Chapter VII: Part 7

The old Polar bear is now heavy with age and indolence; but the young female exhibits an activity and “lissomness,” whether on land or in the water, which shows how swift, dexterous, and terrible a foe to animal life the Polar bear must be. Confinement and maturity have not in the least abated its vigour, and it seems to enjoy life more than any creature in the Zoo. Fresh water is let into their bath three times in the week, and as soon as the bottom is covered the young bear rolls in and “cuts capers,” to use the keeper’s phrase. “She teased the old one till he got up to have a look, and then shoved him in,” he informed us on a recent visit; and though he seldom enters the bath now, he quite enjoyed it when once under-water. When in the bath by herself the female bear is in a state of pure physical enjoyment delightful to watch. She always prefers to take a “header,” but not after the orthodox fashion, for as her nose touches the bottom she turns a somersault slowly, and then floats to the surface on her back. After several rolls in the water she begins to play. Taking hold of her hind-paws with her fore-feet, she makes a huge ball of her body, and turns round and over with a curiously buoyant, easy movement, occasionally putting her head out to take breath and look at the spectators. Then she clambers out, shakes herself, and gallops round the edge of the bath. In spite of her bulk, this bear is really as active as a cat, and can go at speed round the narrow circle without pausing or missing a step. The next object of the bear is to find something to play with in the water. Anything will do, but if nothing else is handy, she usually produces a nasty bit of stale fish which she seems to keep hidden in some handy place, and dives for it, coming to the surface with the fish balanced on her nose, or on all four paws. If the water is still running in she will lie under the spout, and let it run through her mouth. But the most amusing game in which the writer has seen her occupied was played with a large round stone. After knocking it into the water, and jumping in to fish it out, she took it in her mouth, and endeavoured to push it into the hole in the pipe through which the water was running. This was a difficult matter, for the stone was as large as a tennis-ball, and the pipe was not much wider. Several times the stone dropped out, though the bear held it delicately between her lips, and pushed it out with her tongue. At last she sat up, and holding the stone between her fore-paws, put it up to the pipe and pushed it in with her nose. This was a great triumph, and she retired and contemplated the result with much satisfaction. Later, being apparently tired of this achievement, she threw water at it with her head, and failing to wash it down, picked it out with her claws, and went on diving for it in the bath.

Bears do not often have families in the Zoo. They are bad mothers in confinement, though when wild they are most devoted to their pretty little cubs. It must be admitted that they are almost the least well-housed of any creatures in the Gardens, as their dens, though dry, are cold and small. The most remarkable cubs ever born in the Gardens were a cross between the Polar and American black bear, born in 1853. In the spring of 1894, one of the she-bears in the pit gave birth to a litter of two, but one of these was killed by the male bear, and the other fatally injured.

Their place was, however, more than filled by a pair of tiny cubs which arrived at the Gardens on Easter Monday, a gift from Mr. Arnold Pike. They are of the grey Syrian breed, which is found from the Lebanon, across the high lands of Asia Minor, as far as the Caucasus, in which mountains these cubs were found when only a few days’ old. Though in a sense they are distant relations of the bears that ate the bad children who mocked the prophet Elisha, these little fellows were extremely tame and friendly. They were about the size of a large Skye terrier when they arrived, with sawdust-coloured heads, white collars, brown bodies, and sharp noses. They fed heartily on bread-and-milk and treacle, and their little stomachs stuck out roundly in evidence of their appreciation of their diet.

They were extremely sociable, and never quite happy unless people were near them or within sight. When they had human company they sat up, stretching their claws through the bars, in order to take hold of and suck the fingers of any one who would permit it. If not they sucked their own, keeping up a continual humming noise all the time. If left alone this became a loud, sustained complaint, like the noise of a litter of hungry puppies.

Bears are far more difficult to rear than would be thought in the case of such rough, hardy creatures. They are liable even after the first six months to cramp and paralysis of the hind-quarters, which gradually increase until the animal dies.

In winter-time all the bears are worth a visit. The black Himalayan bear, with its white front, the brown Russian and American species, with their magnificent soft fur, and most beautiful of all, the full-grown Syrian bear, with coat of cinnamon-grey, carrying a bloom like that on some soft fruit, are then in perfect condition. The two grizzly bears are interesting mainly on account of their rarity, and the possibility that they may live to develop the huge proportions which American hunters are unanimous in ascribing to the monsters of the Rocky Mountains. But even in full growth, it is much to be doubted whether the grizzly ever reaches the size even of the smaller Polar bear now in the Gardens.

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YOUNG ANIMALS AT THE ZOO.

