we fancy they could accomplish this act, as well at least as children who
are suffering from cold in the head. The male affords us an opportunity of
showing the difference between the African variety to which he belongs and
the East Indian specimen at the other end of the terrace. Our young Cape
friend has a fine mane, and a tail but slightly bushed at the top, which
droops towards the ground. The full-grown animal from Goojerat, is, on the
contrary, comparatively maneless, and his tail takes a short curl upwards
at the end. The caudal extremity of both is furnished with a rudimentary
claw. This little appendage was supposed by the ancients to be
instrumental in lashing the lion into fury, and Mr. Gordon Cumming informs
us that the natives of South Africa believe it to be the residence of an
evil spirit which never evacuates its post until death overtakes the beast
and gives it notice to quit. The Goojerat or maneless lion is supposed to
be the original of the heraldic beast we regard with such respect as a
national emblem, but which foreigners maintain is nothing better than a
leopard.
But why do we coop these noble animals in such nutshells of cages? What a
miserable sight to see them pace backwards and forwards in their box-like
dens! Why should they, of all the beasts of the forest, be condemned to
such imprisonment? The bear has his pole, the deer his paddock, the otter
his pool, where at least they have enough liberty to keep them in health;
but we stall our lions and tigers as we would oxen, till they grow
lethargic, fat, and puffy, like city aldermen. With half an acre of
enclosed ground, strewn with sand, we might see the king of beasts pace
freely, as in his Libyan fastness, and with twenty feet of artificial
rock, might witness the tiger's bound. Such an arrangement would, we are
convinced, attract thousands to the gardens, and restore to the larger
carnivora that place among the beasts from which they have here been so
unfairly degraded. We commend this idea to the able secretary to the
society, who has shown, by his system of "starring," how alive he is to
the fact that it is to the sixpenny and shilling visitors who flock to the
gardens by tens of thousands on holidays that he must look to support the
wise and liberal expenditure he has lately adopted.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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