
visitors to see the mighty brute performing his ablutions. He no longer
gives audience to all the fair and fashionable folks of the town. Alas for
the greatness of this world! the soldier-crab and the Esop prawn now draw
better "houses." Whether or no this desertion has embittered his temper,
we cannot say, but he has certainly lost his amiability, notwithstanding
that he still retains the humorous curl-up of the corners of his mouth
which Doyle used to hit off so inimitably. At times, indeed, he is
perfectly furious, and his vast strength has necessitated the
reconstruction of his house on a much stronger plan. Those only who have
seen him rush with extended jaws at the massive oaken door of his
apartment, returning again and again to the charge, and making the solid
beams quiver as though they were only of inch-deal, can understand the
dangerous fits which now and then are exhibited by a creature, who was so
gentle, when he made his _début_, that he could not go to sleep without
having his Arab keeper's feet to lay his neck upon. This affection for his
nurse has undergone a great change, for, on Hamet's countryman and
coadjutor, Mohammed, making his second appearance with the young female
hippopotamus, Obaysch very nearly killed him in the violence of his rage.
He has a peculiar dislike to the sight of working men, especially if they
are employed in doing any jobs about his apartment. The smith of the
establishment happening one day to be passing along the iron gallery which
runs across one side of his bath, the infuriated animal leapt out of the
water, at least eight feet high, and would speedily have pulled the whole
construction down, had not the man run rapidly out of his sight. We trust
his temper will improve when his young bride in the adjoining room is
presented to him; but she is as yet but a baby behemoth, although growing
fast. The enormously strong iron railings in front of his apartments are
essential to guard against the rushes he sometimes makes at persons he
does not like. Look at that huge mouth, opened playfully to receive
nic-nacs! What is a bun or a biscuit to him? Down that huge throat goes
one hundred pounds weight of provender daily. Surely the dragon of Wantley
had not such a gullet.
The giraffes in the adjoining apartment have been in the gardens so long
that they are no longer thought a rarity; but it should be remembered that
the four procured in 1835 from Khordofan by the agent of the society were,
like the hippopotamus, the first ever exhibited in Europe since the days
of ancient Rome. Of these only one female now remains; but very many have
been bred in the gardens, and have continued in excellent health. At the
present moment three of their progeny are housed in the apartment we are
entering. The finest, a male, is a noble fellow, standing nearly seventeen
feet high. When he strides out into the inclosure, high up as the trees
are protected by boarding, he yet manages to browse as in his African
forests, and it is then that the visitor sees the full beauty of the
beast, which is lost in the house. The giraffe, in spite of his mild and
melancholy look, which reminds us forcibly of the camel, yet fights
ferociously with his kind at certain seasons of the year. Two males once
battled here so furiously that the horn of one of them was actually driven
into the head of the other. Their method of fighting is very peculiar:
stretching out their fore and hind legs like a rocking-horse, they use
their heads, as a blacksmith would a sledgehammer, and swinging the
vertebral column in a manner calculated, one would think, to break it,
they bring the full force of the horns to bear upon their antagonist's
skull. The blow is severe in the extreme, and every precaution is taken to
prevent these conflicts.
