THE PRICES OF WILD ANIMALS.
“And can you tell me anything about the prices of wild animals, Mr. Hagenbeck?” said I.
“Well,” he replied, “prices differ from time to time, according to the fashion; for I can assure you that there is as much fashion in wild animals as there is in ladies’ dresses. Prices are also rising and falling, according as the market supply is high or low. I can remember that once I sold in one day a cargo of African beasts for thirty thousand dollars. A full grown hippopotamus is now worth £1,000. A two-horned rhinoceros, which was worth £600 in 1883, cannot now be obtained 29 at any price. An Indian tapir costs £500, an American tapir £150. Elephants vary according to size and training, from £250 to £500. A good forest-bred lion, full grown, will fetch from £150 to £200, according to species. Tigers run from £100 to £150, according to their variety. Do you know,” he continued, “that there are five varieties of royal tigers? And, besides them, there are the tigers which come from Java, Sumatra, Penang, and even from the wastes of Siberia, Snakes are very much down in the market at present. Those which formerly fetched £5 or £10, you can now get for £2. Very large ones sometimes run up to £50. Leopards £30. Black panthers £40 to £60. Striped and spotted panthers £25. Jaguars run from £30 to £100. A good polar bear will fetch from £30 to £40. Brown bears from £6 to 10£. Black American bears from £10 to £20. A sloth from Thibet £25 to £30. Monkeys run from six shillings apiece. They are most expensive in the spring, when they will sometimes fetch as much as £1 6s. Giraffes are altogether out of the market,” continued Mr. Hagenbeck with a sigh, “for there are none now to be obtained. I have sold one as low as £60, whilst the last one which I sold, four years ago, to the Brazils, I was paid upwards of £1,100 for.
“And now you might just have a look round at some of the animals. Here,” said he, as we stood before a cage of very charming monkeys, “are some very clever little animals. They can ride horses in a circus, they jump through hoops; in fact, they are trained exactly like human beings, and can do almost everything but talk. I have just sent people to Abyssinia to fetch me some big silver-gray lion-monkeys, sometimes called hamadryads. I said just now,” continued Mr. Hagenbeck, with a laugh, “that monkeys can’t talk; and yet I must believe in Professor Garner, for you give me any monkey, you like to name, and I’ll guarantee I’ll make it talk. But you can only do it by imitating them closely. Take, for instance, that chimpanzee over there,” continued the clever trainer, pointing to a little animal fast asleep on a crossbar. “Now listen,” he went on, making a peculiar noise with his lips. At once the animal woke up, jabbered a reply in chimpanzee, flew to the bars of the cage, put his tiny paw out ready for the nuts which he knew were forthcoming. “There,” said Mr. Hagenbeck, “don’t tell me monkeys can’t talk.”
A little farther on we came across a tiny baby elephant, two feet nine inches in height. It was as black as coal, and had just arrived from Singapore. It was very playful, but when I began pushing it about, as one might roll a big beer barrel, it indulged in a fretful growling, which much amused us. Seven beautiful elephants stood in one big stable together, and as I admired their huge proportions and wondered at their entire gentleness, I said to Mr. Hagenbeck, “Is it true, as the great English circus proprietor George Sanger told me last summer, that the Asiatic elephant is far more intelligent than its African brother?”
“Certainly not,” replied Mr. Hagenbeck. “The African elephants are just as clever, just as gentle, just as intelligent as the Asiatic elephants. There’s no difference between them; and I ought to know, for I have had to do with them for thirty years, and in only one year I have imported as many as seventy-six of them.”