ARTEMIS, protectress of all young wild beasts, should be honoured with a statue at the Zoo; for the cages are yearly filled by the graceful young of wild creatures native to every quarter of the globe. The greater number are born in the menagerie, honest little British lions and the rest, of the true Cockney breed. Others come from the Gardens on the Continent, notably from Amsterdam, where, for some reason, the wild-beast farm thrives amazingly; and others, mainly the whelps of the fierce carnivora, are the gifts of Indian rajahs or of African sultans to the Empress of India, or captured by English sportsmen in their distant forays among the beasts of prey. By mere coincidence, the Lion House has lately been almost restocked by gifts which have been part of the tribute from the East to the West since the days of Roman Proconsuls. Five of the new arrivals were cubs, all of rare beauty of form and colouring, and in the finest health and condition. Three young tigers presented to the Princess Henry of Battenberg by the Nawab Sir Asmanjah had reached the Gardens only twenty-four hours before the writer paid them a visit, and were in a state of royal indignation at their change of quarters from the ship, to which they had become temporarily reconciled. One only would enter the front cage of the den, where it lay on its back with its paws bent inwards, growling to itself, occasionally turning over, laying its ears back on its head, and flattening its nose against the back of its wrist, like a sulky child. Two other half-grown cubs were in that interesting region known as the “passage,” which runs between the winter cages and the fine outdoor palaces behind. The details of the daily management of from twenty to thirty lions, tigers, leopards, jaguars, and pumas can be comprehended at a glance from this central position. The ground-floor of the cages in the house, and of the playgrounds on the opposite side, is about four feet higher than the floor of the passage. The sleeping compartment of each cage has an iron sliding shutter, always kept locked, which gives on the passage. A corresponding shutter leads to the playground. A travelling bridge, running on rails, and barred on each side with iron rods, is the means of transit from the cages to these outer runs. When an animal is to be transferred from one to the other, the bridge is run up, the shutters are raised, and the lion or tiger, after sniffing and hesitating like a cat entering a room, walks through the bridge-cage, and takes possession of its apartments. Two of the young tigers were in the sleeping-den; the other chose to remain in the bridge-cage, where it lay, crouched and sulking, on the floor. Though not more than half-grown, they are more massive in shape, richer in colour and marking, than any full-grown tiger in the Zoo. The record of their capture is more complete than is usual in the case of animals presented by native princes. They are part of a litter of five taken at Charglain, about fifty miles from Hyderabad. The Nawab himself shot the tigress, and had alighted from his howdah to measure it, when an alarm was raised by the beaters that another tiger had been seen creeping in the jungle. On the beat being resumed the five cubs, then about a fortnight old, were caught, each being about the size of a full-grown cat. For the first week a she-goat acted as foster-mother, but they were afterwards brought up by hand with cows’-milk from a feeding-bottle. For food on the voyage to England they were provided with a flock of sheep, and so well were they fed, that they arrived at the Gardens with half a sheep still uneaten in the cage.[7] The two lion cubs caught by Lord Delamere in Somaliland were hardly of age to leave the nursery, though the difference of temper which is so commonly observed among lions was already marked. One, a beautifully mealy-tinted little lioness, with a thick rough coat like a St. Bernard puppy, and dark-brown eyes, ran out to play with a handkerchief, and could be petted like a kitten. The other was a morose little savage, lying at the back of the cage, and growling at every passer-by. They are fed on mutton powdered with bone-dust, and promise to rival in beauty even the slim and elegant young lioness presented by the Sultan of Zanzibar.

Footnote 7:

The tigers were, in fact, over-fed. They were too heavy for their
legs, their hind-quarters grew weak, and one has died.

THE QUEEN’S LION CUB. From a photograph by Gambier Bolton.
]

Three litters of wild swine were born in the Gardens during the first eight months of 1893—two early in the spring, and one, of four beautiful piglings, late in the summer. Young wild boars are far prettier than might be expected from the rather forbidding appearance of their parents. Their bodies are slim and elegant, their snouts fine, their ears short, and their legs and feet almost as finely-shaped as those of a young antelope. Their colour is a bright fawn or a rich tan, with longitudinal stripes like those on a tabby kitten; and in place of the thick bristles of the older pigs, their bodies are covered with a long and thick coat of rough hair. Family life in the wild boars’ quarters is harmonious and amusing. For the first month the little orange-striped pigs depend on their mother for food, and take no notice either of visitors or of each other. Each roams about by itself in the most independent fashion, or drops down to sleep on its stomach, with its legs stretched straight out before and behind, like a kneeling elephant in miniature. Later, when they have to be satisfied with the food provided in the troughs, they become the most amusing and importunate beggars in the Zoo, the old sow and boar setting the example, well supported by the little pigs. The whole family stand upright on their hind-legs in a row, like heraldic pigs supporting a coat-of-arms, with their fore-feet against the rails, and squeak, grunt, and even climb the wire-netting for contributions. Even if the floor is littered with delicious hog-wash, they prefer to plead _in formâ pauperis_, and the yearning to reach just one inch farther than their brothers seems to give an impulse to the growth of their snouts, which soon grow long, flexible, and narrow, like those of the parent-swine. The ancient breed of wild swine which haunted the great Caledonian forest may claim to have been re-established, for some of these are the third generation in descent from ancestors bred in Scotland.

