•uaoer UBRAIT

NATURAL HISTORY
IN ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS

Natural History
in Zoological Gardens

BEING SOME

ACCOUNT OF VERTEBRATED
ANIMALS, WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO
THOSE USUALLY TO BE SEEN IN THE ZOO-
LOGICAL SOCIETY'S GARDENS IN

LONDON AND SIMILAR
INSTITUTIONS

By

FRANK E. BEDDARD, M.A. (OXON.),
F.R.S., F.Z.S., ETC.

With Illustrations by
GAMBIER BOLTON & WINIFRED AUSTEN

LONDON

ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE b5 CO. LTD
PHILADELPHIA J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY

1905

BIOLOGY

LIBRARY

G

BUTLER & TANNER,
THE SELWOOD PRINTING WORKS,
FROME, AND LONDON. .

Preface

I GIVE in the following pages an account of one hun-
dred and seventeen kinds of animals, with shorter
references to some others, the great majority of which
are certain to be represented in most Zoological Gardens.
These types of vertebrate life are placed in due relation
to each other by some details concerning the structure and
classification of the vertebrata, which precede in an
orderly way the sections referring to those several
types. The volume thus contains a sketch of verte-
brate life which may serve as an introduction to more
exhaustive studies. It will also, I hope, be of some
assistance to those who desire to know something of the
great variety of animal life exhibited in these institu-
tions, and as a guide to the mammals, birds, reptiles,
and amphibians therein collected together.

FRANK E. BEDDARD.

October, 1904.

255097

INTRODUCTORY

Contents

PAGE

CHAPTER I

CHAPTER II
CHARACTERS OF THE MAMMALIA . ...

CHAPTER III

THE LEMURS : SUB-ORDER LEMUROIDEA • 43

CHAPTER IV
THE DEERLET . . . • • • -7°

CHAPTER V
THE POLAR BEAR .... . . no

CHAPTER VI
BIRDS ..... .151

CHAPTER VII
THE PAINTED SNIPE .... . 194

CHAPTER VIII
REPTILES . . . . . . \ .227

CHAPTER IX
AMPHIBIA AND FISHES. . . . • • 275

INDEX .- . . . • • 3O3

Vll

Illustrations

PAGE

Gibbon To face 30

Baboon ,. 32

Malayan Tapir , 54

African Rhinoceros ,, 56

Hairy eared Rhinoceros ,, 58

Grevy's Zebra „ 60

Asiatic Wild Ass 61

Wart Hog To face 64

Hippopotamus ., 66

Reindeer ,, 72

English Wild Bull , 76

Aurochs or Wisent . , 78

Lama , 80

Giraffe „ 82

African Elephant , 84

Lion , 94

Tiger :, 96

Leopard 98

Snow Leopard or Ounce , 100

Polar Bear ,, no

Raccoon „ 114

Cape Sea Lion 116

Porcupine , 122

Kangaroo , 140

Hornbill 162

"More-Pork" 166

Snowy Owl To face 168

Kea Parrot 173

ix

x ILLUSTRATIONS

PAGE

Cape-Crowned Crane , 181

Screamer . 185

Condor t . • 189

Black Swan '. • 199-

Flamingoes To face 200

Shoe-Bill . . . ; . . '. . 203

Cassowary ••»••:._• To face 218

Kiwi ..,),, 220

Rhea and Young '...,_.„ 222

Ostrich „ 224

Penguin . ,, 226

Chamasleon -....,, 242

Monitor Lizard « 246

Iguana Lizard 249

Hatteria Lizard . . . . . ". . . . . . . 252

Green Tree Viper 264

Crocodiles To face 272

Australian Green Tree Frog ' .. . 288

Caped Clawed Frog .......... 291

Australian Mud Fish 301

CHAPTER I

Introductory

THE large collection of living animals belonging to
the Zoological Society v contains at any given
time representatives of all the principal families of
vertebrated animals, as well as a few invertebrates,
such as insects, scorpions, and the like, which latter are
harboured in the Insect House. The great wealth of
that collection will give some notion of the extreme
productiveness of Nature, and will also emphasize the
great uniformity which underlies so much superficial
diversity. With its wild, that is uncaged, inhabitants
the Zoological Gardens represents in a few square yards
the animal population of the globe. For all the great
groups into which animated nature can be divided have
here their representatives. Animals, in fact, fall into
only about a dozen main groups or Phyla. At the
bottom of the series we have the unicellular organisms,
as a rule of minutely microscopic size and rarely visible
at all to the naked eye ; these comprise an infinite
variety of creatures, called by the earlier investigators
Infusoria, since they appeared in infusions of organized
matter. There is not a pool or even puddle in the
Zoological Gardens which has not its population of
Amoebae and many other of these Protozoa. The
remaining Phyla are multicellular organisms collectively
termed Metazoa. The first group of the Metazoa, that
of the Sponges, may perhaps be represented by the fresh-

Z.G. I B

TfiE^FAUNA OF THE ZOO

water sponge in the canal which cuts the gardens in two.
The Jelly-fish and Sea-anemones — at any rate the latter
— have constantly been on view in the Fish House. The
Mollusca are present in the shape of slugs and snails
upon the paths and occasionally of large tropical land
shelled forms in the Insect House. The Appendiculata,
including the vast series of organisms ranging from the
earthworm and its kindred at the lowest step of the series,
and culminating in the insects, are plainly well repre-
sented. The Nematoidea, or thread worms, lurk as para-
sites among the caged animals, as do also certain of the
members of the seventh great phylum, the Platyhelmia.
The Echinodermata (starfish, sea urchins), will not be
found. Nor does the collection contain examples of
two groups of marine or terrestrial " worms," the
Chsetognatha and Nemertina. Finally the Chordata
include the Vertebrata, with which we are concerned
here ; and it is this group which the Zoological Society
considers it is its business to exhibit with the greatest
possible lavishness in variety of genus and species. It
is worth bearing in mind that the animal life of this
planet is constructed upon such few types while its
variety in modifications upon these types is so enormous.
What holds good of animal life in general is also true
of the vertebrata alone. It will be plain from quite a
cursory inspection of the collection that all vertebrata
arrange themselves round at most five types, viz.
mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fishes. It
behoves us, however, first all of to enquire what a verte-
brate is ; we can then proceed to consider the various
types of vertebrates offered for our studies in the gardens
of the Zoological Society, and other gardens abroad.

As the name denotes, the vertebrata have a backbone,
a series of bones known as vertebrae, which is dorsal in
position, and underlies as well as enwraps the brain and
spinal cord, the central nervous system. This backbone

2

CHARACTERS OF VERTEBRATES

is preceded and sometimes, as in the lower fishes, co-
exists with the un jointed skeletal rod, the notochord
whose presence characterizes the entire phylum Chordata.
They breathe too by means of perforations fringed with
gills which put the front end of the alimentary tract in
communication with the outside world, or at least
possess in the embryo traces of these breathing organs.
The gill slits of fishes are these organs and more will
be said concerning them on a later page. The verte-
brata moreover possess a skull, a series of bones sur-
rounding the brain ; they have also two pairs, and only
two pairs, of limbs, which, however, may partly or
entirely disappear (e.g. snakes, some lizards, etc.).
These limbs are provided with a skeleton. The central
organ of impulsion of the vascular system, the heart,
is always ventral in position. No animal that is not a
vertebrate combines these characters in itself.

These necessarily technical details now require some
expansion and explanation. All the vertebra ta possess
a brain and a spinal cord, running along the back, and
lying within the bony or gristly tube known as the
vertebral column. The brain is enclosed in an expanded
bony or gristly box, the skull. It is only in certain
lowly organized fishes, such as the sharks, that the skull
and vertebral column is entirely made of gristle or
cartilage ; in the higher types this cartilage becomes
bone, more completely so in the highest types, such as the
mammalia, and less completely so in many lower types,
such as the frog. In no creature belonging to the different
phyla, which were originally grouped together under the
name of Invertebrata, is there such an axial skeleton
enclosing the whole of the central nervous system. It is
commonly and loosely said, that in vertebrates the
skeleton is internal, and in invertebrates — if there be a
sketeton — it is external. That this is not strictly : true
is shown by the external skeleton in the shape, of scales

3

FORE AND HIND LIMBS

in the lizards, and by the internally placed " sternal
plate " in scorpions, etc. The proper way to put the
difference is that in all Chordata a supporting rod wholly
or partly underlies the central nervous system, and
that in all vertebrata the entire central nervous system
is completely sheathed in a tube of bone or cartilage,
which partly or entirely replaces that axial supporting
rod ; and that in no " Invertebrate " is this the case.

All vertebrates possess two pairs of limbs ; these are
the paired (not the unpaired dorsal and ventral) fins
of fishes and the legs and arms of frogs, reptiles and
mammals, and of course the wings and legs of birds.
No vertebrate possesses more than these two pairs,
and it is nearly invariably the case that both pairs are
present, or that, if missing, there is evidence that absence
is due to disuse and to degeneration. Thus the whales
have no hind limbs, but they possess in most cases
tiny bonelets which can be identified as the rudiments of
the missing limbs. In some snakes the otherwise entirely
missing limbs are represented by minute fragments in the
neighbourhood of the vent, which can also be identified
with limbs. There is only one type of vertebrate life
which seems to have no traces of limbs and that is the
lampreys. Undoubtedly, these fishes lie near to the
base of the vertebrate series, and it possible that they
have, so to speak, not yet acquired the typical verte-
brate limbs ; or, on the other hand, it is possible that
they have lost them entirely, as the snakes are pre-
sumed to have lost their fore limbs.

Many invertebrate creatures have limbs ; the insects for
examples. An exact comparison, however, between
these appendages and the limbs of vertebrata is im-
possible, and in any case the number is not limited to
two pairs as in the group which we are considering here.

The next point of importance is the condition of the
respiratory organs in the vertebrata. In all the

4

HOW VERTEBRATES BREATHE

Chordata, which it will be remembered is the large
group or phylum including, not only the higher vertebrata,
but the series of lower forms which are distributed among
the classes of Ascidia and variously lowly organized
marine creatures, the pharynx — that is the anterior part
of the alimentary tract behind the mouth — is perforated
by a series or many series of slits, putting it into com-
munication with the outside world, which in the forms
where this arrangement is fully developed is always
water. The water rushes into the pharynx by means of
these clefts, and parts with its dissolved air containing
oxygen to the small blood vessels which fringe the sides
of the clefts. Thus is respiration effected. That this
arrangement occurs in the vertebrata may be easily
seen by the inspection of any fish, and among the dogfish
and skates the details are plainer than in some others.
In those fishes a row of holes is to be seen along the throat;
and if a probe of any kind be passed through it, will be
found to emerge in the throat cavity. Furthermore, the
edges of the clefts are seen to be furnished with red tufts,
which are the gills, and are practically an agglomera-
tion of small blood vessels divided only from the water
which washes them by a thin membrane through which
the dissolved oxygen can pass. In vertebrates above
fishes the gills along the clefts entirely, or nearly entirely,
lose their function as breathing organs. It is only in
certain Amphibia that the clefts in question remain
throughout life, and then in diminished numbers ; but
in the tadpoles of all of these clefts are present, and
associated with the respiratory function. It might
seem therefore that this important character was only one
that applied to the lower vertebrata ; and in its full
development it does only so apply. But the study
of the development of animals, that is embryology,
has shown that in reptiles, birds, and mammals, traces
of these same gill clefts are to be seen ; and one of them,

5

GILL CLEFTS AND HEART

though dissociated from the respiratory function,
remains for life. That cleft is the external ear hole,
which opens internally by what is called the eustachian
tube into the pharynx. Thus, though the gill clefts in
the higher vertebrates are no longer used for breathing
purposes, being replaced by the lungs, they persist for a
time to emphasize the relationship between the higher
and the lower vertebrates.

The ventrally placed heart is another marked
characteristic of the vertebrata. The beat of the heart
in man is felt through the chest walls and not through
the back. In all animals the heart has the same posi-
tion ; it lies on the opposite side of the body to that which
lodges the brain and spinal cord. In many invertebrate
animals the position of these two important organs is
exactly the reverse. In worms, insects and crustaceans,
the heart, if it exists, is on the dorsal side and the
larger portion at any rate of the central nervous system
is on the ventral side, the side upon which the animal
progresses, or which is turned towards the ground in
progression as in those animals which possess legs.

Anatomy reveals many other characteristics of
vertebrate animals ; but the principal ones are those
which we have just briefly sketched. The large as-
semblage of creatures classifiable as vertebrates splits
up readily into the five sub-groups mentioned above,
all of which are considered in the following pages.

WHAT IS A "MAMMAL"?

CHAPTER II

Characters of the Mammalia

INACCURATE though the term undoubtedly is (for
all "mammals" do not possess mammae, or teats)
in application from derivation, it is better to adhere, to
the expression in lieu of something better, than to use or
revert to the entirely wrong vernacular words in common
use, viz., " Quadrupeds," " Beasts," or " Animals."
For lizards are quadrupeds, and the converse of animal
is clearly vegetable or mineral. " Beasts " might be re-
tained, but that it has a somewhat insulting suggestion.
The justification of the term, however, is less important
than its meaning. What are we to understand by
mammals or mammalia ? For us who are concerned
here only with living mammals, the distinction from
other backboned animals is quite easy and obvious, even
without having recourse to bony and other structural
characters. By external form and character only, if
rightly put, it is within the power of any one to recognize
clearly the features which enable him to assert positively
that a given animal is or is not a mammal. It is, in the
first place, not correct to define mammals as quadrupedal;
most of them are so indeed, and all that especially con-
cern us in this place. But if we attempt to make
definitions that suit the entire " class," it is requisite to
allow for these exceptions. To begin with, man is not

7

MAMMALS AND LIZARDS

quadrupedal except occasionally and during his young
stages ; the whales are clearly not so ; neither are the
manatees and dugongs ; the bats, it is true, do shuffle
along on their " wings " as well as by the aid of their
hind limbs ; but it would be straining the proper use
of the term to describe them as " quadrupeds." But
when quadrupedal, as in the vast majority of mammals,
the fore and hind limbs lie beneath and actually support
the body more directly than in the other quadrupedal
group, the Reptiles. In the latter it will be noticed
that the body is, as it were, slung between the legs like the
body of an eighteenth-century coach between its wheels ;
in the mammals the legs support the body as its legs
do a chair. We may, however, legitimately say that the
mammalia are much more generally quadrupedal than
are the reptiles, of which (see below) so many are entirely
or partially legless. The next point is one which abso-
lutely distinguishes all mammals from all other verte-
brates (and, of course, invertebrates). This feature is
the covering of hair. To this statement there are no
real exceptions, but several apparent exceptions, which
we must note. The apparent exceptions, again, are of
animals which really do not enter into the subject matter
of this volume. A very little observation will convince
any one that the almost naked rhinoceros has some
vestiges of a hairy covering. But the whales, again,
which contradict so many generalizations about the
class mammalia, are rather more deceptive. Their
covering of hair is reduced to a few hairs in the neigh-
bourhood of the mouth. If these were to go it would be
most difficult to state definitely, from external characters
only, that a whale was not an aquatic reptile like the
Ichthyosaurus. There are, moreover, a series of excep-
tions on the other side. Some of the feathers of flightless
birds, such as the Apteryx, have to the naked eye every
appearance of hairs. Their microscopic character, and

8

EXTERNAL EARS

the way in which they develop in the embryo, can alone
settle the fact that they are not hairs, but true, though
somewhat rudimentary, feathers. But no practical
difficulty arises in this case ; for on other parts of the
body are plenty of obvious feathers which no mammal
ever possesses.

A third feature is also absolutely distinctive, and that
is the presence in the female, with rudiments in the male,
of cutaneous glands which secrete milk for the nourish-
ment of the young when born. No other vertebrate
possesses anything even remotely resembling the mam-
mary glands of the mammalia.

A rash observer might say that mammals are never
scaly, while reptiles, fishes, and even birds (their feet)
are always so. It is difficult, however, to distinguish
accurately the scales upon a rat's tail from those of a
lizard, though it is true that the scales of the pangolin,
or scaly ant-eater of Africa and India, are not real scales,
but merely agglutinated hairs.

No one can look at the head of a mammal, that is of
course of a terrestrial mammal (for here again, as in so
many features, the whales are exceptional), without ob-
serving how impossible it is to mistake that group for
any of the lower lying groups of vertebrate animals.
With a few exceptions — such as the seals as well as the
whales already mentioned and a small selection of other
mammals — external ears are present in that group, and
often of conspicuous size. In the lizards, frogs and birds
the external ear is absent, and there is merely the external
auditory passage visible, covered by the tympanic
membrane ; and even that is not always present. Coupled
with the presence of ears is a look of alertness, quite dis-
tinctive of the mammalia, and a more fidgetty demeanour
than that of lower vertebrates, except of course birds.
There is but little torpidity among mammals save in
those few cases, such as the hedeghog, where the animal

9

COLOURS OF MAMMALS

hibernates. They do not remain for hours in a motion-
less condition save when asleep.

So far as external characters are concerned the above
observations embody the principal points in which
the group differs from those of vertebrates lying lower
in the series. There are, however, still remaining, a few
characters which are highly noteworthy among the
mammalia without being absolutely diagnostic. It
will be readily observed in reviewing the large series of
mammals at the Zoo, and comparing them with the
larger series of birds, that the mammalia for the most
part are clad in a sober livery. There is nowhere in the
group that development of brilliant primary colours
such as we see so very commonly among birds. There
are no reds, greens and blues, the utmost brilliancy of
hue being bright browns contrasting with white, and
a few brighter colours, not of hair, but of naked skin,
such as the muzzle and ischial callosities of some monkeys.
If may be that correlated with this absence of striking
coloration is the predominance of the senses of smell
and hearing over sight. It is broadly true of the
mammalia, that they smell and hear rather than see.
While of birds it is equally true to say, that they see
rather than smell. That this point of view is in the
main correct is shown by another very characteristic
feature of the mammalia. In various parts of the body
glands open on to the surface ; these glands produce
variously smelling secretions, of which musk, civet, and
castoreum, are examples. The odoriferousness of the
houses in which the mammalia are confined is an un-
mistakable proof of this ; and the fact that birds are
at least by no means so strongly smelling convinces
us of the absence of glands in the skins of those animals.
The same may be said of reptiles and amphibia, broadly
considered — for here as elsewhere there are exceptions.
There are for example musky smelling glands among

10

EGGS AND EGG LAYING

the Crocodilia. It is quite conceivable, and indeed one
cannot help arriving at the conclusion, that mammals
recognize each other far more by odour than by sight.
Perhaps this physiological fact has something to do
with the general absence of brilliant hues among the
mammalia. There is no difficulty therefore about
distinguishing a mammal from any other vertebrate
by merely inspecting it in a cage. But it will be
necessary to delve a little further into the subject, and
to add something to the characters of this group from
a consideration of certain anatomical features. The
reason for this is obvious. For without reliable dis-
tinguishing marks derived from the skeleton it would be
impossible to place accurately the bones and teeth of
fossil forms, of whose soft parts, including the skin, no
trace remains in the rocks. It is true that we are not
specially concerned here with extinct mammals or
fossil vertebrates generally. But it would be taking
a too limited view of zoology to completely ignore the
fact that there were, as well as are, mammals. A very
marked feature of the mammalian skeleton is the fact
that the bones of the vertebral column as well as for
the limbs are not, so to speak, in one piece. At either
end of the vertebra, for example, is a little disc known
as the epiphysis, which ossifies separately from the main
body of the vertebra, and remains distinct for a long
period. The same takes place at the ends of the long
bones of the arm and leg and the smaller bones of those
appendages also.

In the skull of a mammal the lower jaw is all in one
piece, instead of being obviously made up of a number
of separate bones as it is in reptiles, etc., and, moreover,
the mandible articulates with a large bone in the skull
known as the squamosal, and not with a special small
bone termed in reptiles and amphibia, the quadrate.
At the end of the skull, where it articulates with the

II

TEETH AND BONES

vertebral column, there are two projecting condyles to
effect this articulation, whereas in reptiles there is but
one, although that one may show signs of division. The
practical effect of this is seen by the fact that a mammal
cannot twist its head to look directly backwards like a
bird can. The teeth of mammals generally (but here there
are exceptions, such as the whales) are divisible into
three distinct sets ; there are the small incisors in front,
the canines follow them, and the molar or grinding
teeth complete the series. The human jaw will illus-
trate this mammalian feature satisfactorily, though
the canines are in most persons not so marked off from
the last incisor in front of them and the first premolar
which follows. Still, many have "eye-teeth," as the
canines are sometimes termed, which are prominent
enough. Now in reptiles and amphibians there is
never so marked a differentiation into series as there is in
mammals. Furthermore (except again the whales)
the mammal has a limited number of teeth, the very
outside numbers being a trifle over fifty, as in certain
marsupials, while the reptile and the lower vertebrate
generally has frequently a large and almost indefinite
series. It has truly a mouth full of teeth. Some
reptiles, such as tortoises, and some amphibians, such as
toads of various kinds, are completely without teeth,
like the ant-eaters among mammals. But if teeth are
present, the characters just emphasized are usually to
be seen. These, however, are general characters ;
practically the zoologist does not consider them, for
the reason that he directly compares the given fossil
bone with the nearest thing in the bones of living
animals. For information of this kind the reader must
consult larger treatises, or still better, make himself
acquainted with the skeletons at museums. Even
then, with fragmentary remains which are so often — it is
to be regretted — the only vestiges of formerly existing

12

THE DIAPHRAGM OR MIDRIFF

animals, it is not always possible to decide whether a
given fragment is really of a mammal or a reptile. There
is a famous fossil, the fragment of a skull of an animal,
which has been named Tritylodon ; it is not fully agreed
whether this creature was a mammal or a reptile.
In the case of such a fragment as a bit of a long bone or
a finger bone, the problem would be still harder, and
often insoluble.

With living mammals and living reptiles there is no
difficulty at all in distinguishing them by bony and other
characters. With a skull or the entire skeleton before
him, no one could fail to recognize the few features to
which attention has been directed. And there are
of course many others, to enumerate which would be
too long a task here.

The internal anatomy of a mammal is constructed upon
the same general plan as is that of a reptile or an am-
phibian, as has been already set forth in our general
description of the vertebra ta. But there are important
differences of minor weight which differentiate the
mammal from all other vertebrates. The most important
of these is the fact that in the mammal the heart and
lungs lie in a separate chest cavity, divided off from the
abdominal cavity, which contains the liver, intestines,
kidneys, and so forth, by a muscular partition, known
as the diaphragm. In all mammals this character
holds good ; and in no animal which is not a mammal is
there any structure exactly comparable to this dia-
phragm.