As we pass along a narrow corridor in which the ostriches are confined, we
reach at length the last inhabitant of the garden, and the most curious
creature, perhaps, which it contains. If the keeper is at hand, he will
open the door of the box in which it lives, and drive out for us the
bewildered-looking apteryx--the highest representative, according to
Professor Owen, of the warm-blooded class of animals that lived in New
Zealand previous to the advent of man. Strange and chaotic-looking as are
most of the living things brought from Australia and the adjacent islands,
this creature is certainly the oddest of the bird class, and is, we
believe, the only one ever seen out of New Zealand. As it vainly runs into
the corners and tries to hide itself from the light of day, we perceive
that it is wingless and tailless; it looks, in short, like a hedgehog
mounted upon the dwarfed yet powerful legs of an ostrich, whilst its long
bill, which seems as though it had been borrowed from a stork, is employed
when the bird leans forward, to support it, just as an old man uses a
stick. This strange creature seems to hold among the feathered bipeds of
Polynesia a parallel position to the New Holland mole (_Ornithorhynchus
paradoxicus_)--which possesses the bill and webbed feet of a duck with the
claws of a land animal--among the quadrupeds. Mr. Gould remarks that
nature affords an appropriate vegetation to each class of animal life. Our
universal mother seems to have matched her Flora to her Fauna in this
portion of the globe; at least, the paradoxical creatures we have
mentioned seem in happy accord with Australian vegetation, where the
stones grow outside the cherries, and the pear-shaped fruits depend from
the branch with their small ends downwards! The apteryx is entirely
nocturnal in its habits, pursuing its prey in the ground by smell rather
than by sight; to enable it to do which, the olfactory openings are placed
near the point of the beak. Thus the bird scents the worm on which it
feeds far below the surface of the ground. We must not regard the apteryx
as an exceptional creature, but rather as the type of a large class of
birds peculiar to the islands of New Zealand, which have been destroyed,
like the dodo in the Mauritius, since the arrival of man. Professor Owen,
long before the apteryx arrived in England, pronounced that a single bone
found in some New Zealand watercourse had belonged to a wingless, tailless
bird that stood at least twelve feet high.[9] This scientific conjecture
has lately been transformed into a certainty by the discovery of a number
of bones, which demonstrate that several species of Moas once roamed among
the fern-clad islands which stud the bright Polynesian ocean. These bones
have been found mixed with those of the apteryx, which thus becomes linked
to a race of mysterious creatures, which, it is supposed, have long passed
away, although a tale is told--an American one, it is true--of an
Englishman having come across a dinornis, whilst out on its nocturnal
rambles, and of his having fled from it with as much terror as though it
had been a griffin of old.
Our walk through the gardens has only enabled us to take a cursory glance
at a few of the 1,300 mammals, birds, and reptiles at present located
there; but the duty of the zoologist is to dwell minutely on each. To such
these gardens have, for the last twenty-six years, been a very
fountain-head of information. During that time a grand procession of
animal life, savage and wild, has streamed through them, and for the major
part has gone to that "bourne from which no traveller returns." Let us
rank them, and pass them before us:--
Quadrumana 1,069
Carnivora 1,409
Rodentia 1,025
Pachydermata 204
Ruminantia 1,098
Marsupialia 219
Reptilia 1,861
Aves 7,320
--making a total of 14,205. Out of this large number many curious animals
have doubtless left no trace; but through the care of the Council, no rare
specimen has died, within these five years at least, without previously
sitting for his portrait. The first part of the valuable collection of
coloured drawings, from the inimitable pencil of Mr. Wolf, accompanied by
a description from the pen of the late Mr. Mitchell, the editor of the
work, is published, under the title of "Zoological Sketches, &c.," and the
others will speedily follow. The work, when completed, will be unique in
the annals of zoology, both for the extreme beauty of the drawings, which
may be said to daguerreotype the subjects in their most characteristic
attitudes, and for the nature of the letterpress, which proves that the
editor has written from the life.
