The zoological gardens of Europe, their history and chief featuresPeel, C. V. A. (Charles Victor Alexander)
History
The zoological gardens of Europe, their history and chief features
Peel, C. V. A. (Charles Victor Alexander)
Zoos
The town possesses a shady wood of birch, horse-chestnut, and elm
trees. After paying sixty filler for entrance, my camera was taken from
me, which was all the more to be regretted, as it was such a beautiful
day for taking photographs. The first house opposite the entrance is a
very small, very stuffy, and very dark little monkey house, followed
by a bird aviary, which was just the opposite--very large, very airy,
and very light. Goat sheds follow, and then a good collection of deer,
including wapiti (always well represented in Continental Gardens),
Borneo deer (_C. hippelaphus_), and others. Below a ruined castle,
inhabited by ravens and owls, are two cages containing striped and
other hyænas. These animals always have sore places on their heads,
caused by rubbing against the bars of their cage. We now come to a
beautiful pair of Somali ostriches in full feather, and close by a
large duck-pond--which, by the way, contained very few ducks--there
was a novel flying-aviary for gulls and peacocks--rather an odd
assortment, I thought. A large fishing-net was stretched from the top
of a huge pole in the centre of the cage to the iron railings. The
lion house, which came next, had in it no less than six lions. There
was a beautiful ant bear, with its curious snout and long thin tongue,
in a cage by himself, and opposite was a large water-tank containing
a hippopotamus, and on one side of him were four nylgai, and on the
other two _leucoryx_ antelopes and a zebra. Next came a great number of
domestic-fowl pens, followed by a really fine collection of dogs from
all parts of the world--Russian wolf-hounds, Irish setters, Chinese
chows, pointers, pugs, fox-terriers, great danes, Newfoundland, etc.
Passing a pair of Indian elephants, we come to goats, yaks with calves,
camels, llamas, zebus, and the inevitable pair of American bisons. A
number of bears, including a pretty couple of baby brown bears, brings
a good collection to an end. During the heat of the day the hose was
turned on to several animals, which seemed to enjoy it thoroughly, with
the exception, oddly enough, of the polars, which became very angry and
fought savagely with one another.
There were crowds of people, and a band played during the afternoon.
Bread was sold for feeding the animals, and a good many people bought
some; but I do not like to see the poor brutes teased and tantalized
with it. I could not help laughing when I saw a great fat man holding
a piece of bread on the end of his umbrella far out of reach, as he
thought, of a large brown bear. Time after time the animal tried to
reach the tempting morsel without success. But, with a last prodigious
effort, it grabbed both bread and umbrella with its powerful claws, and
tore the latter to shreds.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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