§ CLASSIFICATION OF MAMMALS

Having now got at a notion of what a mammal is as
compared with other vertebrates, it is requisite to see
how far the mammalia can be conveniently subdivided
among themselves ; for it will be plain to the least

13

RELATIONSHIP AND DESCENT

instructed person that this large group contains some
exceedingly diverse types. Consider for a moment a
monkey, a bat, a whale, a horse, and a cat. It is
plain that though all are mammals (judged by the tests
which we have used above), they exemplify very
extreme types, radiating, it may be, from a common
centre. Now a proper classification is one which
most nearly represents true relationship ; this may
seem to be a remark hardly worth making, on account
of obviousness. But nevertheless the history of the
classifications of mammals and of other animals show
that, obvious though it may be, the truth of the remark
has not been generally laid hold of.

Now relationship implies and is proved by a common
descent. To apply this method to classification is of
course a counsel of perfection not yet attainable, though
in some cases the study of extinct forms has given us a
fairly complete series of gradations from type to type.
To take one example : the South American lama and
the Old World camels can be traced back to an extinct
form, Procamelus, which appears to combine the
divergencies of the two, and to be thus the ancestor
of both. The descendants of a parent form must
clearly be related. The advance of Palaeontology will
doubtless make other relationships clear. Further-
more it is plain that the degree of relationship
depends upon the nearness or remoteness of the
common ancestor; For instance, the lama and the
camel soon converge in an apparently common ances-
tor ; on the other hand the two great divisions of
the Ungulates, whose characters will be dealt with in
succeeding pages, viz., the Artiodactyles and^ the
Perissodactyles, retain their characters for a long
period of time ; and it is not until the early Eocene
period that we arrive at forms, with many intervening
lacunae,, unfortunately, which may possibly be looked

14

CLASSIFICATORY CHARACTERS

upon as ancestral to both. The method of Palaeon-
tology, however, has at present to be supplemented by
comparative anatomy. Relationship not only implies
common ancestry but likeness of structure, which is
more or less marked according to the degree of relation-
ship. But here we leave the region of fact for that of
inference. Palaeontology, in proportion to the com-
pleteness of the records in the rocks, speaks with a
certain voice as to, relationships. Similarity of structure
has to be sifted and checked in various ways before it
can be relied upon as evidence. We will take some
cases, beginning with extremes, to illustrate the matter.
The paca is a large brown rodent, with white spots.
The dasyure is an equally sized Australian marsupial,
also with a brown coat, diversified with white spots.
Why don't we, or do we, put together these two
animals ? We do not admit a close relationship for
the following reasons : — In the first place white spots
on a brown or dark ground is a plan of coloration
found in many diverse kinds of animals between which
no intimate relationship is at all possible, which are
of course a priori conditions between two mammals.
Molluscs, insects, and other creatures have a host of
representatives which possess this character. It would
be tantamount to bracketing together green animals
and white animals, black creatures and transparent
creatures, a procedure which would involve too many
obvious absurdities to be entertained for a moment.
A second reason forbids us from laying any stress on the
white spots. In South America, where the paca lives,
there lives also the agouti. In the Australian continent
and its outlying islands, where we find the dasyure,
the Tasmanian devil is also to be met with. Now
neither the agouti nor the Tasmanian devil are brown
spotted with white ; and yet, in every other detail of
external and internal structure, the Tasmanian devil

15

EVOLUTION

is so closely like the dasyure, and the agouti is so like
the paca, that we must bracket then two and two, as
written above. So manifold are these respective points
of likeness that even if white spots on a brown ground
were not found in certain deer, as well as in other animals,
they would necessarily cease to have any weight in com-
parison with the vast preponderance of likeness over
dissimilarity shown by the other parts of the body. In
this case an enormous majority of points of likeness or
difference indicates the relative closeness of the affinity.
It is not safe, however, to trust to majorities in zoo-
logical as in other matters, or else we might soon find
ourselves in the position of the orator who asserted that
if his adversary had documents, so had he, and he held
that one document was as good as another. For one
character is not as good as another, and arguments
based upon any leaning towards such a view would be
sure to be fallacious. The question is, what characters
are we to go by ? The answer to this question is clear
enough ; but to apply the method indicated by the
proper answer is far from being so easy. We may take
for granted the fact (as it has been rightly termed) of
Evolution. Whatever may be the truth of the various
theories, such as Natural Selection, which have been
advanced as explanatory of evolution, there has been
since the beginning of time as we read it in the rocks, a
continual series of changes in animals. As already
intimated we can trace pedigrees in a few cases with
certainty ; in other cases intermediate steps have been
lost or not discovered, but the broad outlines are left.
Thus amphibians appear before reptiles, and reptiles
before mammals. From one or other of these groups
mammals must have arisen. It is not at present
agreed, the evidence is not yet conclusive on the matter,
from which group mammals have arisen ; but it is clear
that marked traces of characters which are not distinc-

16

PLATYPUS AND ECHIDNA

lively mammalian but appertain to the lower lying
amphibians and reptiles, are important indications of
the grade of the mammal concerned. Now perhaps no
two mammals are more diverse in outward appearance
and even in many anatomical details than the spiny
ant-eater of Australia, and the duck-billed platypus
of the same continent.

The one is spiny, toothless, long-snouted, long-
tongued ; the other furry, " duck-billed," web-footed ;
their skeletons and internal organs differ widely, and
yet in both of these creatures the young are hatched
from large eggs with much yolk, and there is no con-
nexion between the young and the mother, the eggs
leaving the body as eggs. Furthermore, there is a
peculiar vein, or traces of it, which is quite like a vein
found in the lower vertebra ta, but not represented in
the higher mammals, and the structure of the heart shows
an analogous state of affairs. All these points link the
Monotremata, as the order comprising these the only
two existent types of the order is called, together ; they
have been arrested, as it were, before they have com-
pletely thrown off the characters of the amphibio-
reptile from which the mammalia have in course of time
been evolved. We must therefore clearly set apart those
two forms into a group by themselves. The remaining
mammals, the vast majority of course, can hardly be
sorted into an ascending series, getting less and less
reptilian. Palaeontology, moreover, while explicit as to
the relationships of certain groups, is at present cloudy
as to the derivation of the higher mammals, or Eutheria
as they have been termed, from the Monotremata, the
only surviving members of the early mammals, or
Prototheria. All the Eutheria contrast with the
Prototheria in having minute eggs which are not " laid,"
but develop inside the body of the parent, and come
to be attached to the tissues of the mother, deriving
Z.G. 17 C

GROUPS OF MAMMALS

their nutriment therefrom. Nor can it be said that
any other fundamental character of equal value
differentiates the many orders which constitute the
Eutheria. In earliness of appearance it is plain that
the marsupials lead the way ; but it is not plain as yet
that they are really primitive mammals as compared
with the rest of the Eutheria. The remains as yet
gathered from earlier rocks is so small that it would be
rash to invoke the aid of Palaeontology in settling this
matter. In the meantime we can separate them off
as a very well marked group ; and it is fair to con-
sider that they represent an offshoot of a more typically
Eutherian stock. The marsupials are more fully
treated of later. There remain those mammals which
have not got any claims at all to be of very great anti-
quity ; the existing creatures are separated into the
following groups, which are generally spoken of as
" Orders," viz. Primates, i.e. man, monkeys, and
lemurs, whose characters are fully entered into below ;
Bats or Chiroptera, which stands apart from all other
mammals in having the fingers of the hand enormously
elongated and supporting, umbrella-like, a thin mem-
brane also attached to the body which serves as a wing.
The greater part of the bats are night-flying and insect-
feeding creatures ; but a few, known on that account as
" fruit bats," feed upon fruit. Of these latter bats there
are usually a number of specimens on view at the
Zoological Gardens. The Insectivora, or moles,
hedgehogs, shrews, etc., are dealt with on a subsequent
page ; so too are the Carnivora, the flesh-feeding and
predaceous cats, dogs, bears, and seals. The Ungulates
or hoofed mammals, are the deer, camels, rhinoceroses,
elephant, horse, cow, sheep, and the like ; their characters
are pointed out in due course. Of the orders Sirenia
(manatee, dugong) Rodentia (rats, mice, porcupines,
etc.), Edentata (sloths, ant-bears), the principal

18

CHARACTERS OF MAN

characters are put before the reader in the course of
this book. The only remaining order of existing mammal
is that of the whales, the Cetacea, of which the common
porpoise is the only type that has ever been exhibited
at the Zoological Gardens. We shall therefore omit
them in the present book.

§ ORDER PRIMATES : MONKEYS AND MAN

It is not our business here to enter into psychological
distinctions between man and the apes. That depart-
ment of enquiry is not zoology at all. What we are
concerned with is to show that man and apes are not
separable into diverse orders among the mammalia,
although it may be permissible to assign to man a
special family for his own enjoyment. Even this
amount of separation might be objected to, and on
grounds by no means trivial. Let us consider what are
precisely the differences which mark out man as dis-
tinct from the highest apes, the orang, gorilla, and
chimpanzee. Prof. Haeckel has pointed out that four
characters, and four only, define men. Firstly the
erect gait, secondly the slight structural modifications
which have rendered necessary or are rendered neces-
sary by this upright posture, thirdly the faculty of
speech ; and, lastly, the faculty of reason. With the
two latter characters we have nothing to do here ;
they are outside the province of the zoologist. As to
the former, the erect attitude of body is at least ap-
proached in the anthropoid apes ; the gibbon will run
for some distance upon its legs, and the gorilla shows
a distinct difference from the chimpanzee, otherwise
so nearly akin, by certain modifications connected
with its less aboreal life. No ape, however, perpetually
walks upon its hind limbs only ; it is to man alone that
nature " os sublime dedit vultusque attollere ad astra."

IQ

FEET AND HANDS

Connected with this carriage of the body are differences
in the proportions of the limbs, the existence of a heel,
and the loss of the ape-like great toe, which serves in
them the functions of a thumb. A man in fact is short
armed, firmly plantigrade, with a pronounced heel, and
with no " thumb " on his feet. Besides, there are minor
differences which we may properly insist upon as dis-
tinctive of man. Not, however, all the commonly
supposed differences. For example, man is not a hairless
mammal at all. It is true that the hairy covering is not
obvious everywhere, as it is in apes ; but an investiga-
tion with the microscope will show that the hair follicles
exist in reality where the hairs themselves are so fine
as to escape, or almost to escape, detection. It is quite
possible, moreover, that the wearing of clothes, which
is doubtless an exceedingly ancient habit of man, is
responsible for the not great development of hair.
The smooth and unridged skull is a human attribute,
and so. is the proportionately larger size of the brain
than in the Anthropoid apes. It must be remembered,
however, that in the smaller monkeys the brain is some-
times proportionately large.

The S-like curvature of the spine is a human char-
acteristic in so far as it is more perfectly developed in
man than in apes ; and there are, in short, a number of
other small characters which are merely differences of
degree and not of kind from the corresponding struc-
tures in the monkeys.

This group, Primates, which must therefore include
man, is easy enough to distinguish from groups lying
lower in the series if we extend it so as to include the
lemurs.

The group is an eminently arboreal one ; in fact, the
exceptions to this are but few. Co-related with this
general mode of life are the opposable thumb and great
toe, a character which is almost universal in the order,

20

CHARACTERS OF PRIMATES

and which is not found in other mammals. It is to be
noted further that, again with but few exceptions, the
Primates have five fingers and five toes — the reduction
of digits so common in other groups, especially the
Ungulata, not being met with here to the extent of
more than one digit. Again, the Primates are hairy
creatures, and are never spiny or naked. The nails
upon the fingers and toes are to a considerable extent,
or even entirely, flat, and as a rule not claw-like. There
are, however, exceptions in the case of some digits in
some Primates. The Primates have canine teeth, with
the sole exception of the aberrant and remarkable
Madgascar lemur Chiromys, the aye-aye, which has
furthermore huge incisors and simulates in other ways
a rodent animal, with which group it was in fact at
one time confounded. It is at times to be found in
the collection at the Zoo.

It is plainly possible to divide the Primates into
two divisions, viz. the Anthropoidea, or monkeys and
man, and the Lemuroidea, or lemurs. The latter group
connects the higher group with such lying lower in the
scale as the Insectivora. They lack the literally straight-
forward look of the Anthropoidea ; for the eye sockets
in the skull are not so distinctly marked off for the
reception of the eyes and the eyes only, as in apes and
man. Their features, too, are foxy, and their brain is
at a lower level than that of the higher Primates. Inter-
mediate types, however, lately discovered in Madagascar,
and of extinct forms, forbid a complete separation of
the lemurs and monkeys.

§ MONKEYS AND APES. THE SUB-ORDER ANTHROPOIDEA

The distinguishing features of the higher Primates,
the monkeys, have been already dwelt upon. It
remains to consider the group a little further, in itself,

21

MONOTONY OF ANTHROPOIDEA

and not so much as contrasting with the lower lying
Lemuroidea. It is a noteworthy fact about the monkey
tribe that, numerous and widespread as are its repre-
sentatives, there are but slight variations from one easily
definable type. There is no creature belonging to this
assemblage that is not at once referable to its proper
place in the system by the least experienced of those
accustomed to observe.

The singularly monotonous type of structure preva-
lent in the Anthropoidea contrasts with the diversity
shown by the Carnivora, the Ungulata, the Rodentia,
the Marsupials, and indeed nearly all the orders and
groups of the mammalia, including even the lemurs,
the second sub-order of the Primates. This may be
associated with an equal uniformity in way of life.
Monkeys are essentially a climbing race, and are vege-
tarians tempered by slightly carnivorous habits. It
may also be associated with a high position in the series
of mammals. Those orders which come nearer to the
base of the series, which are, therefore, nearer to the
primitive mammal, have clearly greater capacities for
variation than the thinnest topmost twigs of the
mammalian tree of life, whose characters are, therefore,
more fixed. This suggestion may be both checked and
enforced by the consideration that monkeys are a
modern race, and that, may be, they have not yet had
time to throw out feelers in various directions, some
destined to produce a new race of descendants, others
more comparable to sterile side branches. Uniform
though the internal as well as external anatomy of the
monkey tribe is, it is yet possible to sort them out into
three divisions, which can be detected by internal as
well as external characters, or sometimes by the former
only.

Broadly speaking, the mammalian inhabitants of
South America differ from much their nearest allies

22

CATARRHINES AND PLATYRRHINES

in the continents of the old world. This is seen also
in the monkeys. The American monkeys have the
nostrils wide apart with a septum between them ; the
tail, when present, is often, indeed nearly always,
prehensile, and serves the purpose, as it has been
termed, of a fifth hand, to enable its possessor to grasp
additionally on to the branch of a tree. It is not clear
that the monkeys of America are deafer than their allies
of Asia and Africa ; but it is an anatomical fact that
the former have not the little spout-like bone for con-
veying sound to the internal part of the ear devoted
to the reception and analysis of sound waves, which is
present in the Catarrhines. The visitor to the Zoo
will note the eager way in which monkeys will often
cram nuts and other proffered food into their cheeks
to be disgorged later, and eaten at leisure ; but it will
be noted that no monkey hailing from the American
continent ever does this ; there are indeed in the
Platyrrhines no cheek pouches at all. Nor do those
gaudy red callosities, so characteristic of baboons and
other apes of the Old World, ever deck or adorn the
monkeys of America.

The Platyrrhine apes of America consist of two main
groups, which are themselves further apart than are
any two forms among the apes of the Old World, not
excepting such apparent contrasts as the gorilla and
the bonnet monkey. In the tiny little marmosets the
tail is riot prehensile, and the hand is, so to speak, not
a hand but a paw. The thumb is not opposable to the
other fingers, and the nails upon those fingers are
rather claws than nails ; but these characteristics are
obviously so far not ape-like, and ally the marmosets
to animals lower in the series than apes. These points
can be readily verified by the visitor.

The apes of the Old World are usually divided into two
great groups, the Catarrhines and the Simiidae, or an-

23

TAILS AND CHEEK POUCHES

thropoid apes. But both of these divisions have the
catarrhine physiognomy with narrow nostrils, and
possess the little spout-like process spoken of as absent
in the Platyrrhines. The Catarrhines pure and simple
(excluding, that is to say, the anthropoids) never have
a prehensile tail, and are occasionally without a tail
at all ; they have, as a rule, cheek pouches. They have
only thirty-two teeth, while the Platyrrhines have
thirty-six, with the exception of the marmosets ; these
however, have the thirty-two, which they possess in
common with the old Catarrhines, rather differently
arranged. Instead of there being two premolars and
three molars on each side of each jaw, there are three
premolars and two molars in the marmosets.

The great man-like apes have no tail ; they have not
any cheek pouches ; finally, they possess in common
with man the doubtful advantage of a vermiform
appendix, a structure which Nature has fortunately,
as it appears for them, denied to any other group of
monkeys. They have, however, the same thirty-two
teeth of the Catarrhines.

THE CHIMPANZEE AND THE GORILLA

It may seem unnecessary to bracket together these
two anthropoid apes. But the fact is that they have
been not unfrequently mistaken the one for the other ;
and in any case they are near akin, and both are in-
habitants of tropical Africa. We shall see, however,
presently that there is no particular reason for confusing
them, at any rate in the living condition. As to the
chimpanzee, the difficulty in writing about it is to limit
the account. Probably no animal, at any rate of late
years, has been so much written about. Paragraphs
and articles relating to the defunct Sally of the Zoo
would fill many goodly volumes ; while the more recent

24

"SALLY'1 AND "CONSUL"

favourite of the public, "Consul," has achieved much
literary notoriety. The chimpanzee is perhaps the only
anthropoid ape of which specimens are pretty certain
to be found in the New Ape House. Probably two or
three will be on view to the reader of these lines. But
the gorilla is much less patient in captivity besides
being more hard to obtain. There have, in fact, been
only five examples of this fierce anthropoid ever
exhibited in Regent's Park. The first specimen of
the chimpanzee ever exhibited appears to have been
acquired so long ago as 1836. This chimpanzee
created great excitement in London, and evoked verses
from that excellent rhymester and lampoonist, Theodore
Hook. " The folks in town," he wrote, " are nearly
wild —

To go and see the monkey child,

In gardens of Zoology,

Whose proper name is Chimpanzee.

To keep this baby free from hurt,

He's dressed in a cap and Guernsey shirt ;

They've got him a nurse and he sits on her knee,

And she calls him her Tommy Chimpanzee.

Hook (Tory, it will be remembered) goes on to describe
visits paid to this celebrity by Lord John Palmers ton,
and ministers generally. " Sally " who succeeded,
longo intervallo in point of time but not popularity,
caused almost as great a furore as did the elephant
Jumbo on his departure. This latter ape, in fact,
illustrated excellently well one of the main differences
between the gorilla and the chimpanzee. The chim-
panzee is playful, even malicious, and quite teachable.
The gorilla is sullen, gloomy, ferocious, and quite un-
tamable. Anyone who has ever seen a gorilla at the
Zoo will realize this intellectual difference between the
two men monkeys. The gorilla, as du Chaillu truly
said, though he was contradicted by persons not knowing
much about the matter, beats its breast when angry.

25

THE EAR IN ANTHROPOIDS

The chimpanzee has never been observed to indulge
in this expression of the emotions. To call the gorilla
untamable is not perhaps quite fair to the gorilla.
These beasts live so short a time in captivity, so far as
experiments have shown, that there has been but
little time to put the belief to the proof. The gorilla
possesses the requisite physical basis for educatability.
The brain is on the average, says Dr. Keith, larger than
that of the chimpanzee, though the highest records
among the chimpanzees beat the lowest record among
gorillas. As to its complex structure, the brain of both
differs in no essentials from the human brain, and the
ancient controversy about the " hippopotamus minor,"
as Kingsley called it, has been laid to rest long since.
Blackness of visage does not distinguish the gorilla,
as was once thought when every chimpanzee with a
black face was gravely suspected of being a gorilla
or the result of a mesalliance between the one and the
other. But the smaller and more refined-looking ear
of the gorilla, somewhat like that of the eastern Anthro-
poid, the orang-utan, contrasts with the big ears of the
chimpanzee, and is on the whole an external mark of
difference between them. Any one can observe for
himself that the human ear is liable to great variations,
and some persons are chimpanzee-like, while -others
come nearer to the gorilla in this feature. The general
structure of the two apes leads to the conclusion that
the gorilla is the older type, and the chimpanzee the
more modified. But this is not wholly true, for the
chimpanzee has retained the undoubtedly more primi-
tive aboreal mode of life to a fuller degree than the gorilla,
whose likenesses in this respect to man are not so much
an indication of special relationship as a parallel diverg-
ence from the normal, so far as apes are concerned.
These adaptations to an arboreal life have left their
mark upon the outward appearance of both anthropoids.

26

THE "MISSING LINK"

The hand of the chimpanzee is long and thin ; it is in
fact convertible into a hook for hanging on to branches ;
in the gorilla the hand is shorter and the fingers are
webbed at the base as in the human hand, to which
it bears considerable resemblance. It has been well
said that if the dictum, " Ex pede Herculem " is true,
so is the further evolution of that observation, " Ex
calce hominem." Now the gorilla has a better heel
than the chimpanzee ; and this again is associated
with the frequent travels of that animal upon the ground
in a more or less walking posture. Certain muscles
tell the same tale. Indeed we may fairly come to the
conclusion that the gorilla is much nearer to that
mysterious and at present totally unknown creature,
which first crossed ^the narrow line dividing the ape
from the man, than is the chimpanzee. Whether the
famous Pithecanthropus erectus of Dubois, whose bony
fragments were found in Java, is the " missing link "
or not, cannot be decided ; but it is unquestionably
a suitable candidate for that position so far as the top
of the skull enables us to form a judgment. Chimpan-
zees have been divided into more than one kind, and
such names as Anthropopithecus calvus, aubryi, kulu-
kamba, have been given to these varieties. The variety
which has the most claim to be regarded as an indepen-
dent form is that represented by the notorious Sally,
The species, if species it be, was brought home by du
Chaillu, and that specimen is now in the British Museum
at South Kensington. Sally's stuffed skin adorns Mr.
Rothschild's museum at Tring, while her brain reposes
in the University Museum at Oxford. The gorilla,
too, has been lately subdivided. In fact, it used to be
thought that both apes were limited in range to the
gloomy forests of the Gaboon. But it is now well
known, thanks to Emin Pasha and others, that the
chimpanzee goes much farther east, and so in all pro-

27

SOME CHARACTERS OF THE ORANG

bability does the gorilla. It is possible, therefore, that
we may believe in at any rate racial varieties of these
apes. The gorilla has got its name under false pre-
tences. It is certainly not the ape seen to pick up and
hurl stones by the Carthaginian Hanno, author of the
Periplous. That creature was probably a baboon,
which does live in herds and can throw stones.

