Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens

by C. J. Cornish

The rough-and-ready expedient of exposing the great cats to all the changes of an English climate had a greater measure of success than might have been expected. One is apt to forget that though the tropics are the main home of the tiger and the leopard, both wander far into the northern mountains, and that the former, if brought originally from Turkestan or China, can stand an English winter as well as the Chinese monkeys. During the year after the removal of the animals to their new house there was not a single death, and the system promised so well that artificial heat was for a time discontinued, both in the Monkey House and the Giraffe House, except that given by open fires. That the health of all the animals improved is shown by the list of creatures which lived in the Gardens, including brown and black bears, leopards, and ocelots.

The present Lion House, with its fine outdoor summer palaces, and its indoor winter cages, in a house warmed with hot water, is a combination of the two previous systems, and so far as health goes it seems to leave nothing to be desired. The Zoo of the future will probably contain lion houses of vast size, in which the creatures are allowed to live together in large numbers. This is the system adopted by the largest owner of wild animals in the world, Mr. Carl Hagenbeck, of Hamburg and New York. In his gardens at Hamburg, six lions, two Bengal tigers, and one from Siberia, live harmoniously in society with a polar bear, a Thibetan bear, and a number of leopards. The chance of a battle royal at meal time seems too great to be risked; but Mr. Hagenbeck says, that provided the animals are associated when quite young, and that each addition to the family is a young one, there is no danger. Meantime the space and freedom of the great cages, and the absence of that ennui to which animals are subject when confined separately, or even in pairs, have the best effect on their growth and vivacity. In the Hamburg cage the polar bear will play and romp with the tigers for hours, and most wonderful exhibitions of strength may be seen daily in these wrestling matches between such gigantic and dissimilar creatures.

Mr. Hagenbeck is the Moltke of the wild animal trade. His menagerie at Chicago attracted more visitors even than the “gigantic wheel,” mainly because the creatures had more liberty and more space than they enjoy in any other “gardens”; and it is probable that he will effect a marked change in the modes of animal exhibitions now in use.

Meantime, whether in summer or winter, the Lion House is perhaps better worth seeing than any branch of the Society’s menagerie.

Few public characters are “at home” to visitors during so many hours of the day as its inmates; who might with justice enter a protest against the incivility of the public, which insists on taking the notice that “The lions will be fed at three o’clock,” as a pressing invitation to be spectators of their manners at mealtimes. Yet the economy of the Lion House so far differs from the ordinary life of the other inmates of the Zoo that, for an undiscerning public which wants excitement and has no time for observation, there is every inducement to confine its visits to a particular hour. The cattle-sheds, the Antelope House, the Monkey Palace, or the Aviaries, present much the same appearance at any time of the day. The pleasant round of comfort—eating, drinking, playing, or sleeping—goes on without variety or long cessation. But the life of the great carnivora is ordered differently, and with greater exactness. In the morning, in the Lion House, all is quiet. The animals are resting or sleeping, and the only visitors are artists or photographers, whom the lions “oblige” with a sitting at a cheaper rate than any professional models in the trade. We wonder in how many characters the old Nubian lion, “Prince,” appeared? He has striven with Hercules, carried Una, been vanquished by Samson, and shot by Nimrod. He has roared at Daniel, and eaten martyrs innumerable; and he still lives on canvas to entertain Androcles in his den, or dies, the last of his race, in the desert cavern of some artist’s fancy.

“Ars longa, vita brevis,” is, perhaps, a saying which would appeal to the hungry lions equally with the artistic visitors to the Zoo, as feeding-time approaches. At two o’clock p.m., the animals awake, stretch themselves, and yawn, showing the width of their enormous jaws, and rows of gleaming teeth. The public grows interested, and the artists desponding. Even the little lad in knickerbockers, the work on whose easel suggests the story of Michael Angelo’s first essay in sculpture, drops his brushes and runs to the steps at the back to watch his sitters in action. Then follows the mauvais quart d’heure before dinner,—in this case unduly protracted. All the beautiful lithe creatures, pacing ceaselessly to and fro, noiseless as ghosts, seem to be performing a kind of “grand chain,” which becomes faster and faster as their impatience and hunger increase. As the howling of the wolves in their distant cages is heard by the lions, excitement breaks beyond control, and the roars of the hungry beasts only cease as the truck of food is emptied. As a spectacle, the sight has a certain interest. But except for those whose imagination can picture no other side of animal life in daily contact with man, it is, perhaps, the worst moment to select in order to appreciate the real character of those most friendly beasts, the lions and tigers at the Zoo. In the early morning hours, when their “sitting-rooms” have been duly swept and strewn with fresh sawdust, and their toilet—which is always completed in their sleeping-chambers—is finished, the iron doors are opened, and the owners of the different cages come leisurely out to greet the day, each in its humour as the night’s sleep or natural temper dictates.