But the youngest member of perhaps the oldest family in the British Islands was the white calf, the lineal descendant of the wild white cattle of ancient Britain. The bull, cow, and calf formed one of the happiest family groups in the Gardens, and should be studied by any one desirous of appreciating the natural beauty of these cattle, one of which, a wild steer from Chillingham, took a first prize when judged on its merits among the finest domestic breeds of England. The bull at the Zoo belongs to the Chartley herd, which has been in the possession of Lord Ferrers’ family for nearly a thousand years, has a short muzzle, broad forehead, and crescent horns with a downward reversed curve. Its silky coat is pure white, its eyes the deepest jet-black, shaded by long white eyelashes. The tips of the ears and of the horns are black, and just above the hoof are black and white speckles, like the “flea-bites” on a Laverack setter’s coat. The cow, like the bull, is white, with black points, but the horns curve upwards. Between the two stands the little bull-calf, a perfect miniature of its father, except that the horns are only budding. It has the same black muzzle and ear-tips; even its tongue is black, and the black and lustrous eye is shaded by thick, straight white lashes, like rims of hoar-frost. Deer and antelopes breed freely at the Zoo. The eland calf has a short body, more like that of a young colt, with long legs, and the hump upon the back undeveloped. All the elands are in fine condition, and might be propagated to stock our English parks; but as an ornament they cannot compare with the indigenous wild cattle of the Chillingham or Chartley herds. Both the wild ass and the zebra had young ones. The young wild ass was a pretty, playful creature, with a coat like grey velvet; but the infant zebra was perhaps the greater favourite with the visitors to the Zoo. It exactly resembled its mother in colour, and in the distinctness and arrangement of the stripes, but it was far lighter and finer in its proportions. With a luxurious instinct for comfort, the little creature usually lay asleep upon the light-green hay which the mother pulls from the rack above—a background which contrasted admirably with its rich sepia and cream-coloured stripes.

But the pride and flower of all the youth of the Zoo is the young hippopotamus. As it lies on its side, with eyes half closed, its square nose like the end of a bolster tilted upwards, its little fat legs stuck out straight at right angles to its body, and its toes turned up like a duck’s, it looks like a gigantic new-born rabbit. It has a pale, petunia-coloured stomach, and the same artistic shade adorns the soles of its feet. It has a double chin, and its eyes, like a bull-calf’s, are set on pedestals, and close gently as it goes to sleep with a bland, enormous smile. It cost £500 when quite small, and, to quote the opinion of an eminent grazier, who was looking it over with a professional eye, it still looks like “growing into money.” There are connoisseurs in hippopotamus-breeding who think it almost too beautiful to live. We had hoped to find a prairie-dog family, as several of the smaller rodents had produced young ones; but though several of the solemn little fellows were sitting bolt upright, cramming straw into their mouths with both hands as fast as they could, like a conjuror swallowing tape, there were no little prairie dogs. The kangaroos and wallabies, on the other hand, had several “joeys”; and nothing could well be stranger than this dual existence of mother and young, in which, contrary to all precedents, the young is carried by its parent, though it is quite independent of its milk. Thus an old kangaroo or wallaby will put its head down to drink, while the young wallaby, wide awake and independent in the pouch, picks up a piece of cabbage, and, holding it in its hands, eats it like a boy eating an apple and looking out of a window. The long, sharp claws of the hind-legs are doubled forward when in the pouch, and project like a couple of pens on either side of the young one’s ears, while the tip of its tail also hangs out just under its chin. In a cage in the small mammals’ house there were a number of young weasels, which were, without exception, the brightest and most active creatures in the Gardens. They were absolutely without fear of man,—bold, impudent, and astonishingly agile. They had converted the hay at the bottom of their cage into the likeness of a hedge-bottom, with numerous tunnels, galleries, and holes, and in these they would play by the hour. It was always the same game, catching and killing, and the fury with which they would roll over and over until one had the other by the throat, and pretended to kill it, was most excellent counterfeit. The difficulty was to tell the number of the weasels. There were only four, but there seemed to be as many more. They were here, there, and everywhere, and scarcely had the tail of one disappeared at one hole, than its sharp, bright eyes were peering from another at the opposite side of the cage. They could run either backwards or forwards in the holes, and no mouse, rat, or rabbit would stand a chance against these untiring and agile little enemies.

It is difficult to say why there are no young wolves at the Zoo. According to Tschudi, the naturalist of the Alps, they are pretty little creatures, born blind, covered with reddish-white down, and sprawl in a heap like puppies. The little dingoes, of which a litter were born early in the year 1893, much resemble this description, and, like the wolf cubs, are born blind. They are sold, and fetch £1 each. Esquimaux puppies, which are often born at the Zoo, are amusing little creatures, ready to eat boiled tripe from a dish until their little stomachs resemble a cricket-ball, an instance of heredity no doubt transmitted by generations of half-starved ancestors. Young marmosets and gerbilles, Angora goats, ibexes, mountain sheep and wapiti deer, gazelles and opossums, with a brood of young puff-adders, young seagulls, and wild geese, hardly complete the list of the year’s increase at the Zoo.