THE ORANG UTAN

The orang, whose scientific name is Simia salyrus,
and whose vernacular Malayan name generally used by
us signifies Man of the Woods, is, like the gibbon, an
Asiatic kind of anthropoid ape. It is Bornean and
Sumatran in range ; and in those great islands of the
East frequents steamy forests. The orang is a large
and heavily built ape, with a melancholy countenance,
and a very protuberant abdomen, a feature of all the
Anthropoids except the specially athletic gibbons.
Its tawny yellow colour is well known, and it has been
pointed out that while the black chimpanzee and
gorilla share their forests with equally black man, the
yellow Malay pursues the yellow orang.

As with the anthropoid apes generally, the examples
of orangs exhibited at the Zoo are invariably young
creatures, and thus do not show all the salient characters
of the huge ape of Borneo. For in the fully developed
male the face is broadened by a callous expansion at the
sides, which is eminently characteristic, and gives to
the ape a remarkable look distinctive of it. The orang
is more peaceable than its relatives in Africa, and is
said to rarely dispute matters with man. Those at
the Zoo seem to have always a friendly attitude of mind,
which seems to fit in with their slow ways and some-
what sad demeanour. At times, however, the orang
can lose its temper ; Mr. Wallace reports a continued

28

POSITION OF HYLOBATES

attack made by an orang upon a tree,consisting of showers
of hard fruits with which it assiduously pelted its pur-
suers. Structurally it may be noted that the orang
differs from the other anthropoid apes in its small and
delicately shaped ears, much like those of the gorilla,
in the small size of, and absence of a nail upon, the great
toe. It is curious, too, that this ape has its femur loose
in the socket by reason of the absence of a ligament
binding that bone to the hip bone. This may account
for its cautious and deliberate movements when moving
from branch to branch of its native trees. This ape
builds a kind of nest in trees, which is not a permanent
dwelling place, but merely a place of temporary sojourn.
It is built of a number of branches laid together and
covered with leaves, and is about a yard and a half
across.

THE HOOLOCK

The Hoolock and its immediate relatives, the other
members of the genus Hylobates, or gibbons, stand a
little below the chimpanzee, the gorilla, and the orang,
which complete the list of living anthropoid apes.
In intelligence they are not inferior at all ; indeed they
seem to possess the greater sharpness often incidental
to small size. But structurally the gibbons form a
link, not very perfect, with the lower standing Catarrhine
monkeys.

To begin with, there are in these anthropoids at least
traces of the ischial callosities so characteristic of the
Old World monkeys. The canine teeth, large enough
it is true in the old male gorilla, are still larger propor-
tionately in the Hoolock, and thus more closely approach
such teeth in lower mammals. The brain is rather
simpler, but perhaps this is merely a matter of smaller
size than of affinity to the macaques and such like,

29

SPECIES OF GIBBONS

The tail is wanting, as in the highest apes and in man ;
and the vermiform appendix is present as in the same.
The lower monkeys generally (but not always) possess
a tail. So much then for the chief points in the inward
and outward structure of the Hoolock and its congeners
which help to fix its place in the Simian system. The
hoolock, or at least some form of gibbon, is almost sure
to be on view in the New Ape House at any given time.
It will probably also appeal to another sense, that of
hearing ; for this gibbon, like others, has a piercing
though not unpleasant voice by means of which it utters
a series of cries which have been variously rendered
" Hooloo " and " Whoko." It prefers climbing to
walking ; and when it does walk, which in nature
appears to be practically never, it walks on two legs
as a rule, and divaricates its big toe like unbooted
man. Its extraordinarily long arms are used in this
method of progression as balancing poles to aid in
its waddling run. Placed on a tree the gibbon has no
equal among the monkey tribe. It swings from
bough to bough " with the unerring accuracy of a
finished trapeze performer." It is an odd thing that
this gibbon at any rate cannot swim, and naturally,
therefore, never takes to the water on its own account.
Monkeys, as a rule, can, and do voluntarily, set out to
swim, crossing rivers in their marches, but the gibbon
never ; and thus its range is often limited by great
rivers such as the Irrawaddy. In this dislike of water
it plainly resembles man, who is almost the only other
creature that cannot swim by the light of nature, but
requires teaching. The specimens of gibbon that
have been on view at the Zoo are numerous, and are
of many species. Quite recently there was on view
an example of the very rare Hainan gibbon, an ape
which frequents the island of Hainan, its easterly limit
as a genus. Another rarity is the Siamang, a* gibbon

30

GIBBON

To face p. 30]

AFRICAN BABOONS

:n which two of the toes are united by a web ; of this
gibbon there have been examples at the Zoo, and may
be at the present moment. The hoolock is easily tamed,
and is not as a rule very vicious. A female lately in-
habiting the ape house showed a positive disHke to
her own sex in the human species, but put up with the
attentions of men. In India the animal appears to
be often tamed, and will reside in a " compound " for
years. Under these circumstances, Dr. Candler tells
us, it seldom uses its voice, the need for this expression
of opinion having departed with the rest of the herd.
At the Zoo, on the other hand, the gibbon makes
vocal the ape house, stimulated thereto, it may be
surmised, by adjacent chimpanzees, and by the con-
versation of the keeper and of visitors.

THE CHACMA BABOON.

This is a necessary abbreviation of the Hottentot
word " T'chatikamma," which is really not pronounce-
able by us, and is, moreover, a trifle difficult of correct
spelling. The name refers to the baboon, Papio por-
carius, which with twelve other species inhabits Africa.
The chacma, and baboons generally, lie at the base of
the Catarrhine series, or Old World apes. They have
the cheek pouches, the downward looking and approxi-
mated nostrils, and the thirty-two teeth, disposed as
in man, and the non-prehensile tails of that division
of apes. The baboons differ from other Catarrhines
by their " very dog-like face," by the rather swollen
muzzle, and by the large size of the posterior callosities.
The males have also particularly large canine teeth. The
tail is short. Our chacma, which is always to be seen
at the Zoo, and has recently been placed outside instead
of inside the stuffy monkey house, lives in the South of
Africa in troops up to about icfo in number. This

31

FEROCITY OF CHACMA

marauding band of apes is guarded by a few old males
who form a rear guard. The chacma prefers rocky and
stony localities, and is mainly a ground dweller ; but
it can climb trees with skill. When running along this
and all species of the lower apes tread on the palms of
their hands, in this differing from the anthropoid apes
who double up their hands, and progress upon the
knuckles. The chacma can go at a good pace when
put to it ; but it is a ferocious beast, and will stand
up to a fight if attacked. Its chief enemy, who is the
leopard, is sometimes severely mauled by an old fellow
whose canine teeth and strength of muscle are hardly
inferior to those of the aggressor. Whether the chacma
throws stones or not, it is plain that many baboons do,
and indeed in this they resemble some other monkeys
who pelt the stranger with the local equivalent of the
' 'arf a brick " of Aryan civilization. Ferocious though
the elderly baboon may be, the young are more engaging
in their disposition. The traveller le Vaillant indeed
speaks well of the race. A pet chacma was of con-
siderable use to him as a taster, such as were employed
by mediaeval monarchs for their protection. When a
dubious, but good-looking root was discovered, the
chacma was encouraged to bite it ; and if it refused
with " every symptom of disgust," the root was not
entered on the menu. The chacma is most omnivorous ;
it eats anything and everything, from the leaves of the
prickly pear (especially, it is stated, the most prickly
leaves !) up to insects. It will descend in its hordes upon
orchards and fields, and has lately caught the trick,
like the kea in New Zealand, of tearing open young
lambs for the sake of the curdled milk in their stomachs.
At least the baboon prefers the milk while the kea is
more thorough and less specialized in his appetites.

This baboon is diurnal, retiring to rest at night in
the most respectable middle-class fashion, its slumbers

32

To face p. 32]

MANDRILL AND CELEBESIAN APE

being guarded by sentinels which are posted round its
retreats. The voice of the baboon, like the voices of
other creatures, has been variously put into descriptive
language. An eminent naturalist, clearly with an
anti-Teutonic bias, compared it to the German word
" Hoch." Various human actions have been ascribed
to baboons. It seems probable that they were the
origin of the story of the gorillas of Hanno, who referred
to them as stone- throwing and living in throngs. When
annoyed, or in an offensive mood, this baboon will open
its mouth and as it were yawn at a neighbouring
baboon ; it is suggested that this yawn is not so much
ennui as a desire to prove to the other the length and
sharpness of its canines. When still more angry the
ape will smite the ground with its hand like an argu-
mentative man with his perceptions and feelings
heightened by alcohol.

The sociable though ferocious and omnivorous
mandrill, with its blue-ridged nose, is another member
of the genus often represented at the Zoo. The most
aberrant baboon is the Celebesian Cynopithecus niger,
which is the only Eastern baboon ; it is black in hue,
smallish in size (as compared with other baboons) and
milder in disposition than are the large dog- faced apes
of Africa.

THE GIBRALTAR APE

This ape, also known as the Barbary ape, Macacus
inuus, is the only monkey that occurs now in Europe ;
and, as is well known, it is confined to the rock of
Gibraltar, which it haunts in very modest numbers.
At one time so unfavourable were natural circumstances,
or so inveterate the dislike of the inhabitants, that the
numbers sank to so low an ebb as three individuals.
But in 1893 the Governor of Gibraltar ascertained, and

Z.G. 33 D

THE GIBRALTAR MONKEY

communicated to the Zoological Society, the fact that
no less than thirty of these tailless apes had been seen
in one herd. The interest of the presence of these apes
in Europe seems on the whole to have been allowed
to overbalance the objections felt towards them on
account of their depredations in gardens. But it is not
quite certain how far the interest is a genuine one,
that is to say, how far the Macacus inuus is a really
indigenous inhabitant of African Spain, and whether
it was not at one time deliberately introduced there
and allowed to run wild. Be this as it may, the ape
proved capable of establishing itself in the more'in-
accessible parts of " the Rock." Macacus inuus belongs
to a genus of monkeys, which is, like the baboon, a
member of the Catarrhine subdivision. So that it is
unnecessary to recapitulate the characters which, being
a Catarrhine, it shares with the baboon. These monkeys
are, with the exception of the species which we are here
considering, entirely Asiatic in range ; and many
members of the genus are familiar enough, for a large
assortment is always on view in the monkey house
and the outside monkey cages at the Zoo. The Gib-
raltar monkey is also exceptional in that it has no tail,
though in many of its allies — for instance in the Tcheli
monkey, that thick -furred inhabitant of the Yung Ling
mountains of Northern China — the tail is plainly on
the way towards disappearance. On the other hand the
common bonnet monkey and Rhesus monkey have
longish tails. There are altogether some fifteen or
sixteen species of macaques. The Barbary or Gibraltar
ape has a certain historical interest in that it appears
to have been the monkey dissected and studied by
Galen the Greek physician.

34

PREHENSILITY OF TAIL
THE DIANA MONKEY

The macaques of Asia are represented in Africa by
a kindred pair of genera of monkeys, known technically
and respectively as Cercopithecus and Cercocebus, and in
pseudo- vernacular, as Guenons and Mangabeys. They
have always long tails, which, as has been noted, the
macaques have not always ; and the mangabeys possess
no laryngeal pouch capable of inflation such as is to be
found in the macaques. The Cercopitheci are apt to
run to bright spots of colour about the nose, and their
fur generally is more gaily coloured than in the sombre
macaques. The Diana monkey, Cercopithecus diana,
is as good a type as any other of this extensive genus,
which contains more than forty species. This monkey
like some others of its congeners is bearded, white
bearded, and there is a good deal of bright chestnut or
orange colour about the body. It is like other guenons
essentially tree dwelling and social, moving about in
herds ; like most monkeys it is affable when young,
but morose and treacherous when older. Like all
others of the apes of the Old World its tail cannot grasp
the branches which it traverses in the fashion so con-
venient to most of the monkeys of America ; and that
there should be this distinction is one of the remark-
able facts about monkeys. Why a prehensile tail
should have been developed in one half of the globe
and not in the other in creatures which lead for all
practical purposes identical lives, and are plainly most
closely allied, is a mystery apparently insoluble.
Evolution seems so to speak to have gone out of its
way in denying this favour, which it has granted so
widely and to so many and such varied types of animals,
e.g. marsupials, lizards, snakes, etc., etc. Anyhow the
long tail of the Diana monkey and its immediate allies
is at best a balancing pole to secure a safe transit across

35

ASIATIC APES

a difficult part of a tree. The beard of the Diana monkey
is not a mark of sex. It is an adornment of the female
as well as of the male. It is stated that the monkey
is apparently proud and careful of the well-being of this
ornament. When drinking it will carefully hold it
aside. This black-faced West African monkey is one
of the species with which the Zoo is sure to be furnished.
The visitor will also find many of the remaining forty
or so species of Cercopitheciis.

THE LANGUR OR HANUMAN

The Holy Apes, genus Semnopithecus, to one species
of which, S. entellus, the name Hanuman is applied,
are collectively known as Langurs, and inhabit the
East, including the continent of India. They differ
from the macaques of the same region and from the
Cercocebi and Cercopitheci of Africa in having no cheek
pouches in which to store superfluous food for sub-
sequent mastication ; they always have a long tail,
which the macaques, as has been remarked, do not
always possess, and they have a large and complex
stomach instead of the small and human-like stomach
of the macaques and their allies of Africa. They attain
also to a fair size, and a species of Rhinopithecus (hardly
distinguished in reality from Semnopithecus , except by
its nose) is the largest existing monkey after the great
Anthropoids. The name Holy Ape implies the fact that
many of these monkeys are reverenced by the native,
and thus enjoy immunity from persecution ; this freedom
from interference leads them to such lengths that the
species which we are considering here more especially,
the Indian Hanuman, visits and pilfers from shops
with impunity and takes open exercise upon the roofs
of houses. Like so many apes, the Hanuman is sociable,
and moves about in clans, which occasionally meet other

36

SOME NATIVE LEGENDS

clans, and do fierce battle ; in these combats discipline and
co-operation are apparent, an interesting foreshadowing
of human ways. The Hanuman is exceedingly agile,
and will bound from branch to branch, sometimes
attaining to a leap of 20 to 30 feet measured horizontally,
but rendered easier by a corresponding drop of 40 to 50
feet. In spite of this astounding activity, F. Cuvier
stigmatized the groups as " slow monkeys " ! The
Hanuman shares with man a detestation and fear of the
tiger ; a group or troupe of these monkeys will follow
a tiger, making Simian remarks, and plainly indicating
its position to the following hunters. In Siam it is held
among various native traditions that the Semnopitheci
are dangerous apes to the human kind ; that they play
the part of vampires, and suck the blood of sleeping men
in the forests. But there is no truth in this belief, the
Semnopitheci being, as a matter of fact, vegetarian
in the extreme even for a monkey. No insects and
grubs of various kinds, no eggs and young birds enter
their purely leafy, fruit, and grain diet. In captivity
these animals are described as sedate and indolent till
old age supervenes, which induces a more truculent
demeanour. The nosed ape, Rhinopithecus, with a
little upturned and pointed nose, not snout, has been
referred to. There is another form known as Nasalis
larvatus, which has also a longish nose quite human in
sharpness and length . These forms are the only monkeys
with anything comparable to the human nose.

THE GUEREZA

It is interesting to note that while the macaques of
the East are represented in Africa by the closely allied
Guenons and Mangabeys, the Semnopitheci of the East
are also represented in Africa by a type of monkey
closely allied to themselves but forming a distinct

37

ECONOMIC USE OF COLOBUS

genus, viz. Colobus. This genus of monkeys has the
same absence of cheek pouches, and the same sacculated
stomach, but it has nearly lost the thumb, which gives
it a certain likeness to some monkeys of the New World ;
this likeness is a trifle increased by the rather broader
nostrils shown in these monkeys, a broadness which
suggests the Platyrrhine type rather than the Old
World Catarrhine. Nevertheless, in all other particulars
the Colobi or Guerezas do not approach the monkeys of
America, but clearly range themselves alongside of the
Oriental Holy Apes. It is an odd coincidence, in view
of this now unquestioned affinity, that in Nigeria Colobus
guereza is known to the natives by the name of "Maclam."
The coincidence lies in the fact that this word means
also a Mohammedan priest in the Haussa language.
The idea of sanctity thus attaches itself to Colobus as
well as to its near relative Semnopithecus. The black
and white excessively long-haired skin of more than one
species of Colobus is largely used for ornament, not
merely in its native Africa by a warrior, but by peaceful
persons in this country ; those long and coarse-haired
black muffs are, or used to be, the product of the skin
of this monkey. There is a legend to the effect that the
Colobus, when, wounded, knowing full well the value of
its skin, deliberately tears it with its teeth, so that it
shall not come into the possession of its slayer. These
apes, like the Holy Apes, go up high upon mountains in
Africa ; and a species from Ruwenzori has the peculi-
arity of having longer hair than any other species, a
peculiarity which is possibly correlated with its Alpine
existence. It is said that the bright black and white
hues of Colobus do not invariably, as might be expected,
render the monkey a conspicuous object, since hopping
from branch to branch the contrast of colours is in
harmony with dark tree trunks garlanded with white
and grey lichens. It is not very often that members

38

THE ORGAN GRINDER'S MONKEY

of this genus are to be found among the inhabitants
of the monkey house.

CAPUCHIN MONKEY

It is not necessary to go to the Zoological Gardens
to make oneself acquainted with the capuchins ; for
they are frequently, more frequently than any other
kind of monkey, the companion of the peripatetic organ-
grinder, and their mild, inquisitive faces and chirruping
sounds must be well known to most persons. There is
a great variety of these monkeys, which may be re-
garded as quite the typical Platyrrhine monkeys.
Their round face and but slightly projecting muzzle
give them a human appearance, which is not attained
to by the monkeys of the Old World so thoroughly.
Their tails are not quite so perfectly prehensile as in
many of the American monkeys — in the Spider monkey,
for instance. They are also docile and gentle, though
it is doubtful whether this can be honestly considered
to be any grounds for a likeness to man. The capu-
chins are always abundantly on view at the Zoo, and
as a rule several species are to be seen, though the
limits of species in this genus of Platyrrhines is rather
a matter for further study than for the present and
dogmatic statement. Some eighteen have been allowed.
The capuchins are determined insect eaters, as well as
devourers of fruits ; they rob nests and eat up eggs
and nestlings alike. At the Zoo they have an engaging
way of holding out their hands for gifts, and this action
is accompanied by a little plaintive whistling. They
appear to be on good terms with each other as well as
with the public. Tree-bred creatures as they are, the
capuchins are naturally expert climbers and leapers ;
huge distances are traversed by them in bounding from
branch to branch. A jump downwards of fifty feet

39

THE THUMB IN MONKEYS

appears, according to the traveller Bates, to be easily
accomplished by Cebus albifrons. Their agility can be
readily studied at the Zoo, though the limited range for
leaping and climbing renders it a little difficult to
compare, and award the palm satisfactorily.

The general characters of the Platyrrhine form of
monkey can be as well studied in these monkeys as in
any other. The widely separated forwardly and not
downwardly directed nostrils, the prehensile tail, are
all obvious ; but it will be hardly possible to note in
the living monkey the thirty-six teeth, which are four
in excess of the teeth of the monkeys of the Old World,
including man.

SPIDER MONKEY

There are several kinds of spider monkey, perhaps
ten. But they all agree in representing the Platyrrhine
characters, or at least one of them, in a quite exaggerated
fashion. The prehensile tail is eminently prehensile,
its tip naked beneath to afford a securer clutch ; it is
never at rest even when not in use as a " fifth hand " ;
perpetually does it explore the objects lying above the
monkey's back, like the restless tentacle of an anemone.
The name spider monkey refers to the straddling and
spider-like appearance presented when one of these
monkeys is grasping various objects with hands, feet,
and tail widely divaricated and radiating from the
small body in the centre. The spider monkeys of the
New World suggest the gibbons of the Old. In many
monkeys the thumb has become somewhat rudimentary ;
in A teles, as the spider money genus is termed, it has
often disappeared. But the reason for this, or at least
a reasonableness in the fact, is evidenced when it is
considered that the hand of these and many monkeys is
of the nature of a hook to grasp temporarily a branch

40

MYCETES OR ALOUATTA

and to allow of a ready loosening of the grip ; an oppos-
able thumb does not aid in this manoeuvre. The
Coaitas, as the native American name of the monkeys
runs, are peaceful in disposition, but eminently thievish
in habit, and therefore less suitable as pets than
might be presumed from the great numbers that are
kept as pets in Central America. On the other hand,
there is at least one spider monkey which has been
described as very fierce. The spider monkey, or at
least a spider monkey, is roasted and eaten ; as it
presents, when dressed for the table, a horrible resem-
blance to a black baby, it is usual to lessen this likeness
by cutting off the head and hands. The flavour of the
flesh is beefy, not veal-like. The hint of cannibalism
involved in dining off monkey is tempered by the fact
that the creatures are very largely, but not absolutely,
vegetarian in habit. Von Humboldt suggested that can-
nibalism may have commenced in an evolutionary way
with this " simiophagy," or at least that it may have
contributed to lessen the initial shock which would be
caused by serving up man as a piece de resistance at a
banquet. Probably, however, cannibalism is not a
single phenomenon ; there are, we are inclined to think,
two kinds ; the one a religious ceremony, the other
purely gastronomic.

THE HOWLER

The howling monkeys are Platyrrhine, and thus
necessarily South American monkeys which have been
placed in the genus Mycetes, or, as it is sometimes
called, Alouatta, a barbarous word, which is, however,
older than the more correct .My cetes. They are called
howlers not merely because it is their name, as in so
many creatures with non-descriptive appellations, but
because they do howl and awake the echoes of American

41

NOCTURNAL ROWLINGS

forests by night. So far- carry ing is the howl, that the
late Mr. Salvin found, by calculating the time that it
took him to traverse a patch of forest from where the
note first broke upon his ears to the base of the tree
whereon the Mycetes howled, i.e. one hour, that the
voice must have travelled about two miles. The
howling is largely assisted by the modification of the
throat bone, the hyoid of anatomists, into a deep cup
which is a resonator ; in other characters the howler
is quite a typical Platyrrhine ; its distinctive marks are
that it has a naked face and usually a beard and a
well developed thumb. The beard and face produce a
repulsive look, and for some reason or other, when a
beast is ill-looking, which is not infrequent, naturalists
often dwell in an almost malignant way upon its ugli-
ness. The howler justifies the uncomeliness of its
features by a bad and sinful disposition, and, further-
more, by a low intelligence which is stereotyped in the
simple and not complexly folded brain. The howling
seems to be a means of intimidation ; and it is a moot
point whether like cats they howl in concert, or whether
it is merely a big male who gives vent in this way to
defiance of neighbouring males. In any case, those who
have heard it compare the note to the tempest howling
through rocky caverns, and in this case justly add that
" it is a noise so unearthly that, heard unexpectedly for
the first time, it would fill the mind with the most
melancholy and fearful foreboding." The American
forest is apt to harbour or to produce such gloomy
noises. There is, however, another and a brighter side
to the howler ; it appears to be good for food above
all monkeys.

