Highways and Byways in LondonCook, Emily Constance Baird
History
Highways and Byways in London
Cook, Emily Constance Baird
London (England) -- Description and travel
"In this garden were kept" (says Mr. Marillier) "most of the
animals for which Rossetti had such a curious and
indiscriminate affection. How many of them there may have
been at any one time does not seem to be stated; but as one
died or disappeared, another would be got to replace it, or
Rossetti would see some particularly outlandish specimen at
Jamrach's and bear it home in triumph to add to the
collection. Wire cages were erected for their accommodation,
but these were not always proof against escape, especially
in the case of the burrowing animals, which had an annoying
way of appearing in the neighbours' gardens. Mr. W. M.
Rossetti has given from memory a tolerably long list of
creatures which at one time or another figured in the
menagerie at Cheyne Walk. They included a Pomeranian puppy,
an Irish deerhound, a barn-owl named Jessie, another owl
named Bobby, rabbits, dormice, hedgehogs, two successive
wombats, a Canadian marmot or woodchuck, an ordinary marmot,
kangaroos and wallabies, a deer, two or more armadillos, a
white mouse with her brood, a raccoon, squirrels, a mole,
peacocks, wood-owls, Virginian owls, horned owls, a jackdaw,
a raven, parakeets, a talking parrot, chameleons, grey
lizards, Japanese salamanders, and a laughing jackass.
Besides these there was a certain famous bull, a zebu, which
cost Rossetti £20 (he borrowed it from his brother), and
which manifested such animosity in confinement that it had
to be disposed of at once. The strident voices of the
peacocks were so little appreciated in the neighbourhood
that Lord Cadogan caused a paragraph to be inserted in all
his leases thereafter forbidding these birds to be kept."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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