In 1894 the black-headed gulls reared several broods in the Gardens, but all the other water-fowl in the large aviary failed to rear their young, though the ibises nested, and seemed about to lay.

The water-animals, unlike the water-birds, seldom breed at the Zoo. Probably the little ponds and pools in which otters, beavers, and seals are kept are not large enough to give them that quiet and repose which conduces to family life. But otters, true Devonshire otters, did once have a litter at the Zoo, and the head-keeper, Mr. James Hunt, who was greatly interested in their welfare, gave the following pretty description of their habits.[8]

Footnote 8:

_Proceedings Zool. Soc._, Mar. 13, 1847.

“The female otter was presented to the Society by Lady Rolle on February 4, 1840, being apparently at that time about three months old. In 1846 a large male was presented to the Society by the Rev. P. M. Brunwin, of Braintree, Essex. Its weight when first taken was 21 lbs.; but it was not half that weight when presented to the Society, having wasted much in confinement in a cellar. About a month after his arrival there was continual chattering between him and the female at night, which lasted for four or five nights, but they did not appear to be quarrelling. On August 13, the keeper who has charge of them went to give them a fresh bed, which he does once a week. While pulling out the old bed he saw two young ones, apparently about five or six days old, and about the size of a full-grown rat; he immediately put back the bed, with the young ones in it, and left them.

“On the twenty-first the mother removed them to the second sleeping-den; her object appeared to be to let them have a dry bed. On the 9th of September they were first seen out of the house; they did not go into the water, but crawled about, and appeared very feeble.

“On September 26 they were first seen to eat fish, and follow the mother into the water. They did not dive like the mother, but went in like a dog, with their head above water, and it was not till the middle of October that they were observed to plunge into the water like the old ones. When the water was let out of the pond for the purpose of cleaning it they were shut up, but got out, and into the pond when it was half full of water. The young ones were not able to get out without help, and for some minutes the mother appeared very anxious, and made several attempts to reach them from the side of the pond where she was standing, but without success, as they were not within reach.

“She then plunged into the water to them, and began to play with one of them for a short time, and put her head close to its ears, as if to make it understand what she meant; the next moment she made a spring out of the pond, with the _young one holding on to the fur_ at the root of the tail _by its teeth_; this she did several times during a quarter of an hour, as the young ones kept going into the water as fast as she got them out. Sometimes the young held on by the fur of her sides, sometimes by that at the tail. As soon as there was sufficient water for her to reach them from the side of the pond, she took hold of them near the ears with her mouth, and drew them out, and led them round the pond close to the fence, and kept chattering to them, as if telling them not to go into the pond again.”

OTTER PURSUING FISH. _From a Japanese Drawing._
]

A litter of young raccoons were born in the spring of 1894. Unfortunately they all died, just as it was hoped that they had passed the most dangerous time of infancy. On the other hand, the little Caucasian bear cubs, which arrived at Easter, throve amazingly, and in three months grew to the size of a retriever dog, though they had not abandoned the youthful habit of sucking the paws and “humming,” to signify that they wanted to be fed. But the great and notable birth of the year, almost contemporaneous with that of the infant prince, and worthy to be noted as a _prodigium_, if the keeping of Sibylline books were part of the English Constitution, was the arrival of a young “gnu.” It was even uglier than its mother, whose compound features of a horse’s body, a bull’s horns, and a goat’s beard combine to make her one of the strangest beasts existing. The infant was exactly like its mamma, minus the horns, but plus a high nose, and a curly beard, which makes it in profile rather like a portrait of Sennacherib or Shalmanezar. Another most beautiful calf of the wild cattle, a cross between the Chartley bull and the white cow from the Bangor herd, is as pretty and pleasing as the gnu calf is ugly. But in each case the mother is vastly proud of its infant, and they are probably the best judges of what their offspring should be.

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ANIMAL COLOURING.