42

GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION

CHAPTER III

The Lemurs : Sub-order Lemuroidea

THESE nocturnal creatures, which have got their
name from that way of life, stand unquestion-
ably at a lower level than the apes, whose near relations
they nevertheless must be regarded as being. Among
themselves they are somewhat more diverse of habit
than the monkeys, and show in consequence rather
more differences of structure and appearance. The
rodent-like Chiromys would hardly be referred to the
same group of creatures as the tiny little " Smith's
dwarf lemur " (Microcebus smithi] or the ambling and
quadrupedal black and white ruffed lemur (Lemur
varius), by any one not conversant with anatomy, and
without the power of making just inferences as to affinity.
All lemurs, however, have hand-like feet with an oppos-
able great toe exactly comparable to the thumb of the
hand.

The most remarkable fact about the lemurs is in
reality their extraordinary geographical distribution
in the world. The vast majority of them are absolutely
confined to the great island of Madagascar, where they
form the most important element in the vertebrate
fauna. A few live in Africa, and still fewer in the east
of Asia. No kind of lemur is common to any two of
these three tracts of country which they inhabit. At

43

LEMURS, POTTOS, LORIS

the Zoo a good many species are as a rule to be seen.
The true lemurs are commonly found represented by
several species, such as the black lemur (Lemur macaco),
and the crowned lemur, which mainly differ from each
other in colour. The African galagos, with long and
naked ears and apparently a keener sense of hearing than
the other forms, are generally to be seen. Some of the
smaller Madagascar species, such as Coquerel's lemur
(Chirogaleus coquerali) and Smith's dwarf lemur, are
often on view, while the West African potto (Perodicticus
potto), tailless and very different in general appearance
from its Madagascar kindred, is an animal which may be
almost counted upon as an exhibit. So too the slow
loris (Nycticelus tardigradus) and the other loris of the
East, Loris gracilis. The singular Malayan Tarsius, a
small form with large ears, a frail body, and huge staring
eyes, has never been acquired by the Society. It is
eminently a desideratum.

THE SLOW LORIS

This woolly- furred little lemur is for us the type of
a sub-family of the lemurs which includes also the other
loris of the East and the potto and the angwantibo of
Africa. Like its allies, the slow loris is almost tailless,
it has large, staring eyes, the index finger, " first "
finger, as it is often called, is small — a stage on the way
to its disappearance, which has occurred in the pottos.
It is a small creature not much over a foot in length.
Its home is in the East, to wit, Assam, Malaya, Siam to
the Philippines in the extreme East. It is naturally
arboreal, and, as its large and soft-looking eyes denote,
nocturnal in habit. During the day it sleeps rolled into
a ball, the head being bowed between the legs. In spite
of the mildness of its eye, the little loris is not to be
handled with impunity ; its sharp teeth can leave a

44

LEMURS AND SUPERSTITION

mark. Coupled with this habit of biting is a partly
carnivorous diet. The loris will eat almost anything in
the way of vegetables, and it is also singularly adroit
in catching birds. A mixed diet occurs, it will be
observed, among groups of animals which have some
claims to be considered archaic ; thus, the venerable
pig tribe is omnivorous. So too the Artoid carnivora,
which are among the more ancient types di living bears,
are mixed eaters. The slow loris has many vernacular
names in the east ; among them are " Bashful Cat,"
" Bashful Monkey," " Wind Monkey." These names
have all a meaning ; the first two, of course, are plainly
to be referred to the slow and nocturnal habits of the
little lemur. The last may be in allusion to its whistling
note ; but perhaps it has been given to it on account
of the belief among the Chinese sailors that its voice
presages wind. Much other superstition has gathered
round this certainly rather weird-looking little Primate.
Captain Flower has discovered that a general view is
held in Siam that if a man commits a crime which he
did not premeditate, some one has " unbeknownst "
buried a piece of loris under his threshold. The amount
of legend which envelops wild animals seems to be in
some proportion to the singularity of their physiognomy.
Thus, the singular Madagascar lemur, the Chiromys,
with its eager eyes and long thin middle finger, is held to
presage good fortune, if it brings a traveller in the forest
a pillow and places it under his head. The story re-
minds one a little of the stone lion who wags its tail
when it hears the clock strike twelve. The Nycticebus
tardigradus carries its young one wrapped round its
body like some other lemurs. It remains there, as do
the young kangaroos in the pouch, until of large size.
One wonders whether this habit may not be indeed a
reminiscence of the earlier presence of a pouch in some
ancient lemur.

45

HAPALEMUR GRISEUS
THE GENTLE LEMURS

English vernacular names are not as a rule particu-
larly full of accurate meaning, for in many cases they
are mere translations of a scientific name of Greek
origin which may have a dim applicability in that
tongue to some one, and that not always a striking,
peculiarity of the animal so named, but which are apt
to lose that faint significance when translated. The
lemurs which form the subject of the present article
are known to zoologists as Hapalemur, and there are
two species, viz. H. simus and H. griseus, both of which
are confined to Madagascar. This " simple lemur " is
not, however, to be altogether trusted to keep up its
alleged gentleness of disposition. It is furnished, as
are other lemurs, with a row of closely set projecting
serrated and sharp teeth in the front of the lower jaw,
a marked lemurian characteristic, which could give a
respectable nip to any one entrusting an enquiring fore-
finger to it. This little grey- coloured animal is nearly
always represented at the Zoo ; at any rate, it is almost
certain that the commoner species, H. griseus, will be
found in one of the side cages of the monkey house.
Not so frequently, however, the larger broad-nosed
form. This, like other lemurs, has acquired its general
name of lemur from its quiet and nocturnal, and, there-
fore, somewhat ghostly, habits. Not that it is alto-
gether silent ; indeed, H . simus is said by Mr. Shaw to
possess at least two modes of utterance which may
correspond to diverse feelings. It may quack like a
duck or scream. It is vegetarian and insectivorous,
and a constant if not a greedy feeder. The lemurs in
general form a race which has its present headquarters
in Madagascar, though a few forms are found in Africa
and even in the East. But in the past epochs of the
world's history lemurs were European and American

EXTINCT LEMURS

also. They are a group which is somewhat inter-
mediate between the more highly organized monkeys
and the Insectivora (e.g. shrews, hedgehogs, etc.).
With grasping hands and feet suitable for climbing and
handling their food, is combined a crafty and long-
snouted face, such as that of a fruit bat. The brain,
that organ by which the higher Primates can be distin-
guished from the lower, is on a level with animals
lying lower in the scale, and is not like that of monkeys.
The Germans appropriately enough signalize this half-
way character of the lemurs by terming them " half-
affen " ; and Dr. Forsyth Major has lately found the
fossil remains of an animal which he thinks still more
successfully bridges over the rather narrow gulf separat-
ing lemurs from monkeys. So much then for the
relationships of our Hapalemur and of course other
lemurs. Extreme agility is one of the most conspicuous
qualifications of this lemur, and of those which are
most nearly allied to it. Its energy of muscular move-
ments contrasts greatly with that of the more torpid
lemurs of West Africa, and of the eastern hemisphere.
This can be readily witnessed in the cages at the Zoo.
This rapidity of movement will render it a little diffi-
cult to inspect a curious peculiarity of Hapalemur,
almost unique, so far as is known, in the lemur tribe.
If the animal can be induced to lend itself to scientific
observation, the visitor may note upon the wrist of the
male a patch of black spiny structures, which are
columnar and corn-like outgrowths of hardened skin.
In the lady Hapalemur griseus these outgrowths are not
present, but in the same place is a patch of black and
naked skin. Precisely the same kind of structure is to
be found on the foot, not on the hand, of an African
lemur not very closely allied to this, and which is known
as Galago garnetti. What the use of these roughened
patches of skin may be is not known at present ; obser-

47

CLIMBING ORGANS

vation will doubtless settle the point. It has been
suggested that they are of the nature of " climbing
irons," and aid the lemur in barking up a tree ; but
with an excellent and delicately fashioned hand such
adjuncts appear to be unnecessary. Besides, why
should the structure be different in the two sexes, if it
be of this or an analogous direct use. More probably
it is one of those mysterious marks of sex which often
have no ascertained uses, such as the moustaches of the
male man and the different colours of the plumage in
many birds.

THE UNGULATA, OR HOOFED MAMMALS

Horns and hoofs are the distinguishing feature of this
large order of mammals ; they are, furthermore,
graminivorous, or, at least, vegetarian in habit, and,
as a rule, walk upon the tips of the toes. But an inspec-
tion of the various Ungulates contained in the menagerie
in London will show that some of these characters do
not absolutely define every member of the order. The
Hyrax, for example, walks firmly upon the sole of its
foot, and has no horns. The elephant has no horns.
These two animals are, in fact, representatives of
Ungulates of a more primitive structure than the rest.
The very earliest known members of the order, now
extinct, had not acquired the more typical ungulate
characteristics of their descendants of to-day. In many
respects they showed symptoms of fading into other
orders of mammals, particularly the Creodonta, the
ancestors of the Carnivora of the present day. It
remains, however, the fact that, though some Ungulates
have not got horns, the existence of horns is absolutely
confined to this order. In zoological classification even
the veriest beginner soon learns that Nature draws no
hard and fast lines, and that when an attempt to make

48

ZOOLOGICAL CLASSIFICATION

nice distinction is indulged in, that attempt is often
contemptuously refuted by Nature. The most that
can be done is to estimate all the characters that can
be ascertained, and then a given animal can be referred
to its place by a series of comparisons. For example,
the little Kanchil, which we describe later, is an Ungu-
late, although it possesses no horns, and has strong
canine teeth, which are often wanting in the group.
We arrive at this conclusion by the consideration of
the sum total of its anatomical structure.

We find, for example, that the feet are arranged on
the plan of those of other horned and canine-toothless
Artiodactyle Ungulates, while the stomach has nearly
the complexity of that of those animals. The brain
and other organs point in the same direction ; and so,
in spite of lack of horns and strong development of
canine teeth, we put the Kanchil near to the deer and
their allies. This, however, is a simple instance which
admits of no question. It is quite otherwise with the
whales and dolphins ; no one has yet been able to put
before the zoological world convincing arguments as
to the place which the aquatic mammals occupy in the
system. In no structural feature is there irrefragable
evidence of the whale's place in Nature, though some
would put them near the order which we are now con-
sidering.

Besides the possession of horns and hoofs and the
usual disappearance or rudimentary condition of the
canines, it will be noted that the Ungulata are practi-
cally entirely vegetable-feeding animals. It is true
that in certain northern regions cattle are fed, when
fodder is scarce, upon dried fish, and that there are a
few other instances of the development of a carnivorous
appetite in the group. But, on the whole, the Ungulata
are a more purely vegetarian group than is any other of
existing mammals. Related to this mode of feeding,

Z.G. 49 E

UNGULATE CHARACTERS

we find that the molar teeth, or cheek teeth, as they are
sometimes termed, have flattened crowns suitable for
triturating vegetable food ; this contrasts with the
sharp -pointed molars of many carnivora, which are
equally fitted for rending flesh. These molars get
during the life of their possessor much worn down, and
thus present in course of time a flatter surface than
those of carnivorous creatures, a character which the
Ungulates share with the nearly equally graminivorous
Rodentia.

A general glance at the various kinds of oxen, sheep,
deer, antelopes and camels exhibited at the Zoo will
impress, and rightly impress, upon the visitor two other
features in which the Ungulates differ from other
mammalian groups that inhabit the land. The first is
size : Ungulates run large, while Carnivora, Rodents,
Insectivores, Marsupials, and Edentates do not. There
are small Ungulates, like the Kanchil, and some tiny
antelopes not bigger than a small dog ; but, on the
whole, the group is one which contains large-sized
creatures. Secondly, Ungulates are eminently creatures
who use their legs as supports as well as for running
purposes. When at rest a lion lies down ; a horse lies
down but seldom, and the statement is generally true
of the whole series of Ungulates. Sheep and goats
climb rocks, and there are one of two kinds of Hyrax
(called on this very account Dendrohyrax) which live in
trees ; but, as a rule, Ungulates are plain living creatures
of considerable swiftness. On the whole, there is in
this group of mammals a tendency to a reduction or
even a practical loss of the hair and fur. Animals
belonging to such diverse groups of Ungulates as the
rhinoceros, the elephant, the hippopotamus and the
babyrussa, have but a scanty growth of hair ; and even
in the deer and antelopes the hairy covering is by no
means so dense as is the fur of a cat or a rabbit. The

50

SUBDIVISION OF UNGULATES

thick skin of many of them led to the old name of
Pachydermata for this group, which, however, then
embraced some other forms. In short, if an animal is
large, if its hair be coarse and not dense, if it walk upon
its toes and not on the flat of the foot, if its grinding
teeth be flattened on the grinding surface, if its canines
are absent or insignificant, and if it possess horns, it is
certain to be an Ungulate. The Ungulates are a large
group, large in numbers, that is to say, as well as in size
of individuals. They are found all over the world,
with only the exceptions of Australia and some of the
adjacent islands, and New Zealand. Tropical Africa
may perhaps be regarded as their headquarters, for
here abound antelopes of many species (but not a single
deer), oxen, rhinoceros, elephant, hippopotamus, many
pigs, and the hyraxes. Zebras are found here, and
here only, and the hippopotamus is nowadays restricted
to that continent. Next in variety of kinds come certain
parts of Asia, where tapirs, elephants, rhinoceroses, deer,
oxen, and antelopes are met with.

The several names used imply a possibility of a sub-
division of the Ungulata into smaller groups ; and this
can be done by easily recognizable, and even quite
external, characters. To these external characters
correspond certain marked differences in the structure
of the bones, of the muscles, and of the various organs
of the body, particularly the brain, stomach, and some
other parts of the alimentary tract. We may in the
first place cut off from the main Ungulate body the
hyrax and the elephant, each of which types forms a
very distinct group of its own. The hyrax contrasts
with all other existing Ungulates by the following
assemblage of characters. It is of small size, with a
short tail and rather dense fur. It is plantigrade, i.e.
it walks upon the soles of the feet ; the hoofs are not so
markedly hoofs as in the horses and oxen, etc., but more

51

ARTIODACTYLES AND PERISSODACTYLES

like flattened nails. It can climb both rocks and trees
(that is, various species can), and lives in burrows, which
Ungulates generally do not. It has very strong and
chisel- like incisor teeth in the front of each jaw, which
are by no means unlike those so characteristic of rodents.
The molar teeth, however, are more like those of the
rhinoceros. The elephants form another and an equally
distinct group. Their characters can be readily verified
with a little trouble. The massive form and straight
limbs, not bent at the knee or elsewhere, and the scanty
hair distinguish them from others ; but it must be
borne in mind that the extinct mammoth was copiously
clad with hair, and so may have been other extinct
forms, with whose bones and teeth we are alone
acquainted. The trunk is a third feature, of which,
however, there are the beginnings in the tapir. The
gait is partly plantigrade, and the bones show that the
fingers and toes are the unreduced number of five to
each limb. The enormous tusks, which are in reality
an exaggeration of the large rodent incisors, mark out
the elephants, and the fact that only one or two of the
particularly large molar teeth come into use at one
time in each jaw is another feature of the living but not
of all the extinct elephants.

The remaining Ungulates fall readily into two groups,
the Artiodactyles and the Perissodactyles, names which
we owe to the late Sir Richard Owen, which may be
fairly grouped together in contrast to either and to both
of the two groups which we have already characterized.
In these Ungulata vera, as they have been termed, we
have the furthest development of Ungulate characters.
The gait is purely digitigrade, and in connexion with
this is a lengthening of some of the bones of the feet
and hands. It is in this section only that horns are
developed, while the hoofs are more perfect as hoofs.
The fingers and toes are always reduced from the

52

TOOTH CHARACTERS

original five, and only one is left in the horse and its
allies, and two in the oxen and deer — that is, in each
case one or two perfect toes ; for there are vestiges of
two others in each case, with certain exceptions, where
"perierunt etiam ruince, the very rudiments are tiny."
The Perissodactyles embrace the horses, rhinoceroses,
and tapirs, which are sufficiently dealt with in the pages
which follow. The Artiodactyles are first of all divisible
into two main groups, the Bunodontia and the Seleno-
dontia. These names are derived from the characters
of the molar teeth, which are tubercular in the one
upon their grinding surfaces, and with a half -moon -like
pattern in the other. The Bunodonts are the pigs and
the hippopotamus ; the Selenodontia are again divisible
into four groups, viz. Tragulidae (see kanchil),
Giraffidae (see giraffe), Camelidae (see lama), and the
Pecora. The Pecora itself consists of the hollow-horned
ruminants (see urus) and the solid -horned ruminants (see
elk). The former embraces the antelopes, goats, sheep,
and oxen, the latter the deer. The further character-
istics of these various types is given under the descrip-
tion of those selected for comment.

THE TAPIR

This swarthy beast has undoubtedly a pig-like aspect.
This is induced by its rotund form, its short legs with
their three or four toes, the curtailment of the tail, and
perhaps the rather small eyes. These appearances,
however, are quite deceptive ; the nearest living allies
of the tapir are the horse and the rhinoceros. With
these the tapir forms a subdivision of the Ungulate
animals known as the Perissodactyla, characterized, as
far as external characters go, mainly by the fact that
among the fingers and toes one median finger or toe is
predominant and occupies the median axis of the limb,

53

LINNAEUS AND THE TAPIR

the others being subsidiary and arranged on either side
of it. On the other hand, in the cow tribe, or Artio-
dactyle, there are two fingers or toes symmetrical with
regard to each other, and lying on either side of the
median axis, which passes between them. Different
though the outward form of the tapir is to both its
living relations, a survey of extinct types of all kinds
shows a group or groups in the past with nebulous out-
lines fading away at the edges into both horse-like
creature and unmistakable tapirs. The mountain cow,
as this animal by another misnomer is sometimes
termed, is called, after Linnaeus, Tapirus terrestris.
The specific name terrestris had, but has not, a point.
Linnaeus placed the tapir with the hippopotamus, and
distinguished one as " amphibius " from the other as
" terrestris," names signifying their varied modes of
life. As a matter of fact, the tapir is quite at home
in the water, and prefers marshy surroundings. De
Buff on terms him with some reason " a dull and gloomy
animal who never stirs out but in the night." The
French naturalist also comments, apropos of the tapir,
upon the poverty-stricken appearance of the fauna of
South America, as compared with Asia and Africa. It
is true now as it was when Buff on wrote, that no very
large beasts haunt the forests or plains of the South
American continent, but we no longer believe that this
is due to " something in the air." At the Zoo the
tapir is' a constant resident. Its mobile and even
flexible proboscis cannot really be compared with that
of the elephant, to which it apparently bears an exact
resemblance, differentiated only by its smaller size.
But the Roman-nosed " Shire " horse has a trace of a
similar proboscis in its fleshy and arched nose, which
overhangs more than in the Arab race. The proboscis,
in fact, is not a mark of likeness to the elephant, between
which and the tapir there is no relationship other than

54

MR. RIDLEY'S OBSERVATIONS

that implied by the fact that both belong to the great
order of Ungulata.- The tapir's " lights," in fact, tell
the same story as its bones. There is no ruminating
stomach, as in the Artiodactyle type, but instead a huge
caecum like that of the horse and rhinoceros.

The dark hues of the American tapirs (there are about
four to five known species in Central and South America)
suit the dim forests in which they move. And
accordingly, one might think that the Old World tapir,
with its belly-band of white, would be on that very
account a conspicuous creature to marauding tigers.
This is, according to Mr. H. N. Ridley, not at all the
case. The innocuous tapir, with no means of defence
save its heels, and they for flight, trusts to its likeness
to grey and scattered boulders, frequent along the
streams of the Malay peninsula, which it haunts.
" When lying down in the day," observes Mr. Ridley,
" it exactly resembles a grey boulder." The blackness
of the tapir is a sign of maturity. The young animal,
as is so often the case among mammals (e.g. the deer,
the young of the puma, etc.) are flecked and striped
with white. Those who have observed young tapirs
wild, say that this spotting is an excellent preventative
of slaughter by carnivorous beasts. When quietly
lying down, the spots and stripes harmonize with
patches and dots of sunlight piercing the trees and
bushes of the forest lands which they prefer, and
readily deceive even the trained eye of the naturalist
or hunter. But of all such cases of supposed protection
by likeness to environment, one is compelled to suggest
that they depend for their probability, not only upon
tr e eye of man, who is at most only a recent foe of the
animal world, but of other creatures who have hunted
tapirs long before man was born into the world. In
this case, how is it that the sense of smell, which is
admittedly much keener among the majority of both

55

ALBERT DURER AND THE RHINOCEROS

hunted and hunting beasts, is negatived by the sense
of sight ?

THE RHINOCEROS

This great Ungulate shows all the typical character-
istics of the Perissodactyla which have been already and
will be referred to. For some reason or other — probably
blackness and large size — it is confounded in the popular
mind with its very distant relative, the hippopotamus.
It certainly occurs in Africa ; but is purely terrestrial,
or, at most, marsh-frequenting. The rhinoceros is the
only living Perissodactyle Ungulate which has horns
on the forehead or anywhere. These horns, however,
are not strictly comparable to those of goats and sheep,
of deer and antelopes. They are to be looked upon as
simply masses of agglutinated hairs which are borne
upon a roughened, at most slightly raised, area of bone.
The African rhinos have two of the horns ; some of the
Asiatic forms have also two, the others have but one.
Next to the presence of horns, the most salient charac-
ters of all rhinoceroses is their thick and often folded
skin, covered as a rule with but scanty hair. It is truly
a " Pachyderm," and one does not wonder that Albert
Diirer, in his celebrated drawing of the Indian form
(Rh. indicus) represented it as armour-plated with
indriven bolts. The strength of the rhinoceros is
attested by the thick bars which hedge it in its cage at
the Zoo, and its danger to human beings by the iron
" refuges " for the keepers to escape into if hard pressed.
But it seems doubtful whether the rhinoceros is so fierce
as it has been asserted to be. It is true that the poet,
ingeniously rhyming, has said —

If ever you meet a rhinoceros
Do not linger but flee
Up the very next tree :
He's a match for the gods ; he can toss Eros.