This splendid collection has been got together by presents, purchase,
breeding, and exchanges. Out of the 14,205 specimens, however, which have
been in the possession of the society, scarcely a tithe were bought. The
Queen, especially, has been most generous in her presents, and the stream
of barbaric offerings in the shape of lions, tigers, leopards, &c., which
is continually flowing from tropical princes to the fair Chief of the
nation, is poured into these gardens. Her Majesty evidently pays no heed
to the superstition once common among the people, that a dynasty was only
safe as long as the lions flourished in the royal fortress. In fact, the
gardens are a convenience to our gracious monarch as well as to her
subjects; for wild animals are awkward things to have in one's back
premises. Neither must we overlook the reproduction which has taken place
in the gardens; to such an extent, indeed, has the stock increased, that
sales to a large amount are annually made. The system of exchanges which
exists between the various British and continental societies helps to
supply the garden with deficient specimens in place of duplicates. Very
rare, and consequently expensive animals, are generally purchased. Thus,
the first rhinoceros cost 1,000_l._; the four giraffes 700_l._, and their
carriage an additional 700_l._ The elephant and calf were bought in 1851
for 800_l._; and the hippopotamus, although a gift, was not brought home
and housed at less than 1,000_l._--a sum which he more than realized in
the famous Exhibition season, when the receipts were 10,000_l._ above the
previous year. The lion Albert was purchased for 140_l._; a tiger in 1852
for 200_l._ The value of some of the smaller birds will appear, however,
more startling: thus, the pair of black-necked swans were purchased for
80_l._ (they are now to be seen in the three-island pond); a pair of
crowned pigeons and two maleos, 60_l._; a pair of Victoria pigeons,
35_l._; four mandarin ducks, 70_l._ Most of these rare birds (now in the
great aviary) came from the Knowsley collection, at the sale of which, in
1851, purchases were made to the extent of 985_l._ It would be impossible
from these prices, however, to judge of the present value of the animals.
Take the rhinoceros, for example: the first specimen cost 1,000_l._; the
second, quite as fine a brute, only 350_l._ Lions range again from 40_l._
to 180_l._, and tigers from 40_l._ to 200_l._ The price is generally ruled
by the state of the wild-beast market, and by the intrinsic rarity of the
creature. A first appearance in Europe, of course, is likely to draw, and
is therefore at the top price; but it is wonderful how demand produces
supply. Let any rare animal bring a crowd to the gardens, and in a
twelvemonth numbers of his brethren will be generally in the market. The
ignorance displayed by some persons as to the value of well-known objects
is something marvellous. We have already spoken of the sea captain who
demanded 600_l._ for a pair of pythons, and at last took 40_l._! On
another occasion, an American offered the society a grisly bear for
2,000_l._, to be delivered in the United States; and, more laughable
still, a moribund walrus, which had been fed for nine weeks on salt pork
and meal, was offered for the trifling sum of 700_l._!
We could go on multiplying, _ad nauseam_, instances of this kind, but must
conclude the catalogue of absurdities by stating that there is a firm
belief on the part of many persons that it is the Zoological Society which
has proposed the large reward, which every one has heard of, for _the_
tortoiseshell Tom. "The only one ever known" has been offered accordingly
at the exceedingly low figure of 250_l._ On one occasion a communication
was received from some person of consideration in Thuringia, requesting to
be informed of the amount of the proffered prize, which he was about to
claim. This was shortly followed by a letter from another person,
evidently written in a fury, cautioning the society against giving the
prize to the previous writer, as he was not the breeder of the cat, but
was only trying to buy it for less than its value, "in which he would
never succeed so long as the true breeder lived." To prevent further
applications on the behalf of growers of this unique animal, we may as
well state that tortoiseshell Toms may be had in many quarters.
We have said that the value of animals depends upon the state of the
wild-beast market. "Wild-beast market!" exclaims the reader; "and where
can that be?" Every one knows that London can furnish anything for money;
and if any lady or gentleman wants lions or tigers, there are dealers in
Ratcliffe Highway and the adjacent parts, who have them on the premises,
and will sell them at five minutes' notice. They "talk as familiarly of
lions as ladies do of puppy dogs;" and a gentleman who purchased a bear of
one of them, lately informed us that the salesman coolly proposed that he
should take him home with him in a cab! We once had occasion to visit the
establishment of one of these dealers, and were shown up a ladder into a
cockloft, where, hearing a bumping, and perceiving a lifting motion in a
trap-door, we inquired the reason, which called forth the dry remark that
it was only three lions at play in a box below. Although these men
generally manage to secure their live stock in a satisfactory manner, yet
accidents will occur in the best-regulated lion-stores. A wild-beast
merchant, for instance, informed us that one night he was awakened by his
wife, who drew his attention to a noise in the back-yard, where he had
placed two lions on the previous evening. On putting his head out of the
window--his room was on the ground-floor--there were the lions loose, and,
with their paws on the window-sill, looking grimly in upon him. A good
whip and a determined air consigned Leo to his cage again without further
trouble. On another occasion this same man, hearing a noise in his back
premises, found to his horror that an elephant, with his pick-lock trunk,
had let out a hyæna and a nylghau from their cages, and was busy undoing
the fastenings of a den full of lions! The same resolute spirit, however,
soon restored order. Amateurs have not always the same courage or
self-possession, and they immediately have recourse to the garden-folks to
get them out of their difficulties, as a housekeeper would send to the
station-house on finding a burglar secreted in his cellar. On one occasion
a gentleman, who had offered a rattlesnake and its young to the gardens at
a high price, sent suddenly to the superintendent to implore immediate
assistance, as the said snake, with half a score venomous offspring, had
escaped from their box and scattered themselves in his nursery. The
possessor, to avoid worse losses, was only too glad to be rid of his
guests at any pecuniary sacrifice.