THE conclusions of naturalists as to the laws which govern the colouring of animals must, it seems, be modified. There is no reason, however, to fear any loss of interest in one of the prettiest and most attractive sides of natural history. The collection and comparison of the wonderful analogies in colour between animals and their environment, and between one animal and another, will still be guided by the leading principles which Bates and Wallace detected; and the delight and surprise with which the non-scientific world welcomed these discoveries need neither be regretted nor diminished. But without wishing to grudge one iota of the praise awarded to explanations, the dexterity and aptness of which would alone entitle them to admiration, it is still possible to doubt whether some of the minor hypotheses framed to account for facts which seemed to stand outside the explanation of colour mimicry by the general law of the survival of the fittest, are not almost too ingenious. The fascination of the subject is so great that it seems to develop an over-keenness of scientific insight. The facts of resemblance themselves are so wonderful, and the contrast between the colours of the sexes in birds so startling, that the temptation to make a great principle like that of natural selection fit the exact requirements of each case, and to explain the complexity of Nature in a sentence, is almost irresistible. It is quite possible that the principle of natural selection, which gives a perfect explanation of the wonderful phenomena of “protective mimicry,” may also be the master-key to the remaining problems of animal hues. The chief difficulties which remain, after accounting for protective coloration, are, first, the extraordinary differences between the tints and plumage of male and female in many birds; and, secondly, the conspicuous colours of certain creatures by which the attention of their enemies must necessarily be attracted. The first of these obvious difficulties has been explained by what is called “sexual selection,” which is an auxiliary to the general law of natural selection. The female pheasants, or birds of paradise, or pigeons, as the case may be, by an enduring good taste in choosing for their mates those with the brightest plumage and finest wattles and spurs, have played their part in the general scheme of evolution so well, that their progeny have in time developed all the beauties which they now possess. That theory is obviously quite consistent with the general law. It accounts logically in part, if not entirely, for the perilous beauties of the stronger sex. But there are creatures in gorgeous attire for which “sexual selection” could give no justification—caterpillars, for instance, which run additional risks by their conspicuous hues. “That,” said the naturalist, “is in order to advertise their inedible qualities!” “They require,” writes Mr. Wallace, “some signal, or danger flag, which shall serve as a warning to would-be enemies not to attack them, and they have usually obtained this in the form of conspicuous or brilliant coloration, very distinct from the protective tints of the defenceless animals allied to them.” There is one obvious objection to this explanation. It is really too clever. It fits the case so perfectly that, in the absence of further experiment and observation, one is reluctantly obliged to pause before yielding entirely to such a brilliant surmise, and to welcome the note of warning which Mr. Beddard, the Prosector of the Zoological Society, utters in his admirable work on “Animal Coloration.”[9] It is evident, from the space given to the two points of “Sexual Selection” and “Warning Colours” in this work, which aims only at furnishing a general notion of the facts and theories relating to animal coloration, that room exists for doubt as to the value to be attached to either theory. The contribution which Mr. Beddard makes towards solving the difficulty is threefold. He presents as alternatives to the theories of sexual selection and warning coloration, the ingenious speculations of Mr. Stoltzmann and Dr. Eisig, neither of which have yet found their way into works of a popular character; and he gives an account of numerous and careful experiments made at the Zoo, with insects of brilliant colouring and reputed evil flavour, as food for birds and reptiles. No care or pains was omitted to get at the truth of these supposed instances of warning colouring. No augurs, with the purest motives to guide their interpretation of the omens, ever watched the feeding of the sacred chickens in the Capitol with a more ardent desire to mark the real appetite of the prophetic fowls, than did Mr. Beddard and his predecessors, in observing the practical results of “warning coloration” when making trial of the birds at the Zoo. But the list of experiments does not give any clear line of refusal or acceptance between the “protectively coloured” insects and their more sober relations, and Mr. Beddard’s conclusion is that “the experiments which have been made might be taken to prove anything.” That is, so far, disappointing. But it is probable that with time and patience a body of evidence will be accumulated which will throw more light on the vexed question of the palatability of these gaudy insects or reptiles. Meantime, the discoveries of Dr. Eisig, to which Mr. Beddard introduces us, throw light on the question from a different point of view. If his surmises are confirmed, the fact will be additional evidence in favour of that minute and laborious specialization which so often goes without reward. His researches were devoted to the history of a small group of sea-worms. One of these he found living parasitically upon a marine sponge in the Bay of Naples. The sponge was of a yellow colour, caused by the presence of small particles of colouring-matter. The worm was of the same colour, with bright orange spots, and the _pigment_ which coloured the sponge was found to be the same which coloured the worm, having been simply transferred from the tissues of the sponge to the skin of the worm, after going through part of the alimentary canal. Dr. Eisig is of opinion that the “pigment” so transferred from the alimentary canal to the skin is itself the cause of the creature being distasteful, which suggests the conclusion that the brilliant colour—that is, the secretion of a quantity of colouring-matter—has itself caused the inedibility of species, rather than that the inedibility has made necessary the production of bright colour as an advertisement. “This explanation,” Mr. Beddard remarks, “is not entirely contrary to the views of Wallace, Poulton, and others; for we may still suppose that the bright colours are actually ‘warning’ colours, although they have not been evolved for this purpose.” But the weakness, as well as the attraction, of the unmodified theory really lies in the supposition of the creation in the creature of colour, for the express purpose of advertisement. The modest conjecture of Dr. Eisig transfers the explanation to safer ground.

Footnote 9:

_Animal Coloration_, by F. E. Beddard, M.A., Prosector to the
Zoological Society of London. Swan, Sonnenschein, and Co., London.
Macmillan and Co., New York.

The mode by which, in the simple organisms which he observed, the colour was transferred from the food to the feeder, also suggests the existence of some simple and natural relation between the tints in the skin, or hair, and external conditions of food and temperature, to account for the strange changes of colour to suit outside conditions in animals exposed to the rigours of a northern winter. The mountain hare of Ireland does not always change its colour to white in winter, though in the colder climate of Scotland and Norway the change is the rule. So the Arctic fox seems always to be “bleached” in the extreme north, though often retaining its darker dress throughout the year when further south. Yet exactly the same effects are found in connection with want of food as with want of warmth. The rats in a large iron ship which was recently wrecked off the coast of Northumberland,[10] and remained stranded for many weeks without connection with the shore, turned quite white—a change due apparently to starvation.