56

:< THEODORE " OF THE ZOO

But, on the other, a naturalist in Africa related that a
toy terrier put a rhinoceros to ignominious flight by its
barks. The probable explanation is that the rhinoceros,
when once set going, continues on in the same straight
line, in obedience to the Newtonian law ; under these
circumstances, as with Stephenson's locomotive and the
hypothetical cow, it is so much the worse for anybody
who happens to come in its way. It is no more ferocious,
in fact, than a cataract or an express train. It is true
that " Theodore," an African rhinoceros lately on view
at the Zoo, but now no more, was irritable. But we
cannot argue from a captive to a freely roaming beast.
Legend has encrusted the rhinoceros as thickly as
Nature has. Its horns make beautiful translucent
drinking vessels, which so lately as the year 1762 were
reputed as test of poison. " When wine is poured
therein," wrote Dr. Brookes in that year, " it will rise,
ferment, and seem to boil ; but when mixed with poison
it cleaves in two, which experiment has been seen by
thousands of people." Our second best diarist, John
Evelyn, saw during his travels in Italy a fountain
which was kept sweet and free from poison by a
rhinoceros horn. It is held, too, that the branch cast
into the waters of Marah was a horn brought with him
by Moses from Egypt. As for unicorn legends, they are
manifold. But it always seems to us that the rhinoceros
was not the prototype of the " lufar unicorne." That
fabulous beast, as every one knows, is compounded, at
least in heraldry, of the body of a horse well maned and
of the horn of a narwhal. To get that out of a pon-
derous rhinoceros is difficult even for the imaginative
natural history of the ancients. No rhinoceros could
slumber upon a maiden's breast, unless indeed the
maiden were of the Barnum and Bailey kind. Much
more likely is it that the unicorn is a small and graceful
gazelle with, as rarely but occasionally happens as a

57

THE KING OF PORTUGAL AND THE POPE

freak, but one straight horn. The rhinoceros has been
seen in Europe and even in England long before the
opening of the Zoological Society's gardens. The
animal which was sketched by Albert Diirer was sent
over in the year 1313 to the King of Portugal. It
proved so intractable, or the Portuguese king appreci-
ated it so little, that he sent it as a present to the Pope !
The head of the Church, however, was relieved from the
anxiety attendant on the housing of so " fearful a
wildfowl " by the actions of the rhinoceros itself, who,
"in an access of fury sunk the vessel on its passage."
In the year 1684 old John Evelyn " went with Sir
William Godolphin to see the rhinoceros or unicorn,
being the first, I suppose, that was ever brought to
England. She belonged to some East India merchants,
and was sold (as I remember) for above £2,000." The
price of rhinoceroses did not diminish very greatly
after the expiration of a century and a half. For the
first specimen acquired by the Zoological Society, in
1834, cost no IGSS tnan £I>°5°- Still later, in 1875, even
more was given for a rhinoceros. The original specimen
of a reputed new species, not now allowed as a species,
viz., Rh. lasiotis, cost no less than £1,250. This animal
from Assam was sent for specially, and only died the
other day. Its remains repose in the Natural History
Museum. The Gardens are never without more than
one rhinoceros nowadays. A large Indian rhinoceros
(Rh. indicus) was once the object of an interesting
experiment in medicine. It appeared to suffer from
simply a stomach-ache. The late Mr. Bartlett, daringly
experimentalizing, offered it eighty drops of croton oil
on a bun. The beast swallowed the dose, enough to
kill ever so many men, and — recovered.

QUEEN VICTORIA'S GIFTS

GREVY'S ZEBRA

This splendid zebra, the very culmination of zebras,
is one of the most striking exhibits in the Regent's Park.
It is, too, one of the chief novelties which recent events
have enabled the society to add to their menagerie. So
lately as 1899 the first two examples were procured
through her late Majesty Queen Victoria, who received
them as a gift from the Emperor Menelik of Abyssinia.
With her customary liberality, the Queen placed these
horses in the Zoological Gardens for exhibition to the
public. The zebra had, however, been known to us
before that date. In 1882 the first specimen now in
Europe was sent by the same Emperor to M. Grevy, late
President of the French Republic, and the beast was
described as new to science by the late Alphonse Milne-
Edwards. It seems, however, that the fellow explorer
with Speke, Colonel Grant, had seen and preserved an
example of the same zebra so long ago as 1860 ; but he
only described it later, in fact not until 1883. So
much for the history of this the king of zebras. Equus
grevyi can be readily distinguished from the other
zebras, all of which, as every one knows, are purely
African in their range, by a number of salient characters.
It is a larger beast, and especially has a large head and
ears, the latter being particularly hairy. The black and
white bands are very definitely black and white as
the variety of Burchell's zebra known as Equus Chap-
manni. In other zebras there is a tendency to dulness
in the black, which occasionally is even brown. The
closeness of the stripes and their arrangement may be
seen to differ from the mountain zebra, which perhaps
comes nearest in striping. But this can be seen in a
shorter time than it will take to write a description.
It is probable, in fact, that Grevy's zebra is much more
distinct from all other zebras, including the quagga,

59

OF THE OLD WORLD

than any of these latter are from each other. The
Somali name of this zebra is Fer'o. Captain Swayne
found them in that part of Africa in droves of six. He
further observed that the young animals were beset
with a closer coat of hairs than their parents, and that
the black of their skins was dingy and brownish. Like
all zebras — and this is the greatest source of annoyance
to the sportsman, for the animals will mob you and
thus warn off other game — they are curious and in-
quisitive, even impertinent in their attentions. They
bray " like an Abyssinian mule," but they are not to be
despised from a gastronomic point of view. This latter
character did not impress Colonel Grant so favourably,
for he found in their flesh a very horsey taste.

THE WILD Ass

Of wild asses there are certainly two species, if not
more. In Asia we have the onager, and in Africa the
parent of our donkey, the Nubian ass, Equus asinus,
or, apparently better, E. africanus. In the Asiatic ass
there is merely a long dorsal stripe running down the
length of the back ; in the African ass, besides this
stripe, a cross bar on the shoulders — in legend, the
marks of the Saviour. These two forms, which are
really quite distinct from each other in correspondence
to the continents which they people, are subdivisible
into other races which may or may not have the value
and rank of " species." In Asia we have first of all the
hemippe (E. hemippus) of Syria, and the thick-coated
kiang (E. hemionus) of Thibet, furred to stand the
wintry climate of its mountainous home. In Africa
Somaliland nourishes an ass known as the Equus
somalicus, with stripes upon the legs, but no stripe upon
the shoulder on each side. We have, in fact, in the
zebras and donkeys a series of stages between plain

60

To face p. 60]

GREVY'S ZEBRA

ZEBRA CHARACTERS

coloration and elaborate striping. The quagga, with
its striped foreparts and plain hindparts, is a kind of
terrestrial mermaid compounded of the forequarters of

a Burchell's zebra, with the hindquarters of a plain
donkey. It is intermediate between the two races, and
the danger of lingering at a halfway house is evidenced

61

KINDS OF HORSES

by the fact that it is now, and has been since at latest
the year 1878, extinct. Before considering the onager,
it will be useful to enquire how far asses are to be dis-
tinguished from horses. To differentiate the domestic
horse from its brother in harness is easy for the most
un-zoological of observers. But Prjewalski's wild
" horse," and the Celtic pony, land us in difficulties.
The wild horse has a donkey's tail for part of the year
and the typical horse's tail haired up to the root for the
rest of the season. The Celtic pony has the single pair
of " chestnuts," only those of the fore limbs, which
otherwise distinguish horses from asses ; for in the
domestic horse and in Prjewalski's there are also chest-
nuts on the hind limbs. Furthermore, we cannot regard
striping as an exclusive possession of the donkey tribe,
for traces of cross bars appear again and again in the
most flagrantly domestic of horses, especially after
crossing has had its influence. The onager is very
generally, if not absolutely invariably, to be viewed at
the Zoo, and a handsome beast it is. It is no use, as a
rule, to satisfy oneself concerning the appearance of
some rare beast by the observation of stuffed specimens
only. A stuffed animal is, especially was in past days,
apt to be as like its living descendants as the self-
made man is to the Apollo of Belvidere or to the Faun
of Praxiteles.

Its hues are of the desert, and it shares them with the
jerboa and the lion. It may be observed incidentally
that popular notions of a desert, derived in all proba-
bility from illustrated Bibles, of the kind that come out
in sixpenny parts, would define it as a tract of particu-
larly yellow sand with an oasis in the foreground and
a clump of Arabs in the middle distance. Deserts are
not all of this plan of coloration. Mr. Scott Elliot has
figured an African " desert " which presents the appear-
ance of a charming English woodland scene, not remark -

62

THE HUNTING OF THE ONAGER

able for sand and Arabs in the offing. In Central Asia,
however, the desert is generally of the more popular
character, and here it is that onagers frequent the stony
ground and offer sport to the horseman. This sport is
carried on, among other places, in the very appropriately
named " Runn of Cutch," and it is said that the wild ass
is not so fleet as legend would have it. In twenty-five
miles the wild ass can be run down by an expert rider.
It is not of much use economically when it is run down.
This wild ass and its very near relative, the kiang,
suffer from the same curiosity that marks the zebra.
The fondness of the costermonger's donkey for thistles
and its resolute voice need not move us to vulgar mirth ;
we may, in fact, be as sentimental over the facts as
Sterne. The two characters indicate in a most inter-
esting way the past history of the domestic ass. Thistles
are of the kind of plants which stony localities produce,
arid and thick skinned, to preserve what little moisture
is necessary to their existence. That the donkey pre-
fers them now is surely a sign of former life in stony
places. So, too, its dislike of water, and its habit of
rolling in the dust. The voice is held to be a danger
signal to its fellows. It always reminds us of the final
notes in the roar of that animal whose skin the donkey
once wore.

THE WART HOG

To represent the pig tribe we shall select this animal,
which is entirely African in habitat, and is to be divided
into two distinct species of which the technical names
are Phacechoerus aethiopicus and P. africanus (formerly
known as P. A eliani] . The wart hog is with some justice
described as a " superlatively ugly " animal. Its pe-
culiarities of visage, to use a milder term, are mainly
due to various excrescences upon the face, almost if not
quite of the nature of horns. A pair of these in front of

63

PIGS' TROTTERS

and below the eyes are especially large ; and their
situation recalls the fable wherein Momus is made to
criticize the bull made by Zeus on the grounds that the
horns should have been placed below the eye so that it
could see where to strike. The wart hog can, or, at
. least, could ; for it uses its long and upcurved tusks
for aggressive purposes. These tusks, like those of
others of the pig tribe, notably the babyroussa, are
perhaps to be looked upon as being originally of a
pathological nature. Being found useful they were
retained by Nature. Though the wart hog has these
weapons ready to hand, it is not of particularly fierce
nature ; and those at the Zoo have as a rule been placid
and quite porcine creatures with a fondness for being
scratched with the end of a walking stick. In Africa
they go in herds to some extent, and live in the de-
serted burrows and mounds made by the aard vark
or Orycteropus. It is related that when leaving these
burrows they turn a kind of somersault at the front
door which is apt to be damaging to a bystander who
is too close. It does not appear whether the wart hog
evicts the peaceful Orycteropus, or is only an inhabiter
of deserted houses. Like other pigs, the wart hog has,
it can readily be observed, four toes on each of its fore
legs, of which the larger two are in the middle and the
smaller outside and not reaching the ground. Take
away the outer, and nearly functionless, toes and the
state of affairs characteristic of the deer, oxen and
antelopes is arrived at. In fact the pigs are an ancient
race, and this is one of the anatomical facts which
shows it. On the fore limbs are wart-like structures
caused by the habit of the animal of kneeling. It has
been lately shown that these warts are not altogether
produced during the lifetime of their possessor, in re-
sponse to frequent kneeling, like the horny hand of
the blacksmith ; but the young, before they have

WART HOG

To face p. 64]

AELIAN'S WART HOG

had time to develop them properly, show unmistak-
able traces of them. Now it cannot be doubted that
we have to do here with a clear case of the inheritance
of acquired characters.

In South-East Africa the lengthy name of the wart
hog is nothing less than Indhlovudawani. After this
one may well reply to the general query of " What's in a
name ? " with the answer, " A good deal." Though verna-
cular names of beasts should be really vernacular and
not pseudo- vernacular, like " the rude dog " for Canis
rudis, there is a limit, and we propose to stick to wart
hog in these pages. Representatives of the wart hogs
have been exhibited in the Gardens fairly continuously
since the year 1850 when the first example was received.
Aelian's wart hog was apparently first shown in 1861,
when a specimen was deposited by her late Majesty,
which had been given to her by that rather celebrated
potentate the King of Ashantee. It appears that
the wart hog is not bad eating. The late Dr. Crisp
dissected one that had died suddenly at the Zoo, and
cut off a chop for private consumption. It is not sur-
prising to hear that he " was werry much like pig."
The doctor furthermore made the excellent suggestion
on the strength of this banquet that a cross between
the wart hog and the domestic pig might result in
superior bacon, for the ribs of the Phacochoerus are
especially thickly covered with meat. This and the
other kinds of pigs possessed by the Zoological Society
are housed in adjacent enclosures, so that their but
slightly divergent characteristics can be readily com-
pared by the visitor. The fat and depressed body of
this pig contrasts with the leanish compressed body of
the wild boar, the ancestor it is presumed of the bacon-
producing porker.

Z.G. 65

THE VOICE OF THE HIPPOPOTAMUS

HIPPOPOTAMUS

Behemoth of the Book of Job is not, as most persons
believe, the African hippopotamus in spite of the fact
that the artist poet Blake so drew it. A recent author
(the Rev. M. G. Watkins) has pointed out that Behemoth
is clearly the same word as Mammoth, inasmuch
as in the Arabic language " b " and " m " are in-
terchangeable. Furthermore in the Book of Job
" Behemoth " is said to " move his tail like a cedar,"
" he eateth grass as an ox," " he lieth in the covert of
the reed and fens " and lastly, " he drinketh up a river."
Now all these phrases of description plainly point to
an elephant rather than to an hippopotamus, especially
the last, which might at first sight refer to the river
horse. For the copious draughts of an elephant are
familiar to those who know the beast, while the aquatic
hippopotamus is not actually seen to drink at all.
Having settled what the hippopotamus is not, let us
inquire what it is. Linnaeus, as we have already
mentioned in dealing with the tapir, confused it with
that animal, which which it has only the remotest
relationship. The hippopotamus, in fact, belongs to
the Artiodactyle section of the Ungulates, and is near
to the pigs. The dwarf hippopotamus of Liberia even
approaches in its habits to the pig tribe ; for it eschews
the river and wanders about through the bush. The
term river pig would thus be much more suitable than
river horse, the name which is given to it both in Eng-
lish and Greek. Its voice has, it is true, been compared
to the " neigh " of a horse ; it appears to us much more
like a gruff version of the sound made by the horse's
poor relative. But this sound is only repeated once, a
deep base " Hee-haw." The outward aspect of this
huge " Pachyderm " is familiar even to those who
have never seen the beast alive. The main points to

66

BLOOD-RED SECRETIONS

be noticed about it, and which fix its place in the
zoological system, are these. It is a great thick-skinned
beast with but few hairs ; thickness of skin and few-
ness of hairs are characters which are often found
among the Ungulata, witness the elephant and the
rhinoceros. On its bulky head the eyes, ears and
nostrils are situate rather towards the top and at the
same level more or less ; this is an advantage to the
animal when floating in the water ; for it can breathe,
hear and smell with the least possible exposure of body.
There are four toes on each hand and foot, a point of
likeness to its nearest allies the pig tribe. Its teeth
are enormous and make good ivory. It has, moreover,
a very good set of them, front teeth as well as back.
The more typical Artiodactyles, the Ruminantia (e.g.
deer, oxen, antelopes), have entirely lost their upper
incisors, and mostly their canines. To reconcile the
dangerous-looking teeth with a vegetarian existence
requires faith in the observing powers of those who have
studied the hippopotamus in a wild state ; but this
faith may be safely reposed. The hippopotamus pro-
duces at times, especially after just leaving the water,
a remarkable secretion from the skin of a carmine
character, which bears at least a superficial resemblance
to the equally carmine secretion of the red kangaroo
(Macropus nifiis). This fluid contains granules of
the carmine-coloured pigment ; and it was first studied
upon the original specimen of hippopotamus acquired
by the Zoological Society in 1849. Its use .remains a
mystery ; but it is believed to have suggested to the
Egyptian priests their deception of the " bloody sweat."
In the early natural history of the hippopotamus fact
is mingled largely with fiction ; indeed, it might be more
accurate to say that fiction is lightly salted with fact.
Even Buffon allows that in what Aristotle said of
the hippopotamus there were more errors than facts.

FROM PLINY TO SIR S. BAKER

Pliny naturally copied his master, and added to his
errors. According to Buff on the first good account
of the hippopotamus was given by one Frederico
Zerenghi, who wrote in the year 1603. It must be
admitted that in that account there is much that is
both new and true. He observed the four toes, the
enclosure of the teeth in the mouth when closed, the
correct size, and noted that then, as now, whips are
made of the thick skin, sjamboks in fact. But in
repeating the assertions of others Zerenghi goes astray ;
for he quotes legend to the effect that the animal feeds
upon fish, crocodiles, and dead human bodies. He
himself, however, noted that rice and grain were con-
sumed by the animal, but was misled by the great
fangs into placing credence upon its flesh-eating pro-
pensities. There is no doubt that though the hippopo-
tamus does eat vegetable matters its teeth are used as
offensive weapons. Mr. Consul Petherick, who brought
over a specimen for the Zoological Society in 1860,
related how a hippopotamus " suddenly raising half
its great carcass with an agility hardly to be expected
out of the water, close under the bows, carried off my
unfortunate cook from the gunwale on which he was
sitting, one bite of the animal's powerful jaws sufficing
to sever his body in two at the waist." Other travellers
have told similar stories. The hippopotamus, being
an aquatic creature, naturally can dive with ease and
stay under water for some time. There has been
some exaggeration as to its capacities in this respect.
Sir Samuel Baker limits its endurance to ten minutes ;
but Mr. A. D. Bartlett, the late Superintendent of the
Zoological Gardens, found that a new born hippopota-
mus remained at the bottom of its tank for no less
a period than fifteen minutes, whence it was fished up
in a perfectly lively condition. The hippopotamus will
occasionally put out to sea, and the fact that it will

68

HIPPOPOTAMI IN CYPRUS

do so is of interest in this matter. Remains of hippopo-
tami have been found in Madagascar, which is known
to have been for aeons separated from the African
continent ; they must have originally got to that island
by a marine route failing a land bridge, which latter of
course accounts for their remains in Europe, Asia, and
in the valley of the Thames. The same explanation
may account for a recent and most exciting " find " in
the island of Cyprus. Plenteous bones of a hippopo-
tamus have been unearthed in that island, which
clearly belonged to quite a small animal, not larger than
an average sized pig. It is striking as a fact of com-
parison that Malta harboured in days gone by an equally
tiny elephant. Thus a minute environment appears
to produce in some cases a small frame in its inhabitants.
There was great excitement at the Zoological Society
on December n, 1850, when a letter was read to the
meeting announcing the sending of the first live hippo-
potamus to the Gardens. It was presented by
H.H. Abbas Pasha, who detached a guard of honour
to bring the young beast into Cairo. It was there
liberally treated with thirty quarts of milk daily. Since
that year the Society has never been without hippo-
potami. It is a testimony to the care bestowed upon
wild animals at the Zoo, in the past as well as in the
present, that the hippopotamus has bred so often at
the Gardens. On no less than three occasions have
young been born, one young male in 1871 and two
females in 1872. Since then the animal has been reared
in other Zoological gardens, for example at Amsterdam.

HORNLESS DEER

CHAPTER IV

The Deerlet

A FIRST glance at the little creature known as the
Chevrotain or " deerlet " (Tragulus meminna)
would not establish a definite idea in the mind as to
its exact position in the animal kingdom. It is not
unsuggestive of one of the long legged rodents, such
as the agouti ; it has also a slight hint of a marsupial
about it. The hornless head seems to forbid its
association with the group to which its feet evidently
and certainly ally it. The fact of the matter is that
the hesitation caused by the undeerlike aspect of
Tragulus is perfectly reasonable, inasmuch as the
creature is not definitely a deer though nearer to those
animals than to any other group. It will be observed
that the feet are four-toed, though the two middle
toes have the preponderance and are symmetrical in
themselves as are those of the deer. The toes, indeed,
are perfect pig's trotters. We understand by a pig
a beast of obese not to say ponderous build ; while
the slenderness and agility of a deer is proverbial. In
the person of Tragulus we have a mingling of the two
groups, and there is little doubt that in this mammal
we have an archaic form of ruminant preserved for us.
Its stomach is simpler than that of a true ruminant,
and it is clear that this animal exactly fills up the
position to be occupied by an animal which divides
the hoof and does not chew the cud. Its small size
is in accord with such a placing at the base of the Artio-

70

FAINT VERSUS FEINT

dactyle series, for we know from much evidence that
when a group appears it comes into existence in a
modest and shrinking way, to wax fat later in its history.
Smallness of size is a great advantage in the battle of
life, especially when there is not much in the way of
defence. This animal being hornless must trust to
size and swiftness for escape. It is said, however, to
add to these two qualities a third, that of cunning.
These little deer behave in the face of danger like a
good many animals belonging to quite different groups
of the animal world. Beetles, opossums and raccoons,
when hard pressed, and when avenues of escape seem
to be cut off, feign death, and then, when the danger
has passed by, get up and run away. It is, however,
a question whether this shamming is really a trick,
or whether it is a genuine faint or cataleptic trance
produced by the near proximity of the terrible. The
mind of the beetle would seem to be too embryonic to
have contracted an advantageous trick with a bene-
ficial result. But on the other hand it might be urged
that the nerves of the beetle were of iron from their
very imperfection, so that a possible explanation is
hemmed round on all sides with difficulty.

A careful inspection of the cunning " Kanchil," as the
Malays call the animal, will show that it has what
few ruminants have, quite formidable tusks in the
upper jaw. These tusks have led to the quite erroneous
confusion of Tragulus with Moschus, the musk deer, a
totally different animal, a definite deer belonging to
the family Cervidae, though usually dignified with a
sub- family to itself. In the Kanchil or Meminna, to use
two of its native names, these tusks play, it is asserted,
a somewhat novel part for tusks to play. These teeth,
which correspond of course to the tearing canines of the
Carnivora, are alleged, with what truth we cannot say,
to allow the kanchil to suspend itself from the branch of

71

SIR STAMFORD RAFFLE'S STORIES

a tree when hotly pursued by an enemy. The actual
founder of the Zoological Society, whose bust adorns the
Lion house, was told, and has told us, that a kanchil will
neatly leap into a tree when fugitive and remain there
in a state of suspense by its long canines. All we can
say is, there are the teeth and here is the story. The
tusks, it should be added, are an attribute of the male.
The only living ally of the Tragulus is the African
Hyomoschus, a shorter limbed but small deerlet, which
is also of a brown colour with spots and stripes. One
species of kanchil, Tragulus stanleyanus, recalls the
memory of one of the early Presidents of the Zoological
Society, the Earl of Derby, whose menagerie at Knowsley
was sold in the early fifties, and the inhabitants largely
drafted off to our Zoo.

