One rat lived a long time with the naturalist Buckland, and became
quite domesticated, wandering at will around the study, examining books
and papers, and helping himself from the sugar-bowl. As he was too
modest, or too shy to eat before folks, and as a space of nearly two
feet separated the table with the sugar from the mantel where stood
his cage, Mr. Buckland put up a little ladder. The rat easily learned
to climb it, even when loaded with plunder. Judy, a small marmoset,
inhabited the same mantel, and the pair had a reprehensible fashion of
stealing each other’s food.
Buckland’s pets being as various as his interests, the house was full
of them, and a queer lot they were! Joe, a pet hare, also occupied the
study, but being averse to civilization, he would hide by day, and
only come out at night, hopping across the room--if he thought himself
unobserved--to the fire-place, where he would sit up on his legs, so as
“to warm his white waistcoat.”
Tiglath-Pileser was a bear, who for a short period attended college
with his master, went boating with him, and to parties, and like him
wore cap and gown. He once was present at a meeting of the British
association in Oxford, and had the honor of being introduced to Sir
Charles Lyell, and the Prince of Canino. After so brilliant a career,
it is doubly sad to relate that Tiglath-Pileser fell under the ban of
the college authorities, and was rusticated for an indefinite period.
He died some years ago at the Zoölogical Garden in London.
Jenny (from Gibralter) and Jacko the Capuchin (from South America)
were monkeys, and an unfailing source of diversion to Buckland and his
friends. Jacko was very delicate, and each year, as winter approached,
was provided by his master with a warm close-fitting dress. In spite
of this care, he one year grew sickly and thin. Oil was prescribed for
him, but refused, until by a happy thought he was allowed to steal
it. Even theft, from a commonplace, safe saucer, grew monotonous; and
erelong he was detected thieving his medicine at the risk of his life
from a lighted lamp.
Other interesting, if less amusing pets--an eagle, a jackal, countless
marmots, dormice, squirrels, etc.--evince the interest felt by
this lovable scientist in the objects of his study--an interest as
affectionate as scientific. Indeed, it is very reassuring to find
scientific people more often than otherwise the possessors of hearts as
well as brains. Occasionally something happens to make us doubt their
humanity, like the experiment of a modern physiologist, who, after
teaching a dog to regard him as its friend, had it killed, and the
blood of another dog transfused into its arteries. “No sooner was it
injected,” we are told, “than the inert head became animated, the eyes
opened, and on the Professor calling the dog by its name, it attempted
to answer with a caressing look.” Surely, as with Desdemona, that
last look of ill-rewarded affection will rise in judgment against the
experimenter!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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