Footnote 10:

Near Blyth. When some shipwrights visited the vessel to remove rigging
and fittings, the starving rats swarmed round them, and ate the food
which they had brought for their dinners.

In strong contrast with the modifications of the part played by evolution in animal colouring, suggested by Dr. Eisig, is the alternative which Mr. Stoltzmann proposes to the theory of sexual selection. It is not a change which will flatter the masculine imagination. Contrasted with the view which accounted for the predominance of male strength, and in some cases of masculine beauty, over the weaker sex by a long course of discerning feminine selection, it has an unconscious irony. Going quite outside the merits of the male sex _per se_, Mr. Stoltzmann weighs its worth in view of the survival of a species. So considered, an excess of males is an evil, which the law of natural selection is under obligations to remedy.[11] The tendency of Nature is to produce a superabundance of males, observations on the origin of sex having shown that the percentage of male birds among birds is greater than that of females. Further inquiries into the influence of nutrition on sex go to show that badly-nourished eggs produce males, while well-nourished eggs produce females; and scarcity of food is a more common condition than its abundance. The fine feathers which “make fine birds” have therefore been given to the males with a view to exposing them to the attacks of their enemies, and so reducing their numbers, always—be it observed—in accordance with the law of the survival of the fittest, but by a curiously different line of argument from that which lent its weight to the theory of sexual selection. Probably neither the one nor the other should stand alone; nor is this result to be feared. Bigotry seems almost unknown to the spirit of the natural history research of to-day; the only danger of the open mind of its followers is in the constructive ingenuity of theory which it seems to foster.

Footnote 11:

The bad result of an excess of males is perhaps best ascertained in
the case of grouse moors. See Mr. A. Stuart Wortley’s remarks upon
this in _The Grouse_ (Fur and Feathers Series, Longmans, Green & Co.).

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WILD-CATS AT THE ZOO.

THE reservation of one-tenth of the area of Scotland for deer-forests has probably arrested the extermination of three, if not of four, of the largest and rarest of our birds and beasts of prey for at least a century. The great increase in the numbers of the golden eagle, and the migration of the ospreys from the lakes to the forests, are among the results of the protection so afforded. It was reasonable to expect that the wild-cat would also benefit by the policy, now generally in favour with owners of forests, of encouraging animals of prey to keep down the grouse and hares. The arrival at the Zoological Gardens of two genuine Scotch wild-cats, trapped during last year on the same estate in Inverness-shire, is evidence that even there the rarest and wildest of all British quadrupeds are recovering from the persecution of half a century of grouse and black-cock preserving. Both were caught in steel traps, and each had lost part of a fore-foot; but with the wonderful vitality of all cats, they so far recovered from their injuries that, on being confronted with each other, they at once joined battle, like the Border rider at Chevy Chase, who—

“When his legs were smitten off,
Did fight upon his stumps.”

These bold and courageous beasts, fresh from the remnants of the Caledonian Forest, have not diminished either in size or courage since the wild-cat was described by John Bossewell in 1597:—“He is slye and wittie, and seeth so sharply that he overcometh the darkness of night by the shyninge light of his eyen. In shape of body he is like unto a leopard”—[this is not the case, however]—“and hathe a great mouth. He doth delight that he enjoyeth his liberty; and in his youth he is swift, plyante, and merye. He maketh a rueful noise and a gasteful when he profereth to fight with another.” The growling of the wild-cats is “gasteful” indeed, not only when they proffer to fight with another, but whenever a friendly visitor proffers to look at them. That owned by Lord Lilford, which has been in the Zoological Gardens for some time, when exhibited at the cat show at the Westminster Aquarium, performed the singular and creditable feat in wild-cat annals of growling without ceasing for two whole days, varied only by explosions of hisses and spitting. This cat is somewhat lighter, and has fewer dark markings than the Scotch wild-cats; the ground hue of the fur is pepper-colour, its eyes pale-green, its nose very small—not a usual feature in wild-cats—and covered with fur, its face round and bushy, and its expression infinitely surly. The only stripes distinctly marked are two on either side of the head.