THE REINDEER

The reindeer, Rangifer tarandus, is unique among
the deer tribe by reason of the fact that both sexes
bear horns. In other deer, as is well known, the
stags alone are horned, the does being hornless. The
reindeer, like the elk or moose, is circumpolar ; and
also like that animal, the American have been dis-
tinguished from the Northern European and Asiatic
forms. More than this indeed ; according to the most
recent estimate of likenesses and unlikenesses nine
distinct species of reindeer are allowed to the American
continent and adjacent regions including Greenland.
With the splitting of species we have nothing to do
here save recording that it is mainly American in its
inception, but has been eagerly followed in this
country by some whose knowledge of animal life is
limited to an acquaintance with the dead skin and the
dried skull. In Europe the reindeer is not merely
" game " ; it is used by the inhabitants of Scandinavia,
and has been from times of antiquity, as a beast of

72

DERIVATION OF " REINDEER "

draught, and as a milk and flesh producer. Indeed
of the Laplanders and some of the reindeer keepers
of the North, Caesar's famous remark of another race
might be repeated : " Cibus eorum lacte caseo carne
constat." Its outward appearance is not on the whole
unsuggestive of its near neighbour geographically
speaking, the moose. It has an approach to the long
and thick upper lip of the latter, while the somewhat
clumsy feet and legs, and the often palmated horns, add
to the resemblance. Its feet are planted firmly upon
the ground, firmly even to splayness ; and this is in re-
lation to an easy transit over yielding snow and marshy
land. It is exactly paralleled in the divaricated hoofs
of Speke's antelope, which also inhabits swampy, and
therefore treacherous, ground, but in Africa. Its
young are not spotted as are those of most deer. Its
pelage alters in colour from summer to winter as it
also does in many other deer. As for other points in
its structure, the reindeer is quite obviously a deer.
Reindeer the vernacular, and Rangifer the Latin, name
of this animal appear to be mainly derived from the
same word ; at least it is certain that the termination
" fer " does not mean here as that termination in Latin
generally does mean, a carrier or bearer. It is simply
the Latin ferum a beast, which of course is the same
as deer in English (= Thier in German). As for
" rein " it would seem to be Laplandish. The European
and Siberian reindeer had in past days a wider range
than now. In prehistoric times it of course wandered
south through Britain and France ; and its effigies
scrawled upon tusks by primaeval man are well known
to everyone. But further than this the reindeer seems
to have inhabited the extreme north of Scotland as late
as the twelfth century, when in Caithness it was hunted
for sport. The American reindeer are called by the
American zoologists Caribou ; this is not an Indian

73

AMERICAN CARIBOUS

name, as might be surmised from its sound and spelling,
but a corruption of the two French words, " carre
bceuf " or square ox. So Mr. Maddison Grant, the
secretary of the New York Zoological Society, and one
of the latest authorities upon the reindeer tells us. It
is impossible to say much about deer without dwelling
long upon the antlers. " Ex cornubus cervum " might
almost, but not quite, nowadays be said. The horns
of the reindeer-caribou are noticeable for the extreme
development of the brow tine, which projects forward
over the face, and is often divided into many " points."
It has been asserted that this part of its armature is
meant for the peaceful purpose of shovelling away the
snow which covers its lichen foods. But more likely
seems the view that it is a defence against blinding
in the combats of the males in the breeding season.
Naturally the horns of the males being used for these
aggressive purposes are larger than those of the females ;
and indeed in the latter sex the horns are said to be
completely wanting in one race or at least in some
individuals. Besides the large brow tines and the
frequent palmation of the horns, the reindeer horns
are remarkable for the fact that there is generally a
large region without any branches whatsoever except
a small tine. This great expanse of unbranched horn
is eminently characteristic of the deer. As to " points,"
i.e. the branches of the horns, forty appears to be the
outside number nowadays, though fifty are not quite
to be regarded as imaginary. The definition of a point,
according to Mr. Grant, " is a knob upon which a watch
can be hung."

THE MOOSE OR ELK

As another example of the deer tribe we may take
this the most striking member of that group. It is
a beast of noble appearance though somewhat leggy, and

74

THE IRISH ELK

it is quite the largest existing deer. The bull alone has
horns, as is the case with most deer, the reindeer, a
near neighbour of the elk, being the most salient excep-
tion. It is usual to term the American elk the " moose,"
and to reserve the name " elk " for the European
beast. But in truth the elk is, like so many northern
animals, e.g. the brown bear, circumpolar in range.
Like many creatures now limited to the north, the elk
had in past times a wider range, and remains of it have
been found even in the prolific gravels of the Thames
valley. But the elk was never historically an inhabitant
of these islands ; and it must of course not be confounded
with the " Irish elk,", which is a more typical deer in
its characters. The elk has particularly large horns
which are " palmated " as the expression goes; that
is to say, each horn swells out soon after its origin from
the head into a flat expansion, from which arise the
comparatively small tines. Of these tines there may
be as many as sixteen, but as a rule there are fewer.
The fact that these horns are at times non-palmated,
like those of the red deer, for example, has led to the
creation of various species for those individuals ; but it
seems probable that the deficient growth of the horn
is rather a matter of nutrition than of species distinc-
tion. The Canadian moose has an ingenious method
of protecting itself against wolves in the winter. It
tramples down a definite area, which is known as a
" moose yard," and securely entrenched in this it is
able to defy its foes by bringing into play its heavy
and sharp pointed horns. It is plain that a moose
travelling through a dense thicket would be incommoded
like the stag in the fable, and unable to deal efficiently
with carnivorous foes. The European and Siberian
elk may have less difficulties, and after all it seems to
live much more in the open. The most un-deerlike
point about the elk is its projecting and fleshy nose,

75

URUS AND AUROCHS

in the possession of which it suggests the antelope
known as the Saiga.

The American moose is a larger animal than its
European relative, and it is mainly on this account
that it has been proposed to separate the two speci-
fically. In this case the name elk is to be reserved for
the Norway beast, and moose for the Canadian variety.
The word moose is a native name and therefore an
excellent vernacular word to use. It is of the Algonquin
language and seems to signify " wood eater."

There are frequently examples to be seen at the Zoo.

THE URUS

For a good many years past the Zoological Society
have been in possession of examples of the British wild
bull : and so satisfactory are the conditions obtaining
in the cattle sheds at the Zoo, that these animals have
regularly bred, and the calves reared to maturity.
The ox is white and should have red ears and a black
muzzle. Black ears occur ; and it is thought that
white is not the primitive character. Indeed white
is not as a rule a colour found in Nature though many
examples can be at once quoted of its occurrence, such
as the pelican, the bell bird, etc., etc. These animals,
semi-domestic in the parks of Chillingham, Cadzow,
and elsewhere, are in all probability the real and
comparatively unaltered descendants of the primitive
wild ox of Great Britain and the continent of Europe.
They appear, however, to be smaller than the original
and wild Bos primigenius. We know the latter of
course by its sub fossil remains in fens and peat-bogs. It
seems that in very early times, at any rate in those
which we call " Neolithic," the urus was tamed by
man and kept for the sake of its milk and beef. Caesar's
description of the Gauls would seem to apply to
Neolithic man in this country ; he no doubt was of those

REFERENCE TO WILD OX

whose food consisted of milk, cheese and flesh. This
inference is drawn from the curious fact that the remains
of calves are particularly abundant ; it is supposed that
the calves were at least killed if not eaten, the killing off
of the calves being a necessity to prevent their suckling
too long. Beef is suggested from the rinding of the
skull of an urus transfixed by a Neolithic flint weapon.
In later periods than the Neolithic, these fine cattle
" tossed high their manes of snow " over the whole
country, and approached even the gates of London
so lately as the year 1174. Their occurrence as wild
animals even in the later days of mediaeval times is
testified to by references in literature. Thus James
the First of Scotland in The Kingis Quhair writes of
" The bugill drawar by his hornis grete," by which,
however, he may mean a domestic ox : less doubtful is
the line of Dunbar in The Thrissill and the Rois, who
makes dame Nature order the wild ox thus —

And lat no bowgle, with his busteous hornis,
The meik pluch-ox oppress, for all his pryde,
Bot in the yok go peciable him besyd.

The contrasting of the Bowgle (from Latin Buculus)
with the meek plough ox is clearly suggestive of a
wild form at most imperfectly domesticated. It has
been pointed out that wild traits survive in the oxen
of Chillingham and elsewhere.

That the bulls are fierce and that it is unwise to go
too near them is not of course an argument in this
direction, though it is a fact. We know well enough
that the most flagrantly domestic bull of the common
farmyard is not the beast to tackle from the wrong
side of the gate. A feature born of wildness is the
way of feeding of the Chillingham cattle. They do
not browse openly like an ox of the pasture, but feed
as it were by stealth and at night or in the evening.
Then, too, the cows when they calve propagate in the

77

' THE CAMEL OF THE ANDES "

dim obscurities of the wood. The domestic cow realizes
that man is a better nurse for her offspring than she
herself, and takes no pains to hide her offspring from him.
When the herd moves to and fro it moves in the way
of wild gregarious animals ; the young are placed in
the centre and an old and experienced patriarchal bull
leads the van. It appears that the name " aurochs,"
often applied to the European bison, a creature exactly
like the American bison, now getting equally rare,
but by which the prairies were once blackened, should be
retained for the urus ; the two names are plainly the
same in origin. The Bos bonasus of the forests of
Lithuania and of the Caucasus should be called by its
name of Wisent, which is the same word as bison.
It may occasionally be seen at the Zoo. So, too, the
American bison and a host of other bo vines.

THE LAMA

The " gawd-forsaken oont " of the East and of
Africa is represented in the New World by the lamas,
huanacos, alpacas, and vicunas. These diverse names
really apply to only two species of animal. We may
term the wild stock df the Lama huanacos, huanacos,
and the two domesticated forms of the same, lamas
and alpacas. The vicuna is a distinct species, Lama
vicugna. It is unnecessary to anyone who has once
seen the beast to inform him that the lama is a camel.
It has the same smile compounded of superciliousness,
cruelty, and stupidity that characterises its humpy
relative of the Old World. It is treacherous and
ferocious ; and a vindictive male possessed by the
Zoological Society was a little bit terrifying as it pursued
within its enclosure the steps of the passing visitor
and made, fortunately fruitless, endeavours to leap the
iron railings that secured the public. For a lama has
many weapons of offence when it is really annoyed,

ECONOMICS OF THE LAMA

and not merely, as Buffon said, the power of spitting.
Spitting, it may be observed, is the merest euphemism
for what the lama really does do. It ejects the whole
contents of its stomach upon the offending one. It
will also bite and kick, and can do both effectively.
When inclined to be " nasty " it lays back its ears in
an equine manner. In spite of this obvious ill-temper,
the Chilian naturalist Gay (no relation to the poet and
fabulist, though some of his statements would seem to be
efforts of the imagination) described the lama in good
Castilian as " suave, familiar, timido y muy curioso."
This is inadequate. We require more evidence than
disposition and outward appearance for the assertion
that a lama is a camel. It is a member of the family
Camelidse or group Tylopoda by virtue of the facts
that (i) the limbs are not and have not the least trace
of the fourth and fifth toes of which rudiments exist
in other Artiodactyles ; (2) the less complicated nature
of the stomach ; (3) the presence of incisor teeth in the
upper jaw which occupy the place of the callous pad
of the ruminants against which the lower incisors bite.
There are of course other anatomical facts which
separate this group from the remaining Artiodactyles,
but the three mentioned will suffice for us. The lama,
like the camel, has been, and is, used as a beast of
burden. Strings of lamas carried down gold from
the mines of Potosi in Peru at the order of the Incas
of Peru. The Spaniards when they discovered and
conqured Peru thought of introducing the lama into
Spain and made efforts in that direction. But appar-
ently the lama will not thrive away from its native
mountains. They also provide cloth and mutton and
even bezoar stones.

Bezoar stones are concretions found in the stomach,
and are thus very analogous to the ambergris of the
sperm whale, which is also a biliary concretion. The

79

FACTS ABOUT THE LAMA

true bezards, as they are sometimes called, apparently
come from the wild goat Capra cegagrus. The use of
these stones was the important one that they were
believed to be antidotes to poison. In old days, when
aqua tofana was a more generally used means of in-
heriting property than now, bezards had a corresponding
value. It is said that even so recently as 1847 these
antidotes were in use in Chili. The " Allocamelus,"
as the scholar J. C. Scaliger, and Gesner, following him,
called the lama, was a beast which was of course un-
known to Europeans until the sixteenth century ; the
first example as it appears that was ever exhibited in
Europe was in 1558. In this year a contemporary
woodcut exhibited the lama as a beast of colossal size
in accordance with a custom which has not yet and
never will die out, of representing anything unknown as
large — " omne ignotum pro magno " we might better ren-
der a common saying. This specimen came from the
" Terra gigantum," by which is undoubtedly meant
Patagonia. Others have thought Peru the natural
home of the lama, as is claimed by the postal authorities
of that explosive republic. Everyone, in this case
literally " every schoolboy," knows of the beautiful
Peruvian stamps, green in colour and with lamas figured
upon them. As a matter of fact, Palaeontology seems
to show that the lamas sprang into being in the north
and wandered over the isthmus of Panama into South
America, where they flourished until to to-day, dying
out in the less congenial north. A singular fact in the
life history of the lama has been commented upon by
Mr. W. H. Hudson. It appears that lamas select not
exactly burying grounds, but places wherein to die.
When a lama feels that it is not much longer for this
world, it seeks such a place and turns its face to the
wall. In this way piles of bones accumulate ; and it
may be that " bone beds " of past times which abound

80

THE LATE MR. BARTLETT

in the remains of extinct animals were similar ceme-
teries.

THE CAMELOPARD

To term this animal the " camel leopard/1 as is
sometimes done, is a grave misreading of the derivation
of the word, which implies of course a combination of
the camel and the pard, as Horace says, " Diversum
confusa genus panthera camelo." Leopard itself is
another such " portmanteau " word. For it in its
turn implied a kind of hybrid between the lion and the
pard. To the ancients such monsters were not in-
credible. We know that animals so remote will not
breed together. The Romans apparently first knew
the giraffe from examples exhibited in the days of
Julius Caesar. Pliny, who is responsible for this piece
of information, also thought the giraffe as mild as a
sheep in disposition. It is rather timid and nervous
than mild. The least surprise frightens it greatly ;
and the late Mr. A. D. Bartlett informed the present
writer that he never thought of suddenly appearing
in the giraffe house without giving previous warning
by shuffling of feet and other less terrifying and intro-
ductory noises, lest the giraffes should bolt and break
their legs. It is not mild, for it will kick and try to bite.
At one time the Zoological Society were as successful
in breeding giraffe as the Dublin Zoo are now in breeding
lions. In 1836 the first specimens arrived at the Zoo
at five o'clock in the morning, as witnessed by the
late Sir Richard Owen. They were conducted thither
from Blackwall by M. Thibaud and four Africans " in
native costume," and for about sixty years the stock
of giraffes derived from these and from others acquired
subsequently flourished exceedingly. Then they died
out, and the Mahdi appeared upon the scenes, effectu-
ally preventing for some time the importation of other
Z.G. Si G

RELATIONS OF THE OCAPI

specimens, as Khartoum was the centre of the animal
trade in the part of Africa whence giraffes were generally
acquired. Now there are prospects of a further con-
tinuation of the giraffe stock.

The giraffe has an aspect which is so familiar as to
need no special description. But a few points must be
referred to as marking its rather isolated position in the
Ungulate series. There is in the first place no manner
of doubt that it belongs to the deer-antelope section,
the Artiodactyla, as evinced by its paired hoofs and by
its complex ruminating stomach. The horns, however,
are of a different kind to those of other Artiodactyles,
except the newly discovered ocapi, which is of course
a short necked giraffe, to speak crudely. The horns
are in all as many as five, of which one is median and
unpaired. The others are paired and as a rule only
one pair is very distinct. These horns are bony pro-
minences in the adult animal which are covered with
quite unaltered skin. They are not shed.

The lengthy neck is interesting as illustrating the
permanence of type in animal structure. It might
be supposed that the neck of the giraffe and that of
the hippopotamus, to take two of the greatest con-
trasts in neck that occur among mammals, were
lengthened or shortened by the omission or addition
of vertebrae. But nothing of the sort occurs. The
giraffe*s long neck is produced by a pulling out of each
individual vertebra while the same are shortened in
the hippopotamus. In both beasts, as in nearly all
mammals, there are but seven of these neck bones.
Its spots and length of neck are said to advantage the
giraffe greatly in the " struggle for existence." The
spots, at first sight appearing to render it particularly
obvious to any marauding lion or leopard, are said
by those who have come into view of the giraffe in its
own forests, to absolutely aid in hiding it. The spots,

82

GIRAFFE

To face p. 82]

ADVANTAGE OF A LONG NECK

in fact, break up the large body into less conspicuous
patches. As for the long neck, its presence has been
interpreted in two ways. On the one hand it is sug-
gested that length of neck is favourable to the cropping
of the branches of high trees ; on the other, the head
perched upon so high a look-out tower enables the animal
to keep a wary gaze upon the surrounding neighbour-
hood. It is remarkable that in two African animals,
the ostrich and the giraffe, and to a less extent in an
antelope (Lithocranius), which all frequent grassy
country with scattered bushes, the same elongation of
the neck occurs. Giraffes seem to be divisible into
two well marked varieties. But so few individuals
comparatively speaking have been examined that it
is a little dangerous to assert that these are constant
species. In the northern form the red brown blotches
are sharply marked off at their edges, so that the white
bands are equally conspicuous and divide the skin in
a reticulate fashion. This kind of giraffe has, more-
over, a particularly well developed median unpaired
horn. In the southern form the median horn is a low
elevation, and the demarcation between the brown and
white is not so sharply marked, so that the animal is
blotched rather than reticulate. Other varieties have
been named.

THE ELEPHANT

The elephants are a dwindling race in numbers,
though hardly indeed in size. At the present day there
are but two different species, the African and the
Indian. In former periods of the earth's history there
were large numbers of different kinds with a much
more extensive range. Several of these lived in England.
Nowadays the elephant is a purely tropical beast.
Apart from the resident staff, the elephant is the only
creature at the Gardens which stands up resolutely

83

TUSKS AND TUSKERS

and upright upon its pillar-like legs. In other beasts
there is a bend, or there are bends, in the limbs between
their origin from the trunk and their implantation
upon earth. The elephant is also the only living
ungulate animal, except the hyrax, which has retained
many toes. In other ungulates one or more have dis-
appeared upon both hind and fore limbs. Its scanty
covering of hair betrays the ungulate as does also the
thick skin. The elephant is as pachydermatous as
the rhinoceros. Though divested for the most part of
a hairy covering, the newly born elephant is much more
liberally provided with hair, a fact which recalls
the mammoth of antiquity. That the trunk is an essen-
tial of an elephant everyone knows, though it is not a
matter of universal knowledge that this organ is merely
the prolonged snout plus the upper lip. Hence it is
not merely a long nose as caricaturists would some-
times have us believe. The nostrils are at the end
of this lithe trunk, which is also a tactile and prehensile
organ of value to its possessor. The tusks are of course
the principal cause of the commencing rarity of the
elephant, particularly the African species. They are
really great persistent incisor teeth, entirely com-
parable to those of rodents, since they grow perpetu-
ally through the life of the animal. The Chinese have
a legend concerning the fossil ivory met with in nor-
thern Asia, that the teeth are the remains of a gigantic
and underground rat. The legend has so far a basis in
truth that the long and persistently growing teeth of
the two animals are the same kind of teeth. The two
kinds of elephants are always to be seen at the Zoo.
The notorious Jumbo and his helpmeet Alice were
African elephants, which grow to rather a larger size,
and are to a certain extent a more primitive type of
elephant, than the Eastern form ; they range from
India through some of the larger islands of the Malay

THE TOWER MENAGERIE

archipelago. The African elephant has a retreating
forehead which contrasts with the wise and bulbous
forehead of the Indian beast furrowed in the middle.
The trunk has two finger-like tips at the end. The
ears are enormous and flap back over the shoulders.

The Indian elephant is really, relatively speaking,
of course, a small-eared elephant. Within its extremely
thick skull lies concealed a brain, which is reputed
in the elephant tribe to be particularly effective as a
brain. As a matter of fact elephant stories have
suffered both from exaggeration and inaccuracy. It
is always tempting to read into the actions of an animal
purely human motives. Revenge seems to be as sweet
to elephants as to women, and tales are told of the
nursing of wrath through long periods. Judged by
the numerous specimens at the Zoo, the intelligence of
the elephant does not appear to be much superior to
that of many other beasts. Ungulates generally are not
remarkable for brain power, and all that is done by an
elephant in obedience to the mahout is also done by
trained horses at a circus. As to longevity, that too
has been exaggerated vastly. Probably after all
Aristotle was not far out when he assigned 200 years
as the utmost limit. Long before the Zoo existed, in
fact so far back as 1257, an elephant was exhibited in
the Tower Menagerie, a royal foundation which as will
be seen antedated the Zoo by some centuries. The
Zoological Society possess in their house in Hanover
Square a quaint cut of an elephant exhibited in the
sixteen hundreds. The elephants at the Zoo are, as is
well known, used for riding purposes. Their gait under
those circumstances is not fast, neither can the elephant
ever go at a really fast pace. It has shuffling move-
ment which is incompatible with swiftness.