We cannot close our survey without touching upon the cost of the
commissariat. The slaughtered beasts appropriated to the carnivora, we
have before stated, cost in the year 1854 no less a sum than 1,367_l._
19s. 5d. If we go through the other items of food, we shall give some
notion of the expense and the variety of the banquet to which the animals
daily sat down during that year. Thus we see hay figures for 912_l._ 14s.;
corn, seeds, &c., 700_l._ 8s. 8d.; bread, buns, &c. (for the monkeys),
150_l._ 16s. 8d.; eggs, 87_l._ 4s. 1d. (for the ant-eater principally);
milk, 69_l._ 6s. 2d.; mangold-wurzel, carrots, and turnips, 22_l._ 6s.;
dog-biscuit, 135_l._ 19s. 10d. (for the bears and wolves and dogs
chiefly); fish (for the otters, seal, pelicans, &c.), 214_l._ 8s. 8d.;
green tares, 23_l._ 16s. 8d.; rabbits and pigeons (for the snakes), 33_l._
13s. 2d.; rice and oil-cake, 66_l._ 15s.; sundries, including fruit,
vegetables, grasshoppers, snakes, mealworms, figs, sugar, &c. (for the
birds principally), 157_l._ 1s. 11d.: making a total of 3,942_l._ 8s. 3d.;
a great increase on the food bill of 1853, and which was caused entirely
by the advance of prices.
The pitch of excellence to which the gardens have arrived has naturally
resulted in drawing the increased attention of the public towards them. We
have only to contrast, for instance, the number of people who entered in
the year 1848--the first in which a more liberal system of management came
into play--with those who passed in in 1854, to see that the establishment
flourishes under the auspices of the new management; for while in the
former year only 142,456 persons passed through the turnstiles, the number
had risen in the latter to 407,676. It is interesting to observe that,
although an increase of full 100 per cent. took place upon the privileged
and ordinary shilling visitors during that interval, yet that the
reduction of the admittance-charge to sixpence on Mondays and holidays was
the main cause of the gradual influx of visitors--the year 1848 showing
only 60,566 admittances of these holiday-folks and working-people, to
196,278 in 1854. Here, then, we have an increase of 135,712 persons, many
of whom were, no doubt, rescued, on those days at least, from the
fascinations of the public-house. With all this flood of life--the greater
portion of it undoubtedly belonging to the labouring-classes,--not the
slightest injury has been done to the gardens. A flower or two may have
been picked, but not by that class of Englishmen who were once thought too
brutal to be allowed access unwatched to any public exhibition. Every year
that passes over our heads proves that such shows as these are splendid
examples of the method of teaching introduced by Bell and Lancaster; that
they furnish instruction of a nature which is never forgotten, and which
refines at the same time that it delights.
RATS.
Boswell relates that the wits who assembled at the house of Sir Joshua
Reynolds to hear Grainger's poem on the "Sugar-cane" read in manuscript,
burst into laughter when, after much pompous blank-verse, a new paragraph
commenced with the invocation--
"Now, Muse, let's sing of rats."