Though the list of so-called wild-cats includes nearly twenty species, there is only one, besides the animal we have described, which seems to compete with it as the possible undescended great original of the “bundle of concepts” which civilized man has in his mind when, with reference to all the varieties of the domestic animal, he uses the abstract term “cat.” This is the “chaus,” or jungle-cat, which bears somewhat the same geographical and tribal relation to a Scotch or Russian wild-cat as a Pathan tribesman to a Highlander. The Scotch wild-cat is found with very little variation throughout Northern and Central Europe, across the steppes of Northern Asia, as far as the southern limits of the Nepaul Hills. At a height of some 8000 ft. his place is taken by another cat, equally bold, and far less retiring and solitary, the “chaus,” which is common not only in India, but at the roots of the Caucasus, and throughout Northern Africa and Upper Egypt. A splendid specimen of this Oriental cousin of our wild-cats occupies a cage in the same house at the Zoo, under the somewhat misleading name of the “Egyptian cat.” Nothing could well be more different from the paintings of the sleek tabbies of ancient Egypt, the sacred animals of the goddess Bast, petted by priests, and taught to catch wild-fowl for their masters in the reedy banks of the Nile, than this rough, round, broad-headed, bushy-whiskered, “upstanding” savage, who has held his own till the present day in the swamps of Asia and Africa, and in the immediate neighbourhood of every Indian country village or tank, just as the European wild-cat did in England till the days of the Tudors. The late General Douglas Hamilton, in his journals of sport in Southern India, tells a story of the courage of this Indian wild-cat, which matches exactly the experience of Charles St. John in Sutherlandshire. St. John’s terriers had brought a wild-cat to bay under a rock, and when he approached, the animal sprang straight at his face, and was only stopped by a blow from a stick which he had cut before coming up to aid the dogs. General Hamilton says of the chaus—“One of these animals came into our cantonment evidently on the prowl for fowls, or anything it could pick up; so we collected all the dogs we could, and had a hunt. We came to a long check, the dogs being quite at fault. After looking for some time, I spied the cat squatting in a hedge, and called for the dogs. When they came I knelt down and began clapping my hands and cheering them on; the cat suddenly made a clean spring at my face; I had just time to catch it as one would a cricket-ball, and giving its ribs a strong squeeze, I threw it to the dogs, not, however, before it had made its teeth meet in my arm, just above my wrist. For some weeks I had to carry my arm in a sling, and I shall carry the marks of the bite to my grave.” The chaus is a far finer animal even than the European wild-cat. It is larger and more powerful, though its proportions and movements are almost the same. In colour it is a fine tawny-grey, with long bushy hair, a ruff round its face, yellow cheeks shading into white, a long, very broad nose, long ears slightly tufted, yellow eyes, and bars on its tail. There are also two dark bars on the inside of the arm, above the elbow; when laying its ears back, spitting and uttering growls like distant thunder, it is the “very moral” of a big, ill-tempered domestic tom-cat, which poaches all day, fights all night, and sleeps by choice in the coal-cellar. Apart from their general resemblance to the tame cat, both the chaus and the Scotch cat in their moments of repose exactly resemble the domestic species. They never “pace” their cages—a habit which distinguishes all leopards and tigers, and all the tiger-cats _when young_. They sleep all day, if possible, either curled up on their backs with their noses upwards, like a tame cat in a sunny window; or with their backs drawn up and their fore-paws tucked neatly under their chests. When feeding, they do not lie down like the leopards, but crouch over their food, with their jaws almost upon the ground, and their backs somewhat arched, like a tame cat with a mouse. Anatomists state that the European wild-cat differs from the tame animal in the dimensions of that part of its interior which is in such request for violin-strings. If this objection is fatal to the claim of the former to be the ancestor of our cats, we should be inclined to find its direct ancestor in the chaus—a view which need not conflict with the conclusions of M. Champfleury, who considers that the Egyptian cat was acclimatized in Egypt at the same time as the horse, in 1668 B.C.

All the other wild “cats” are either tiger-cats, leopard-cats, or puma-cats, names in which the last half of the compound should, we think, be read rather as a “diminutive” than as an index to race. In them the habits and appearance of the larger rather than the smaller animal appear to the writer to bear the greater proportion in the affinities of the whole. From first impressions, the Bengal tiger-cat, for example, appears to be a variety of the domestic cat with the coat and colouring of a leopard, or rather of a cheetah. Its attitudes, or rather those of the full-grown specimen in the Society’s collection, are those of a tired house-cat. It sleeps in the same positions, and like the true cats never “paces” for exercise. But a young one of the same species, shown this year at the Westminster Aquarium, untamed, preserved all the lion-like features strongly developed, just as the young of lions and pumas preserve the spots which disappear at maturity. The movements of this little creature and its general proportions were almost exactly those of a quarter-grown lion. It had the square head, the flat massive jaws, and the same restless, eager, pacing movements from side to side of its cage, and feet always ready to claw or strike. The colouring and texture of the skin in the full-grown animal are wholly unlike any variety of domestic cat known to the “fancy.” Its colour is tawny, its coat short and close, its eyes yellow with a black centre. The face of the adult is narrow like that of a female house-cat; but the six parallel lines, two on either side, and two in the centre of the head, break into spots upon the back. Its tail, which is long and thick, is spotted, not ringed, and it has spotted, leopard-like legs.