A PRIMITIVE UNGULATE

THE CONEY OR DASJE

The name coney is familiar enough, principally be-
cause it occurs in the Psalms : but Dasje is not so
familiar, and when made use of is usually and inaccur-
ately spelt " dassie." The word in fact is analogous
to " kopje," about which we used to hear so much a
few years ago, and is a diminutive, in this case from a
word signifying badger. Neither coney nor dasje is
at all indicative of the real nature of this most interest-
ing animal, Hyrax (or Procavia) capensis. It has nothing
whatever to do with either rabbits or badgers ; and is
in fact, an ungulate animal not directly related to any
living form nor indeed, so far as present knowledge leads,
to any extinct form, but none the less a true ungulate.
Even its outward form, when rightly considered, be-
trays the ungulate. The nails on the feet are rather
hoofs than claws ; the fingers and toes are reduced
to four on the front limbs and three on the hind limbs,
such a reduction being a common feature of the ungu-
lata. The scalpel at once settles the point. For there
is no collar bone, and a portion of the shoulder blade
known as the acromion is absent, while the molar teeth
have a pattern which is decidedly like that of the
rhinoceros. They have, however, undoubtedly a like-
ness to rodents. To this contributes the small size
(for modern ungulates are unusually big), the much
reduced tail, and the squatting attitude generally
adopted. So impressed was de Buff on with these
matters that he wrote of the hyrax under the name of
" Marmotte du Cap." As the Psalmist rightly says,
" The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats and the
rocks for the coneys." This is, doubtless, one of the
earliest allusions to the coney. They are spoken of, as
everyone knows, in other parts of the Scriptures as
" a feeble folk," though " exceeding wise." But to

86

CHEWING THE CUD

say that the hyrax " cheweth the cud but divideth
not the hoof " is clearly incorrect. Canon Tristram,
however, has ingeniously explained the latter state-
ment by pointing out that these animals have a habit
of working the jaws about which might have given
rise to the idea. One of the earliest of African explorers,
Bruce, kept a coney to see if it did chew the cud, and
came to the conclusion that it really did ! Coneys are
only found in Africa, and in some parts of Arabia and
Palestine. As a rule they prefer rocks and stones as
an environment ; but some are arboreal, and the special
name of Dendrohyrax has been applied to these climbing
coneys. When on the ground the dasjes lurk in crannies
and cracks and clefts, not building for themselves any
habitation. The traveller Bruce did not only dis-
tinguish himself by the inaccurate observation just
referred to ; he noted that the animal, which he
described under the Abyssinian name of Askoko, could
climb inaccessible cliffs by merely hanging on like a
fly on a wall, and came at least very near the truth in
his explanation of the singular phenomenon in the life
of so comparatively speaking heavy a mammal. It
will be noted from an examination of the live animal at
the Zoo that the soles of the feet are fleshy, and that the
fleshy part extends beyond the hoofs in front. Coupled
with this are creases and folds on the lower surface
and a great abundance of sweat glands, which are stated
to be fifteen times as numerous as those upon the sole
of the human foot. The lubricated under surface of
the feet, aided by the contractions of suitable muscles,
allow of the foot being closely approximated to a smooth
rocky surface, or to an angular one, and atmospheric
pressure does the rest, as in the case of the foot of the
gecko. The under surface of the foot is simply resolved
into a series of suckers like those upon the arms of the
cuttle-fish.

8?

THE MANATEE

THE SIRENIA OR MANATEES AND DUGONGS
The dugongs and manatees are the only mammals, save
the cetacea, which possess paddles instead of ambulatory
fore limbs, and in which the hind limbs have disappeared
— that is to say which possess this combination of
characters, for the seals and sea lions may be fairly
said to move by paddles. They can be readily dis-
tinguished from the whales and dolphins by their
much less markedly fishlike aspect ; the skeleton
and anatomy generally is indicative of a beast which
has more recently taken to the purely aquatic life than
have the whales. Dr. Semon truly remarked of the
dugong, that it appeared to the eye " more fishlike
than seals, and more mammal-like than whales." The
hairy covering of the body has entirely disappeared
in whales save for a few hairs upon the snout in some
cases. In the Sirenia, though the body is practically
naked, there are yet traces here and there over the
general body surface of hairs. Besides the manatee and
the dugong there was, until the close of the eighteenth
century, a huge thirty foot long sirenian known as
Rhytina upon the shores of Behring's straits.

THE MANATEE

The fact that on the rare occasions when a manatee
is exhibited in the gardens it is accommodated in the
reptile house is no slur upon its Zoological position,
but only due to the necessity of providing for a tropical
animal a tropical temperature. The manatee, aquatic
and " finned " though it is, is a mammal, and belongs
to an order which has been called with unnecessary
poetry the Sirenia. The name embodies, however,
the legend that these creatures are responsible for the
origin of the Sirens. The manatee — and still more
its Eastern ally the dugong — though by no means
" mulier formosa superne," undoubtedly " desinit in

88

MERMAIDS AND MERPIGS

piscem." The tail is quite fishlike, especially the
forked tail of the dugong, and the hind limbs being
absent the resemblance is heightened. The corre-
sponding legends of beautiful and marine maidens in
temperate climes must be mothered upon seals. Indeed
the amount of " combing " done by the seal with the aid
of its flippers is possibly the explanation of the invari-
able possession of a comb by a mermaid. The looking-
glass is not so easy to account for. The manatee is a
black- coloured animal with but little hair on the body,
and with a pair of flippers which bear no nails in a form
that has been on two occasions exhibited at the Zoo,
and which on that very account is known to zoologists
as Manatus inunguis. The hind limbs have gone save
for rudiments beneath the skin. There is no beauty
in its countenance ; this is hindered by a curiously
split upper lip, which allows the animal to manipulate
its vegetable food, which it crops in submarine pastures.
" Merpig " would be really a more suitable name for
this creature, as it undoubtedly comes nearer to the
ungulates than to any existing group of mammals.
It has not, it is true, " the inn'ards of a Christian,"
which for some reason or other the pig is regarded as
possessing. Its stomach is perhaps more like that of
a cow, inasmuch as it is complicated by division into
several chambers, as is indeed not infrequent in vege-
table feeding animals. The chief internal feature of
the manatee is its huge lungs, which perhaps are " con-
trived a double debt to pay " — lungs when above, and
a swimming bladder when below the water. The
manatee has no engaging ways and tricks to attract
the visitor ; it simply grazes with bovine stolidity.

THE CARNIVORA OR FLESH-EATING MAMMALS
It is hardly possible to mistake the members of this
order of the mammalia. Their claws are sharp and

DEFINITION OF CARNIVORA

compressed, not at all like hoofs or nails, though, of
course, all these structures are absolutely of the same
essential nature, and even intergrade in some groups.
This character alone is, however, not sufficient to dis-
tinguish the carnivora. Various rodents and insecti-
vores possess claws which are more or less sharp. But
no rodent possesses what the carnivora always possess,
and that is long and strong canine teeth for seizing
their living prey. Here again is a character which
does not, in conjunction even with the last, absolutely
mark off the carnivora from all other mammals, for
the insectivora possess the same canines, which are
in many cases quite as strongly developed as in the
carnivora. By two external characters it is always
possible to distinguish between carnivora and in-
sectivora, though the otter-like insectivorous creature,
the West African Potamogale, is very " carnivorous "
in appearance, and only possesses one of these char-
acters, and that in not a very marked degree. In the
insectivora the upper jaw and nose projects as a rule
beyond the lower, and thus forms a kind of proboscis.
Again, the skin of the insectivorous mammal has a
distinct tendency to run to spines. No carnivore has
a proboscis, and none are at all spiny. Finally, while
the insectivora are all small, and often quite small, the
carnivora are, with the exception of the weasel, at least
moderate-sized, and often rather big, as is the case with
bears, lions, and tigers. There is at least one obvious
internal character which absolutely distinguishes all
the living members of the two orders. The carnivora
have a better developed brain than the insectivora ;
indeed, in the latter it is at a very low ebb, being almost
smooth, and the cerebral hemispheres are small.

Now that we have got at a definition of the carnivora,
which includes all of the diverse animals which con-
stitute the order, it will be necessary to consider their

90

AQUATIC CARNIVORA

characters a little more in detail. In the first place
we must distinguish two kinds of carnivora : there are
the land forms, the tiger, bears, raccoons, weasels, and
so forth ; and secondly, there is the remarkable group
of the seals, sea lions, and walrus. The latter are purely
aquatic creatures, with feet converted, so to speak,
into fins by the aid of which they can swim, and are
on that account termed pinnipedia ; the land forms
have been called by the corresponding name of Fissi-
pedia. The former group is dealt with later under the
heading " Sea Lion." As to the land carnivora, the
Zoological Gardens always contain a large assortment
of various forms. The land carnivora are spread all
over the world, with the exception of New Zealand,
and are chiefly to be found in the tropics of both worlds.
Strictly perhaps we ought to except Australia from
the list of those countries which contain carnivora, for
the only representative of the order occurring therein
is the dingo dog, concerning whose origin and habita-
tion of Australia there is some dispute. It has been
held that that dog is not an indigene, but has accom-
panied the black man in his travels. The carnivora
are somewhat diversified in their habits, as is natural
with so extensive a group. There are, in the first place,
purely slaying and killing carnivora, such as the lion,
tiger, leopard, jaguar, cheetah, and several cats. These
are solitary, or at times go about in families. The
pack-hunting wolves, more entirely ground living than
the cat tribe, form another assemblage. But while
many carnivores live largely in trees, there is no type
known which has become modified in the direction of
" flight," such as is seen among the arboreal rodents
and marsupials. Nor is there any underground Car-
nivora. The aquatic forms among the usually ter-
restrial fissipeda are not very many. We have the
otters of our own rivers, and those of other parts of the

91

SEA AND RIVER OTTERS

world ; and there is even an otter (Enhydris) which lives
by the sea shore, and makes excursions therein for its
food, a way of life which is occasionally copied by the
usually fluviatile otters of the genus Lutra. Bears and
the bear tribe generally are not as a rule so purely
carnivorous as the cats ; some of them, however, such
as the weasels and stoats and the South American
tayra, are as bloodthirsty as the fiercest of cats.

Apart from fossil forms, which tend to fill up gaps
and destroy clear and sharply cut classifications, the
carnivora are separable into three divisions, all of
which are abundantly in evidence at the Zoo at any
time. We have, first of all, the carnivora par excellence,
in which the carnivorous type of structure has arrived
at the greatest perfection and specialization — that is
the Aeluroidea, or cats and civets. These animals are
generally spotted or striped, or both. The civets are
on the whole, less specialized than are the more fully
developed cats. Their claws are not so retractile, or
are not so at all : they are all smaller beasts than the
true cats, which include such giants as the lion and
tiger. The civet tribe includes not only the civets
and genets, but also the little African suricates, which
sit up on their hind quarters like prairie dogs, the
curious slothful binturong, and a variety of forms
known as palm civets, of all of which, as well as of a
few other forms mentioned in the ensuing pages, ex-
amples are to be seen in the Zoo. The hyaenas, includ-
ing the Proteles, are another branch of the Aeluroidea.
The second great division of the fissipede carnivora
is that of the dogs, which includes the large number of
wolves, foxes, and jackals, of which again a compre-
hensive assortment is invariably to be seen in the dog-
kennels near to the lion house. These have not retrac-
tile claws, but they walk, like the cat tribe generally,
upon their toes, and not upon the soles of the feet.

92

STOATS AND POLECATS

Neither these nor the remaining section of the car-
nivora, the great tribe of Arctoidea, are prevalently
spotted or striped in coloration. The Arctoidea in-
clude not only the true bears, of which the European
bear, the grizzly, the Syrian bear, and the polar bear,
as well as some others inhabit the bear dens in plenty,
but a variety of small creatures, which are referable
to two distinct families, the mustelidoe and the pro-
cyonidce. The former contains not only the weasels
and stoats and polecats, but also the badgers, glutton,
the American grison and tayra, the martens and sables,
the ratel with its grey back, black under-surface and
hurried walk, the skunk or " essence pedlar " of North
and South America, and the otters. The procyonidae
is a family made for the reception of the raccoons, the
prehensile-tailed kinkajou, also of South America, the
coati with its pig-like snout and ringed tail, and
the panda of the Himalayas. The Arctoidea are less
decisively Carnivora than the Aeluroidea or Cynoidea.
The teeth are largely flat- crowned, and suitable for
crushing rather than tearing, a fact which goes, as has
been already said, with an often principally vegetable
diet ; they walk upon the soles of their feet instead of
upon the toes, and there are other anatomical char-
acters, which show that the group is one which is, so
far as the living representatives are concerned, to be
sharply marked off from other carnivora.

THE LION

We have constantly met with persons who have the
impression that while the tiger is an undoubted cat,
the lion has more of the dog nature. This quite
erroneous idea is probably to be traced to the mane,
and to the certainly leonine but also almost New-
foundland-dog-like head. The lion, however, is quite
a diagrammatic cat, with the usual retractile claws,

93

THE LION AS VERMIN

and the sharp, long and strong canines of that eminently
carnivorous race. Much legend and many mis-state-
ments have clustered round a little bit of hard and
horny skin at the end of the lion's tail. It has been
said to lash itself into a fury by means of this " nail."
The lion is now Asiatic and African in its habitat :
but within the historic period it inhabited Europe as
far west at any rate as Greece. Hercules and the
Nemean lion, of course, hardly prove this ; but there
are more historical accounts. Even now it seems to
occur so near to Europe as the eastern confines of Asia
Minor, which after all is, so far as its animals are con-
cerned, Asiatic by courtesy. The so-called maneless
lion of Gujerat seems to be a myth in one sense ; that
is to say, there are doubtless maneless lions in Asia, but
they are young ones. Painters and poets have largely
caused the respect in which the lion is held as the king
of beasts. In Africa a different view is officially held,
and it is legally " vermin." The roar of the lion is not
unimpressive in the lion house, where echoes add to
its apparent volume. The lion howls in concert like
any nocturnal cat. Opinions seem to differ as to the
majestic tones of this kingly caterwauling in a state of
nature. Livingstone thought but little of the lion's
roar, but Mr. Selous thinks that there is no more
magnificent sound in nature. The lion does not appear
to be so considerate to the jackal as fable would have
us believe. Those who know the lion and his ways
assert that he has an unkingly love of carrion, and that
the dead body of an elephant has more allurements
for him than the finest herd of zebras or antelope.
There are constantly lion cubs born at the Zoo, but it
is an odd thing that they generally suffer from cleft
palate, which does not, of course, conduce to their
longevity. The young lion seems to be born with its
eyes open, unlike the kitten. It is notorious that the

94

ALERTNESS OF TIGER

Zoo at Dublin has been for years famed as a manu-
factory of lions, which breed with the greatest success.
Even in travelling menageries the same success has
been attained, which is, to say the least of it, unex-
pected. It is unnecessary to say that the visitor will
find at least half a dozen lions at any given time in the
Zoo.

THE TIGER

The tiger (Felis ligris) is undoubtedly the largest of
living cats, and even equals the great cave lion and the
sabre tooths of antiquity. It shows what is rare among
cats, transverse striping instead of spots ; and so
firmly fixed in the tiger race is this plan of colour that
the newly born young show the same striping as their
parents. Often, as has been pointed out in the case
of the puma, the young of the carnivora show a different
mode of coloration to that of their parents. A careful
study of the stripes of the tiger shows that they are
not so remote from the prevailing feline spotting as
might appear at first sight. In many cases the bar
has a white or rather tawny centre, and thus suggests
a large spot pulled out lengthwise. The colour of the
Royal Bengal tiger is so very well known that it needs
no further comment. But there is one point of some
little interest to which comparatively little attention
has been paid. When the tiger is sleeping with its
head on its front paws, and its ears turned rather
forwards, it will be observed that there is a bright white
spot, with a black rim upon each ear. The effect of
this is to give the sleeping beast a look of alertness, for
the spots are not unsuggestive of eyes. The common
cat has something of the same kind, which has been
often referred to, and has been also figured. When the
eyes are closed the arrangement of the pattern of colour
above them gives the impression of a watchful and

95

SELF-COLOURED CATS

unwinking eye. It is possible that these contrivances
have a value to the beast, and prevent some molesta-
tion. " The fery tigere full of felonye " has a purely
Asiatic range, and, like the puma, is indifferent to heat
or to cold. But in the north it puts on a thicker coat.
It is a good swimmer, and regularly crosses over the
strait to Singapore ; it swims the Amur in northern
Asia, and there are thus but few obstacles to its roam-
ing. It is strong above all carnivorous beasts of the
field. A big tiger, it is alleged, can seize a bullock and
chuck him ten or fifteen yards as can a terrier a rat.
But it is only proper to observe that this is ridiculed
by Sir Samuel Baker. It growls "like a waggon going
fast over a wooden bridge," and has also a somewhat
plaintive cry, a kind of querulous mew, generally to
be heard in the lion house at the Zoo. The tiger in
India almost takes the place of the wolf in this country.
Just as we have Wolverton, Wolfslee, and other names
associated with the name of the canine carnivore, so in
India are analogous equivalents of tiger town, and so
forth, commemorating the huge Asiatic feline. More-
over, in this country there were werewolves, men who
had changed into wolves ; in India the tiger has given
rise to exactly the same kind of legend.

THE PUMA

Like the lion, the eyra, a lean somewhat mongoose-
like cat, and the caracal, the puma is what is called
" self-coloured " : that is, it is of uniform colour more
or less throughout. It is tawny, tending to brown or
grey at the two extremes, and whiter below. Its
young, however, are as spotted as any pard, and would
not be thought to be of puma parentage by any one
who was ignorant of the fact and shown the skins.
This would appear to argue that the puma, desert
coloured though it is at the present day, has descended

THE AMERICAN LION

from a type following the more prevailing cat fashion.
The puma is limited to America, and, like the tiger, it
can bear with impunity the extremes of heat and cold ;
it is at home in the wintry north, and lurks in the damp
and heated forests of the south. The puma has the
usual intent look of the feline race, and has the reputa-
tion of being a mild and peaceful animal where man
is concerned. It is held to be as innocuous to the
weaned child as is the cockatrice, and has even been
called, according to Mr. Hudson, " amigo del cris-
tiano." But it is a ferocious beast where deer, domestic
animals and vizcachas are concerned. Ineffective as
its lithe form would appear to be for any purpose save
swift running, it can leap upon a deer and break its
neck with the ease of heavier beasts, like the tiger.
To most naturalists, at any rate in Europe, there is but
one puma, Felis concolor. But in America there are
different opinions, and the pumas have been split up
into a considerable number of races, or even distinct
species. In the south of the United States the
puma is spoken of as the mountain lion. Another
name is the native " Indian " cougar. The name of
" lion " appears to have, or at least to have had, a
certain amount of justification. It is not, as might be
thought, derived from the loose application of a word
in common use to anything that it might or might not
fit ; but the first Europeans who examined the puma
thought that they had before them merely the maneless
females, and came to the conclusion that the ferocious
males were not to be caught or slain by the compara-
tively unarmed natives. -If anything were wanting to
prove the cat-like nature of the puma, the fact that it
purrs in captivity when pleased, and even utters a
sound approaching to a mew, would settle the matter
to the satisfaction of everybody. In nature the cries
of the puma are weird and mournful. But it is on the
z G. 97 H

SPOTTING OF LEOPARDS

whole a silent animal. With an absence of prejudice
befitting so great a naturalist, Darwin banqueted off
puma during his travels, and found it excellent. Even
in this country canine teeth have been recorded from
what bore the name of jugged hare, and was at least
a dark- coloured and well-flavoured viand.

THE LEOPARD

Panther and leopard, or pard, are really quite syn-
onymous. But that mighty hunter, the late Sir Samuel
Baker, proposed to restrict the use of the name
" panther " to leopards of seven feet and upwards in
length. The leopard is Asiatic and African in range.
It is a perfectly typical cat, and, like so many others,
spotted. The nature of the spots enables the leopard
to be distinguished at once from the South American
jaguar, to which it bears not a little resemblance,
though it is true that the latter, being a more perfectly
arboreal animal, has shorter legs. The spots in the
leopard are in the form of rings of black, where best
developed, the centre of the ring being of the same
tawny ground colour as the intervals between the
spots. In the jaguar the ring-like markings enclose
a central black spot. The spotting has been thought
by an ingenious speculator in zoology to be a vestige
of a former armoured condition. He held that the
spotted carnivora were the immediate descendants of
creatures with heavy plates imbedded in the skin, like
an armadillo or a glyptodon. The last trace of these
was to be seen in the black spotting of to-day. But
there is really very little to be said for this view. The
leopard, like so many other animals, shows at times
the phenomenon known as " melanism." That is, the
colouring is so generally darkened as to produce black-
ness. These black leopards have the reputation of
greater ferocity than their paler brethren. Melanic

98

To /ac* ^. 98]

LEOPARD

LEGENDS ABOUT LEOPARDS

leopards are said to be most common in damp and hot
localities, such as the steaming forests of the Malay
peninsula. Even then the leopard does not entirely
change its spots, for in the proper light the spots can
be recognized by their pattern, just as the pattern of
a white damask tablecloth can be recognized in spite
of the absence of differentiation of colour. The
ancients held that the leopard had a fragrant breath,
which is unexpected in so carnivorous a creature.
The idea not only crops up in Pliny, whose works are
a heap of confusion, where anything in the nature of
legend may be shot and subsequently utilized, but in
an Anglo-Saxon poem. Even Dryden was not above
the naturalists of antiquity in this belief. " The
pantere like unto the smaragdyne " seems to be an
equally inept description of this cat, unless indeed
the eyes alone are referred to.

THE SNOW LEOPARD OR OUNCE

It is only rarely that this beautiful feline has been
on view at the Zoo. In fact until very recently it was
quite unknown in that collection. Since then, how-
ever, there have been several examples. The ounce
is not, as it might be thought to be, simply a pale and
rather woolly variety of the common leopard. It is
a perfectly distinct form, and is limited to Thibet and
the highlands of Central Asia, like the kiang. It is
certainly of a furry aspect, as is also the kiang, and as
befits an inhabitant of a cold climate. The skin has
a paler ground colour than in the leopard, and is
sprinkled over with spots, which are rather less denned.
The tail is particularly thick and long, and this indeed
is the most obvious character of the beast. The tail
is so long that it is actually longer than the head and
body together in some, though not in all, specimens
that have been carefully measured.

99

THE WILD GAT

In its native mountains the ounce attacks wild
sheep and goats, and it prefers, like its prey, lofty
altitudes. The cat is usually found at such heights
as 9,000 feet, but in winter descends rather lower.
Like the puma, but unlike its nearer relative the
leopard, the ounce^apparently will not fall foul of man.
At any rate there appears to be no positive record of
its ever having done so. In the Caucasus dwells a
leopard-like creature which has been confounded with
the ounce. But it has been shown that the " leopard "
of the Caucasus is a true leopard, though differing a
good deal from the African and Indian beasts. Its
paleness of hue approaches that of the ounce, but it
is not so pronounced. Felis tulliana, as it is called,
is apparently a " good " species of leopard, and is not
the same as Felis uncia.

