BABY LIONS ARE ALWAYS SOUGHT AFTER AS PETS.
A PAIR OF REAL “TEDDY BEARS”.
In fact, in the animal kingdom, the lion is the model husband and father. It even happens that the lion father will watch his offspring with more care and concern than the mother. More than one menagerie feature has been provided through this air of proprietorship and pride which the lion shows in his young. Circus men neglect no opportunities to provide the unusual, with the result that at the advent of a litter of cubs, the male sometimes is allowed to enter the cage where, while the crowd looks on, he good-naturedly crouches, allows the cubs to climb on his back, then, growling in good humor, walks slowly about the cage, the mother looking on from her corner, for all the world like a happily wedded pair; sometimes the proud papa lies down on the floor, letting the kids rest on his back. In fact, the lion father thinks a great deal of his children. If any one should happen to doubt it, just try to take a litter of lion cubs out of a cage while the father is there. The mother may seek her corner in fright, but not the father. He becomes a vengeful demon, ready to fight feeding forks, revolver fire, anything; even willing to give his life that his cubs may be protected. There is only one serious drawback in the happiness of lion families. They have too many children—six a year in groups of three—with the result that all too often the offspring is weak, prone to every disease, sometimes dulled in mentality and subject to sunstrokes. When the circus starts into hot territory the wise menagerie superintendent begins looking about for zoos in cool climates that desire cat animals, especially lions. Otherwise the penalties of birth may cause a few losses to be entered in the ledgers of the treasury wagon.
Quite the opposite in family bliss is the estate of the tiger. With Mr. and Mrs. Bengal there isn’t any such thing. The female tiger hates her mate and he dislikes her as cordially. Not only that, but he doesn’t seem to understand why there should be children in any family. To a gentleman tiger, there is no greater indoor sport than that of murdering his offspring, while to the mother there is nothing that merits greater love and protection than the one or two cubs which arrive every few years, for the tiger has children but seldom in captivity. Never is there offspring more than once a year, and sometimes the space lengthens to only once in three years; and usually there is but one cub.
Incidentally, there’s a sex problem in tigerdom; many a tigress goes through life an old maid, simply because there are not enough gentlemen tigers to go round. An invariable rule seems to hold sway with the striped beasts; if only one cub is born, the menagerie superintendent may announce a boy or a girl, for with the single child the matter of sex seems to be a haphazard affair. But let two cubs come into the world and one of them will be a male while the other invariably will be a female; while with the advent of a litter of three, there is usually a ratio of two females to one male, with the result that there is always a preponderance of female tigers. Perhaps that’s what makes the males so grouchy.
For grouchy they are, especially toward their children. If the father enters, through some accident, the mother’s side of the cage, it always means a skirmish, and a wild effort on the part of the female to protect her young, usually resulting in failure. The male tiger is much larger and stronger, with the result that a brief battle leaves her gasping and terrified, while with quick pounces and snarls of seeming delight, the father murders his children, one by one, and then devours them! But once, at least, in the circus world, there was reversal of the usual happening.
Grace and Calcutta were the parents of three children, and loved each other as soap loves a buzz saw. Partitioned from each other in the same cage, they spent most of their time in snarling and hissing at each other, the big male bounding and leaping at the bars, striving in his utmost to break through. Then, one day, a careless attendant left the partition open, and Calcutta gained his object.
But his rush did not seem to frighten Grace. Her cubs behind her, she swayed uncertainly for a moment, as if summoning every atom of her strength. Then, before attendants could separate them, they had met!