[16]
E. Spilsbury delt. T. Landseer sculpt.
Lions after Rubens.
[17]
Edwin Landseer delint. T. Landseer sculpt.
Lioness & Bitch from Cross’s Menagerie.
[No. XVII.]
Repeated instances of Friendships between the Lion and the Dog, have occurred at the Menagerie at the Tower, as well as elsewhere in England: and we have pleasure in adding a corroborating fact of a novel character. Mr. Edwin Landseer made it the subject of a Drawing from Nature, and we here present the public with an Engraving after it, executed by his brother, and numbered in our collection, 16.
A female whelp was accidentally found, quite young, and even before its eye-lids were unclosed, in an African forest not far from the sea shore. It was brought on board ship by some sailors, where a smallish black bitch, by birth quite an ignoble cur, having recently pupped, the experiment was successfully made, of ascertaining whether she would suckle the young Lioness, who was christened Charlotte.—Charlotte soon began to thrive, and to play kitten frolics; and continued to be thus nurtured, till, at no great length of time, she became so much larger than her foster-parent, and required so much food, as to induce the necessity of weaning her.
But the two quadrupeds continued, ever after, to live together on the most friendly and affectionate terms; constantly inhabiting the same cage, and habitually partaking of the same messes of provision. The Lioness, though now grown large, having never seen any other mother, continued through life to shew marks of daughterly obedience, and the bitch, of maternal regard. Mr. Edwin Landseer, as well as many others, has frequently seen them caressing each other in their cage at the Exeter ’Change Menagerie, in the manner which he has represented: the Drawing, which exhibits portraits both of the Lioness and Bitch, having been done some years ago.
And these kitten frolics, or the youthful disposition to indulge in them, continued on the part of the Lioness, till her older and graver nurse became tired of the lion-play, and would sometimes snarl and bark forbiddingly. It was very entertaining, and an interesting chapter in Natural History, to behold this; for the Bitch ever retained an ascendancy, and much of the authority, of a parent: so that her foster-daughter, though so much larger, and so tremendously powerful, would retire obediently to the farther corner of the cage, waiting a favourable change of temper, on the part of her senior, before she renewed her playful familiarities.