The collection of these beautiful smaller _felidæ_ in the Zoological Gardens is less complete than that of any other tribe exhibited. Even the “clouded tiger,” the most perfect in colouring of all the spotted kinds, has disappeared from the collection, though some years ago there were two fine specimens in the Cat House. The “clouded tiger” is marked with almost rectangular ornaments of clouded black on a ground of rich buff. It is the largest of all the “tiger-cats,” and has a very long, thick, silky tail, ringed with black. This animal has a special claim to be an inmate of the Zoo, for it was first discovered and brought to this country by Sir Stamford Raffles, the moving spirit in the establishment of the Zoological Society. They were no less good than beautiful, and the following description of their behaviour from the pen of Sir Stamford Raffles himself should be contrasted with the ancient and inbred malignity of the true wild “cat.”

“Both my specimens,” he wrote, “were remarkable for good-temper and playfulness; no domestic kitten could be more so. They were always courting intercourse with persons passing by, and in the expression of the countenance, _which was always open and smiling_, showed the greatest delight when noticed, throwing themselves on their backs, and delighting in being tickled and rubbed. On board the ship there was a small Musi dog, who used to play round the cage with one of these animals, and it was amusing to see the playfulness and tenderness with which the latter came in contact with its inferior-sized companion. When fed with a fowl that had died, he seized the prey, and after sucking the blood and tearing it a little, he amused himself for hours in throwing it about, and jumping after it, in the manner that a cat plays with a mouse before it is quite dead. He never seemed to look on men or children as prey, but as companions. The natives assert that when wild they live principally on poultry, birds, and the smaller kind of deer. They are not found in numbers, and may be considered rather a rare animal, even in the southern part of Sumatra. Both specimens constantly amused themselves by jumping and clinging to the top of their cage, and throwing a somersault, and twisting themselves round in the manner of a squirrel when confined, the tail being extended, and showing to great advantage when so expanded.”

It is obvious that so active and beautiful an animal could not be seen with advantage, or kept in good health in the cramped little cages of the present Cat House. But the Society still possess a good specimen of the finest of the “self-coloured” puma-cats,—the golden cat of Sumatra, an island in which every ornamental species, whether bird or beast, seems endowed with a double gift of beauty. In colouring it is unique, and its proportions are as elegant as its tints. The fur on the back is the colour of the red variety of gold-stone, with the texture of thick-piled velvet. This warm and luminous hue pales into white on the belly, and runs up the chest, ending on the chin, which is square and almost bearded, giving a tigerish expression to the head. On the mask of the face the reddy golden fur is striped with wavy lines of orange and white. The eyes are strangely large, dark, clouded, beryl-brown globes, with smoky-yellow topaz lights, and shine like round translucent gems set in a velvet case. This mass of orange-tawny, gold, and topaz, is set off by the pale rose-pink of the nose and lips, and the not unfrequent exhibition of rows of ivory teeth. The whole body is elegant and symmetrical, and the colouring so exactly balanced, that the warm white of the lower parts which ends in front at the point of the chin, extends with the same precision along the lower part of the tail even to the tip, as if the golden cat were fresh from a swim across a lake of cream. Among the _lacunæ_ in this part of the collection the marbled tiger-cat, the viverrine cat, the Pampas-cat, the Margay, the Eyra cat, the jaguarondi, and the leopard-cat of Bengal may be mentioned. Most of these have been seen at the Zoo at one time or another, and Mr. Bartlett found the “Eyra cat” a most affectionate and amusing pet. It is an American wild-cat, but far longer and lither in shape than others of the true cats, resembling a genet in shape. It is a tree-climbing species, as active on the branches as a squirrel.

On the other hand, there are a pair of ocelots which, in the absence of the clouded tiger, may be taken as representing almost the highest development of ornament among four-footed animals. One of the pair comes from Southern and the other from Central America. No two ocelots are marked exactly alike, but the general tone and shading is sufficiently alike to compare them generally with other species. The Argus pheasant alone seems to afford a parallel to the beauties of the ocelot’s fur, especially in the development of the wonderful “ocelli,” which, though never reaching in the beast the perfect cup and ball ornament seen on the wings of the bird, can be traced in all its earlier stages of spots and wavy lines, as far as the irregular shell-shaped ring and dot on the feet, sides, and back, just as in the subsidiary ornament of the Argus pheasant’s feathers. Most of the ground tint of the fur is a pearly smoke-colour, on which the spots develop from mere dots upon the legs, and speckles on the feet and toes to large egg-shaped ocelli on the flanks. There are also two beautiful pearl-coloured spots at the back of each ear, like those which form the common ornaments of the wings of many moths. As in the golden cat, the very large convex translucent eye and the pink nose make the face of the ocelot a wonderful combination of contrasts in colour and texture. Apparently they are tame and friendly, though the conditions of their life at the Zoo are hardly such as tend to promote good-temper.

The remaining occupants of the Cat House are mostly lynxes, or half-lynxes, like the servals and caracals, or civets and genets. There is a fine collection of the last pretty little creatures, which are far more like ichneumons and mongooses than any form of cat. The most interesting fact about these thoroughly Oriental-looking beasts is that one is actually found in the Alps, where one could almost as soon expect to discover a cobra or a crocodile. They are beautifully marked and spotted with black and dark-brown or smoky-grey, and are as restless as a mongoose or a coati.

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THE SPEECH OF MONKEYS.