CHAPTER X
JARDIN ZOOLOGIQUE, GHENT, FOUNDED 1851: DIRECTOR, M. NIEPELS
It was simply pouring with rain when I left Brussels to visit the Zoological Garden at Ghent; but, as luck would have it, I had scarcely paid my franc and passed the turnstile into the Garden when the rain ceased and the sun popped in and out of clouds.
Passing a duck-pond covered with pochard, the visitor comes to a café and the usual concert-hall found in all zoological gardens on the Continent. In front of the hall is a large open space with a band-stand in the middle. Just beyond is the parrot and small-bird house, in which one of the parrots was imitating a cuckoo to perfection. In the centre of this house was a large case containing stuffed animals and birds, which had lived at some time or other in the Garden. Close by was a large pheasant and peacock aviary, with indoor pens fitted with plate-glass sides.
After passing a quantity of poultry pens, the next objects which attract the visitor’s attention are the well-filled brown-bear cages. Behind them, in a house rather difficult to find, is a remarkably fine Indian elephant. We next come to a pretty pond with a variety of ducks, mostly sheldrake, swimming upon it. There is a good bird-of-prey aviary, containing, amongst other birds, a remarkably fine condor.
BARBARY SHEEP, GHENT.
The next house contained zebus, wapiti, Japanese deer, and black-and-white African sheep with fat tails. The extraordinary abundance of fat on the tails is a provision of nature, and enables the animal to go without food for a considerable period when making long marches from one patch of long grass to another, which is of frequent occurrence in the arid deserts where they live. I frequently gave as little as three arms’-length of common American sheeting for one fat-tailed sheep in Somaliland, North-East Africa, one of the principal homes of these black-and-white sheep.
In the centre of the Garden is another pond, upon which were ducks, swans, pelicans, storks, and cormorants. There was a pen of Angora sheep, the old ram having most beautifully twisted horns. In a rockery was one of the prettiest sights in the Garden—a herd of Barbary sheep, a favourite animal in Continental zoos; behind them were a herd of yak, and one of white llamas.
Anyone who happens to find himself in Ghent with an hour to spare should visit the Garden. It is close to the railway-station.