On the last occasion on which the writer waited on the tigers’ levée, it was evident that some disagreement had marked the morning hours. The tigress from Hyderabad came out with a rush, and greeted the world with a most forbidding growl. She then stood erect, like a disturbed cat, switching her tail to and fro, and after examining every corner of the cage, summoned her mate with a discontented roar. The tiger then stalked out, and endeavoured to soothe his partner with some commonplace caress, which apparently soothed her ruffled nerves, for after sharpening her claws upon the floor, she lay down, and, rolling over on her back, with paws folded on her breast, and mouth half-open, went most contentedly to sleep. The pair of tiger-cubs in the next cage were still sleeping the long sleep of youth, one making a pillow of the other’s shoulder. Tigers, it may be observed, do not sleep like cats, but resemble in all their attitudes of repose the luxurious languor of some petted house-dog, constantly rolling over on their backs, and sticking up their paws, with heads upon one side, and eyes half-opened. This pair of cubs was presented by the Maharanee of Odeypore in 1892. Both cubs, when called by the keeper, can be stroked and petted like cats. But no tiger which has yet lived in Regent’s Park has been so completely tamed as the fine northern tiger “Warsaw” from Turkestan, which died last winter, after living in the Zoo since 1886. Taking into account the hardships endured by a wild animal in its transport from the distant steppes of Central Asia, across the Caspian Sea, thence by rail to the Euxine, and finally by ship to England, it is difficult to maintain the belief in the “innate ferocity” of the tiger after making the acquaintance of “Warsaw.”

The way in which this tiger found its way to the Zoo is typical of the unexpected means by which the menagerie is supplied with rare animals. Colonel Stafford, who had been engaged on the Afghan Boundary Commission in 1885, was returning by land through Central Asia, when he found the tiger, in a little cage, waiting at the terminus on the eastern side of the Caspian, and destined for some scientific gentleman at Warsaw. As the northern tiger was almost unknown in England, and there seemed some delay in the arrival of the purchase-money, Colonel Stafford bought it for the Indian Government, who approved of his investment, and presented it to the Zoological Society. To get the tiger by the Russian Central Asian railway to the Black Sea, and thence to England, was no easy matter. In the first place, the railway officials objected that tigers were not scheduled in their bill of charges, and unlike the English station-master, who held that cats is dogs, and rabbits is dogs, and parrots is dogs, maintained that tigers were tigers, and ought to be paid for at exceptional rates, including, of course, a bribe to the officials. This view being disputed by the tiger’s owner, it remained at the station, where, being not only quite tame, but an adept at small tricks, it became a general favourite. Its great performance was that of raising a basin of water and pouring it over its head; and this accomplishment, displayed before the daughter of the superintendent of the line, ultimately secured the tiger a passage to the sea. At Poti it was shipped for Constantinople, being supplied with a small flock of sheep as food in case the voyage was protracted. The animal remembered and recognized his first purchaser long after it had found a resting-place at the Zoo, though not at so long an interval as that after which the lion in the Tower showed its affection for its old keeper. This lion, which a certain Mr. Archer, employed at the Court of Morocco, “had brought up like a puppy-dog, having it to lie on his bed, until he grew as great as a mastiff, and no dog could be more gentle to those he knew,” was sent to the Tower, where, after an interval of seven years, he recognized one John Bull, a servant of his master, who, according to Captain John Smith, “went with divers of his friends to see the lions, not knowing that his old friend was there. Yet this rare beast smelt him before he saw him, whining, groaning, and tumbling with such an expression of acquaintance, that, being informed by the keepers how he came, Bull so prevailed that the keepers opened the grate, and Bull went in. But no dog could fawn more on his master than the lion on him, licking his feet and hands, and tumbling to and fro, to the wonder of all the beholders. Bull was quite satisfied with this recognition, and managed to get out of the grate; but when the lion saw his friend gone, no beast, by bellowing, roaring, scratching, and howling, could express more rage and sorrow; neither would he either eat or drink for four whole days afterwards.” “Warsaw’s” affections were not put to so severe a test; but his forbearance may be judged from the fact that he would allow his paws to be pulled out between the bars, and his toes to be examined, to see whether his nails wanted cutting.

This amiability is very difficult to explain, unless on the ground that the tiger was captured when very young, though many cubs are ferocious when only a few months old. Another northern tiger, from China, which came as a half-grown specimen to the Gardens three years ago, was as tame as “Warsaw,” though it had suffered much in captivity, and died before attaining its full size. It was starved in China, and never recovered this early ill-usage, its brief life being a succession of illnesses; but its temper was never soured, and it was far more demonstratively affectionate than any cat. For some months it was kept in invalid quarters at the back of the house, and its loud “purrs” could be heard at the end of the passage the moment its keepers entered. It ran up and down its cage, rubbing against the bars, with its tail standing stiffly up, and delighted to have its head and ears rubbed and patted. Sutton, and the keepers more especially concerned with the Lion House, took all possible care of it, and after nursing it through an illness in which it lost all its fur, they succeeded in bringing it into condition to be shown. But the tiger soon became sick again, and after a long illness, in which it was kept alive mainly by the care and affection of the keepers, it died, much lamented.

Tameness is by no means confined to the northern species of tiger. “Jack,” an Indian tiger, which died in the same year as “Warsaw,” was quite as friendly to its keepers, and surpassed him in beauty. For some time it shared with the Sokoto lion the place of honour as the finest creature in the Gardens. When it arrived, in 1888, as a five-months-old cub, it was led by a chain and collar like a big dog, and was for some time taken to and from its cage by the keepers with no other precaution, until its reluctance to be shut up when it preferred to walk at large, and the difficulty of “coercing” so large an animal, led to its permanent incarceration. “Jack” was the tiger which, in the experiments with different musical instruments subsequently described, displayed so marked an objection to the sounds of the piccolo.