THE WILD CAT

Felis catus of Britain and Europe generally is one
of those creatures which are distinctly on the wane ;
that is to say, so far as concerns this country. On the
Continent in wild forests, such as those of Transylvania
and in many parts of Europe, the wild cat still lives
and multiplies. A defunct one floating down the
River Adige allowed a witty onlooker to term it the
"poor cat i' the adage." In Regent's Park the
cats chiefly observable are kept for the purpose of
thinning the rats and mice which revel there in un-
accustomed plenty, and do not belong to Felis catus,
as sdme people still think. The genuine wild cat, how-
ever, with which we are here concerned is often on view
in the Zoo. There was until lately a fine one, pre-
sented by that eminent zoological observer, the late
Lord Lilford. This cat spoke at times, and with no
un certain sound ; its loudness was indisputable, and
an excellent sympathizer with beasts who wrote in the

100

THE DOMESTIC CAT

Saturday Review thought that he was able to interpret
its utterance as a protest against captivity. What
was proved, however, is the power of caterwauling in
a voice not inferior in variety of tones to that of domestic
pussy. To the casual onlooker the true wild cat of
Europe does not differ widely from many specimens of
domestic cats. It is difficult, indeed, to distinguish with
absolute certainty some so-called domestic cats from
a genuine wild specimen. This does not in the least
prove that the tame cat and the wild cat are the same
speices ; that idea admits of disproof, which we shall
set forth presently. What it undoubtedly does prove
is the close interbreeding for many generations of the
two stocks. So intertwined nowadays are the two
races that it is better to speak of both, and not limit
ourselves to one. As to the real wild cat, it has been
extinct in England since, at any rate, 1843 ; indeed,
some put its final disappearance much earlier. The
late Rev. H. A. Macpherson considered that historical
evidence placed the death of the last wild cat in the
Lake district, which would naturally have harboured
cats for a longer period than more cultivated tracts,
as long ago as 1754. Pennant, so well known as the
correspondent of Gilbert White, termed the animal the
" British tiger," a name well earned by its ferocity,
and perhaps by its size relative to the domestic cat.
The amount of spitting and swearing which will prob-
ably greet a prolonged attention to a caged cat at the
Zoo, will amply bear out the justice of Pennant's name.
Not an atom of white hair is ever to be found about the
true wild cat ; but other positive differences, owing to
the repeated crossings already referred to, are prac-
tically wanting.

It may be asked, however, how it is that if cats have
been common in this country in the past though rare
now, our domestic variety is not an offshoot from

101

ORIGIN OF " PUSS "

Felis catus. It may seem to some so elaborate a diver-
gence from obviousness to seek a foreign origin for a
beast so exactly like a wild creature actually inhabiting
these islands. The proof is largely antiquarian in its
nature. If wild cats were really domesticated, how
is it that we hear so little about them in the past ; and
how is it that when legend or history does tell us any-
thing, it is to emphasize their scarcity and value.
Witness, for example, the story of Dick Whittington.
His cat brought him a fortune. The very name " puss "
is an indication of exotic origin. Some think it is an
abbreviation of " Persian," and that in consequence
we are to look upon Persia as the ancestral home of
our fireside friends. Not so thinks the author of that
most readable work, Gleanings from the Natural History
of the Ancients. For Mr. Watson the name is a cor-
ruption of Bubastis or Pasht, and suggests an Egyptian
origin, which fits in well with the habitat of a wild cat
Felis maniculata, and with the probable course of
civilization and cats from Egypt along the Mediter-
ranean to these shores of ours. Perhaps the " poor
cat " who " amat pisces, sed not vult tingere plantas,"
has retained its dread of water from a previous dwell-
ing in a hot, sandy, and waterless desert. That there
is no inherent dislike of water in the cat tribe is clearly
shown by the fact that the tiger will swim across the
river Amur in its northward wanderings, and to the
island of Hong Kong in search of pigs, or perhaps
coolies, while the East harbours also a carnivore which
is actually known from its habitats as the " Fishing
cat." That the domestic cat has not been long
" civilized," relatively speaking, is shown by its reten-
tion of many of the habits of a wild animal. An able
and ingenious writer, Dr. Louis Robinson, has lately
discerned in the ways of tabbies many such traits.
The fondness for sleeping coiled up and on an exposed

102

THE MADAGASCAR CIVETS

though often remote situation suggests a fear of
enemies, and also a kind of imitation of the serpent.
To imitate a serpent, however, seems to be needless.
If there is anything in the world sharper than a serpent's
tooth it is a cat's claw. A wild cat can look after
itself without, so to speak, borrowing from the attitudes
of the serpent, and endeavouring to delude its foes
into the notion that they are to deal with the " vengeful
snake." Still, the aloofness of pussy is probably a
trait of wildness, as is her frequent habit of escaping
for weeks from comfort, and leading a wild and hunting
life in neighbouring game preserves.

CRYPTOPROCTA FEROX

About twice the size of a common cat with a long tail
and of an uniform sandy or tawny hue, is the Fossa of
Madagascar, an island which does not nourish many
bloodthirsty beasts of prey. It appears, however,
that what it wants in quantity it makes up for in
quality ; for the Cryptoprocta, as its specific name
suggests, is reputed to be one of the most ferocious of
hunting mammals. The unprejudiced visitor to the
Zoo will probably not be of that opinion. For the
specimens that have been on view at that institution
present the appearance of mildness rather than ferocity
of disposition. But place a Cryptoprocta handy to a
farmyard and the bloodthirstiness comes into evidence ;
it will kill and slay indefinitely. In this it is like its
not near relative the weasel, ferocity of disposition
being often in wild beasts disproportionate to size.
This fossa must not be confounded with another
Madagascar carnivorous animal, Fossa daubentoni,
which is more definitely a civet, though lacking the
odoriferous pouch of those beasts. To avoid confusion
the latter animal is spoken of as the fossane. The exact
position which Cryptoprocta occupies in the carnivorous

103

OTHER VIVERRIM;

series is a matter of some dispute. There is no doubt,
of course, that it belongs the the Aeluroid or cat-like
division of that tribe ; but there are those who dwell
upon its civet-like features, while others urge its greater
likeness to the true cats of the family Felidae. A third
opinion remains, which is that Cryptoprocta is a slightly
altered descendant of the creodonta, an extinct race
of carnivorous mammals from which possibly all the
existing groups have been derived. The fossa has the
retractible claws of the cats, coupled with an almost
plantigrade gait ; the latter quality, of course, not cat-
like, but a point of resemblance to the Viverridae, or
civets. The tawny colour of the Cryptoprocta cannot
be put down, like that of the lion, to a fondness for a
desert environment. And cases like this raise a doubt
as to how far colour in such instances is the result of an
adaptation to natural surroundings. Apparently no-
thing is known of the new-born young of the Crypto-
procta. It will be noticed that the fossa has the normal
number of five toes upon each limb, and that it has the
elongated muzzle of the viverrines, and not the shortened
face of the much modified cats.

THE MUNGOOSE

The mungoose (the name is a corruption of a " native "
word, and has of course nothing to do with " goose ")
is rather interesting on account of what it does than
what it is. It is, as a matter of fact, one of the Viver-
ridae, or civets, the apparently more archaic relations
of the cats. It has the primitive character that many
of the viverrids have of five toes on each hand and foot.
The feet are moreover plantigrade and the claws are not
retractile into sheaths as they are in all true cats, belong-
ing, that is to say, to the genus Felis. The colour is
usually a speckled "pepper and salt"; but the hues
vary according to the species, of which this genus

104

SNAKE BITES

Herpestes contains about twenty. The mungoose is
Herpestes ichneumon ; and the beast is often spoken of as
the ichneumon. It has been also called, the Cat of
Pharaoh, and also by a somewhat remarkable change the
mouse of Pharaoh. It is found in northern Africa, in
Palestine and Asia Minor, and creeps into Spain.

The mungoose is cat-like in its pursuit of rats and mice,
but nothing comes amiss to it in the way of animal life.
Buff on remarks that " its courage is equal to the sharp-
ness of its appetite, being neither intimidated by the
anger of the dog, nor the malice of the cat " — an
excellent distinction between the characters of those
carnivores. The mungoose shares with the secret an?
vulture, the hedgehog, and the pig, some immunity
against the bite of venomous serpents. But it is not
so certain whether the immunity is not more due to the
activity of the creature is escaping the strokes of its
enemy than to any subtle physiological character. In
any case mungooses have been imported into Sta.
Lucia for the purpose of confronting the deadly Fer de
Lance. Legend holds that if the ichneumon is bitten
it immediately runs off, and eats the leaf of a particular
plant. It was thought also by the ancients that the
animal covered itself before engaging in these encounters
with a coat of mud, so as to render itself impervious to
the vengeful snake. The Rev. Mr. Topsell related in
the sixteenth century the story of these combats.
" When the aspe espyeth her threatening rage, presently
turning about her taile, provoketh the ichneumon to
combate, and with an open mouth and lofty head doth
enter the list, to her own perdition. For the ichneumon
being nothing afraid of this great bravado, receiveth the
encounter, and taking the head of the aspe in his mouth
biteth that off." The introduction of these creatures
into the West Indies was no doubt useful in the slaughter
of a few trigonocephali, and more rats, but the carnivore

105

A DEGENERATE HY^NA

developed a taste for the hen-roosts and the last stage
of the island was worse than the first. It is ever thus
when we attempt to interfere with the due course of
Nature.

THE AARD WOLF

The aard wolf, Proteles cristatus, is one of the scarcer
visitors to the Zoo, only two examples altogether having
been exhibited there. The animal is hyaena-like in
aspect, and is in fact a kind of weakened and slightly
degenerate hyaena. The huge teeth of the latter which
can crack a marrow bone as easily as a man will a nut,
are dwindled into tiny and inefficacious organs of
mastication. But it is striped like one species of hyaena,
and has a mane like that cowardly and yet ferocious
carnivore. The aard wolf, or " earth " wolf as the
phrase is to be translated, is a nocturnal creature that
lives in deserted or unappropriated dwellings of the aard
vark or earth pig, the " Edentate " Orycteropus. The
Swede Sparrman, who first gave a proper account of this
feeble relation of the hyaenas, called it " viverra," and as
a matter of fact, it has rather more affinities to the
Viverridae, or civet tribe, than have the hyaenas, though
the latter come nearer to that group of cat-like animals,
than to the cats proper. The ineffective teeth of the
hyaena-like Proteles are readily explained when its food
is taken into account. The stomachs of no less than
fifty individuals have been examined (it is hoped that the
creature is now on the " protected list "), and in all of
them nothing but termites (white " ants ") were found.
At the Zoo, a mixture of finely chopped meat and milk
and bread does duty, or rather did duty, in the case of
this animal and the ant-eaters, for the real article of diet.
It would seem, however, that Proteles has copied the
objectionable habit of the chacma baboon (see page 32),
and has taken to killing lambs for the sake of the curdled

106

DOG CHARACTERS

milk in their stomachs. So that what with this habit
and the zeal for science exhibited in returning the com-
pliment by examining its stomach, the days of Proteles
will probably not be long in the land. Like most
carnivora Proteles has glands secreting a strongly
flavoured liquid at the root of the tail. In the case of
the skunk, these glands, well-known in that animal, are
doubtless for aggressive purposes. Most probably, as it
appears to us, the variety of flavours which these
glands produce in different animals are " recognition
odours," a more effective way, one would think, for
individuals of a species to recognize each other than the
white patches, and other recognition marks, seeing
that in mammals generally the sense of smell is superior
to that of sight.

CAPE HUNTING DOG

Dogs are usually gregarious animals as everyone
knows,"and the hunting of wolves in packs occurred
as an incident, or used to occur, in every juvenile book
of adventure, rightly impressing upon the mind this
fact in Natural History. The Lycaon pictus shows its
dog-like characters by the fact of its similar mode of
hunting, and not only by its anatomical structure. As
to the latter, it is important to note some of the features
which distinguish the dogs which form a distinct group
of the carnivora, from the cat-like and bear-like carni-
vores. As to colour, dogs do not, as a rule, produce spots
or stripes while cats do very generally, and the members
of the bear tribe frequently have ringed tails. It is true
that there are spotted dogs ; but these where not signs
of conviviality are artificial breeds. Dogs are digiti-
grade like the cats, but they have not retractile claws,
and they do not use their comparatively blunt claws
for tearing and scratching like the cat. Unlike the " cat
i' the adage," they do not dislike water. Cats are

107 '

THE VOICE OF LYCAON

solitary ; dogs as already mentioned, are friendly to
each other and gregarious. Indeed, the fondness of the
dog for man is held to be a mistake on the part of the
dog who considers his master to be a superior kind of dog,
ready for country excursions and the pursuit of game.
Bears, it will be remembered, are plantigrade, i.e. they
walk upon the palms of the hands, and the sole of the
feet. They may have a prehensile tail, which a dog never
has. Their intestine is not furnished with a blind
appendage, the caecum. The intestines of both cat
and dogs are so provided. There are points in the skull
and the teeth which differentiate the three groups which
the late President of the Zoological Society, Sir William
Flower, called respectively, Aeluroidea, Cynoidea, and
Arctoidea. Lycaon hunts in packs, whence its vernacular
name. These associations consist of some fifteen on an
average ; but as few as four, and as many as sixty have
been noted in one pack. They pursue their prey with
skill and unanimity : so quick are they in their move-
ments that the quarry is sighted (or smelt), caught, and
eaten before the indignant farmer or sportsman can come
come up with the depredators. The colour of this dog
is one of the most remarkable features. The ground
colour is a buffish yellow marked with irregular blotches
of dark brown. It has so distinct a likeness to an hyaena,
that the naturalist who first described and named this
dog, actually placed it with the hyaenas. It has only
four toes instead of the usual canine five. Its voice is
various ; it barks, chatters like a monkey, and says
" ho, ho," like " the second note of a cuckoo."

BLUE AND WHITE FOXES

The blue fox of commerce and of the Arctic regions is
the summer form of the white fox of the same quarter of
the globe. But it appears that this change of fur on the
approach of winter is by no means universal ; and some

1 08

WHITENESS IN POLAR REGIONS

have even gone so far as to assert that the change is
rare or never occurs, and that in consequence the two
forms are two forms, and not merely seasonal varieties.
There is no doubt, however, that the change does take
place ; for foxes at the Zoo have been known to put off
one coat and take on the other. In Spitzbergen, and in
all such very northerly latitudes, the change takes place ;
but in Iceland, the southernmost land inhabited by this
fox, there is no change in winter, a case which is paralleled
by the polar hare of this country, which changes to
white in winter in Scotland, but not in the damper, and
thus warmer, Ireland. Though now limited to the
frozen north, this fox in former days wandered farther
south, as its fossil remains in this country show. The
same is true of many animals now definitely confined to
polar latitudes, such as the polar bear and the reindeer.
This fox feeds upon ptarmigan or any birds that it can
get, and upon cast up carcasses of seals and whales ; it
is also fond of shell- fish and of eggs. In the winter
of the north it is difficult for it to get any food at all,
and it has been suggested that it stores up food when
there is a surplus for a rainy or, better perhaps, a snowy
day. But the exact observation wanting to confirm such
a story appears to be lacking so far. It is described as
uttering a " yapping bark." It is called a fox mainly
because of its small size and long tail. The dogs,
wolves, j ackals and foxes, form in reality a highly uniform
assemblage of carnivores. By certain small skull
characters it is possible to separate a fox-like series from
a wolf-like series. Viewed in this way, Azara's fox of
South America is a wolf and a jackal is a wolf ; but the
Reynard of England, as well as its arctic ally, is a fox.
To those who have not had the opportunity of examining
the bones the jackals suggest a fox rather than a dog or
wolf. But probably no one would doubt the fox-like
nature of Canis lagopus, the arctic fox.

109

WHITE BEAR AND BROWN BEAR

CHAPTER V

The Polar Bear.

THE bear tribe in the strict sense, that is the
family Ursidae, differ from the other bear-like
creatures, which we have considered, by their larger
size and massive build. Even the little and very spry
Malay bear is big when compared with e.g. a glutton,
one of the largest of the non-ursine Arctoidea. Al-
though bears can dig, they cannot, or at any rate do
not, burrow holes for themselves like others of their
allies, such as the badger. The polar bear differs
from its congeners mainly in its very large size and
white fur. The Zoological Society have exhibited in
the past fairly large polar bears, and it will have been
noticed by those who saw some of those animals that
the fur was not of that brilliant whiteness with which it
is wont to be represented in works upon Natural history.
To set down this loss of pure colour to the " smuts "
prevalent even in Regent's Park would be incorrect ;
for the polar bear is really only pure white when young.
It gets brown with age, and the sailors who know it in
its haunts call it " Brownie." Darkening with age is a
common phenomenon in animals, and is even noticeable
in ourselves before, of course, the ultimate whitening of
senility.

This bear has been also nicknamed the " farmer "
owing to its leisurely and agricultural gait. The
polar bear, " alone and palely loitering," in very

no

RANGE OF POLAR BEAR

truth, for as a rule the males and females go about in
solitary walks, is one of those animals which go right
round the pole. It is found in Greenland and Spitz-
bergen and other places within the arctic circle ; in past
times it extended its range farther south probably
when the climatic conditions were more severe over
northern Europe than they are at present ; for its
remains have been found in the neighbourhood of Ham-
burg. The underside of the feet of this bear are partly
covered with fur and not naked and horny merely as in
other bears. It seems clear that this furriness can be
put down to a need for progressing with safety upon
slippery ice. It eats seals and dead whales, but es-
pecially seals. It has been known also to clear off a
series of eider duck's eggs. This bear does not seem to
be particularly fierce unless provoked. The general
impression of ferocity which a large carnivore inspires
has no doubt led to some exaggeration of its aggressive-
ness. At the Zoo, polar bears are as a rule noteworthy
for their affability to the general public. One of the
triumphs of longevity at the Zoo was a bear of this
species, who lived in those gardens, for no less than
thirty-seven years. The polar bear does not give that
hug for which bears are so notorious ; it contents itself
with biting.

THE GLUTTON

The glutton or wolverene is as handsome a beast as is
any of the fur-bearing animals of the north. It is cir-
cumpolar, as are so many creatures of the north, and
though now not found in Europe at a lower range than
Norway, it was German a few centuries ago. More
centuries ago still, in fact thousands of years since, the
glutton dwelt in this island, as its remains in Norfolk
show us. In spite of its regrettable habits, upon which
we propose to enlarge immediately, the glutton is a

ill

ZOOLOGY OF OLAUS MAGNUS

handsome beast. It has rich glossy brown fur and is
of respectable size, and quite one of the largest of the
Musteline carnivores which are closely related to the
bears but still more nearly to the lithe stoats, and the
aquatic otter.

It walks about on the soles of the feet in the true bear
fashion, and this walk is in captivity agitated and rapid
as is the way with many captive carnivora, especially
the little ratel Mellivora, its near neighbour at the
Zoo, though not in Nature, as it is African and Indian.
The latter complicates its rapid walk to and fro by an
occasional somersault. The glutton has a short tail,
which is largely hidden by the thick fur, a truly bear-
like attribute. Like the polar bear, and perhaps for
similar reasons, our wolverene has hairy palms and
soles. Like other carnivora, especially of course the
American " essence pedlar " or skunk, the glutton
is provided with glands which secrete an abominably
smelling fluid, which can be shot to a distance, and is
probably a better safeguard than its teeth and claws,
against invasion of its rights. For though stories are
current of a highly spiced nature, it seems that the
ferocity of the glutton is much exaggerated. Not so,
however, its voracity, and its very name both in English
and in Latin (Gulo) is a testimony to accurate public
opinion. In his Historia de Gentibus Septentrionalibus
Olaus Magnus, Archbishop of Upsala, in the fourteen
hundreds, spoke concerning the glutton with no un-
certain note. " This animal," observed the archbishop
(in Latin), " is most voracious. When a body is dis-
covered it eats with such rapidity that its belly becomes
distended like a drum." Later on a freeish translation
is perhaps more advisable. The Latin may be thus
rendered: "The creature seeks some conveniently close
tree trunks between which it squeezes itself like an
orange and is then ready to commence anew. This

112

CUNNING OF GLUTTON

alternate procedure lasts as long as does the carcass ;
after it is eaten up to the last morsel, the glutton sets
out in quest of another." It suggests, as occurs to
Olaus Magnus, the ancient Romans who, " vorando
bibendoque vomunt redeuntque ad mensam." Like
many eaters of carcasses the glutton also pursues and
kills living food.

It is said to bring great cunning to bear upon its
predatory expeditions and to observe, and select in
accordance with its observations, a tree whose bark
has been scored by the horns of the expected deer, and
then to spring with one fierce bound upon its neck and
crunch it to death. In any case it has been indisputably
seen running hard after a hare. It is much more likely
that the glutton is mainly devoted to carrion, but
that now and then, by way of a variety, it succeeds in
overpowering some weakly but living creature. This
" vulture among quadrupeds," as it has not ineptly
been called, is nevertheless tamable. Audubon and
Bachman, who are among the principal natural historians
of the animals of North America, relate that a Gulo was
so adequately tamed that it sat up on its haunches and
smoked a pipe. It is an odd fact, exemplified also in
the chimpanzee " Consul," that the imitation of smoking
is always gloried over and " par'd " as a human attribute
much more than such genuine human qualities as the
capacity for counting and other really intellectual
achievements on the part of monkeys and others. It is
true that the " learned pig " appears to confute this
suggestion. But it is gravely to be suspected that that
favourite of some decades since also held a pipe and re-
ferred to a tall glass. The late Dr. Elliot Coues, the
American ornithologist, was struck by the magpie-like
curiosity of the glutton, a characteristic which it shares
with the raccoon, its ally. An individual stole from a

Z.G. 113 I

ARATHCON TO 'COON

camp, blankets, knives, and indeed all removable para-
phernalia. The glutton when dead is much better than
a living dog. Its skin is of course immensely valuable.
In mediaeval medicine the glutton, like the beaver, the
toad, and the woodlice, in fact the animal creation
generally, figured in prescriptions. The blood when
diluted with hot water is recommended to the hunter
who desires success, mingled with honey it is a sine qua
non for the lover who would gain his ends.

THE RACCOON

The French anatomist de Blainville aptly called this
small carnivore " Subursus," a name which exactly ex-
presses its relationship to other carnivora. For it
belongs to the bear tribe in a wide sense, though pre-
senting us with many points of difference to the true
bears. Its general aspect is not unbear-like ; but the
long ringed tail is a character which no real bear in
the restricted sense possesses. Like the bears, too, the
raccoon walks flatfootedly ; it is plantigrade instead of
walking on the toes, as do the cats and dogs. Its limbs,
moreover, are very long for an animal of this group,
which gives to it when walking a curious bunched up
appearance. The word " coon," as most persons know,
is but a corruption of raccoon, and raccoon itself, as
fewer persons know, is again a corruption from the
Indian name for this animal, viz. Arathcon. It is a
purely American beast, and the " washing " raccoon as
it has been termed, Procyon lotor, is an inhabitant of
North America. The crab-eating raccoon, P.cancri-
vorus, is from the South. A number of other names
have been given ; for instance one form has been called,
after the historian of South American natural history,
Procyon Hernandezi. Our English Pennant, the corre-
spondent of Gilbert White, and historian of London as
well of as beasts, wrote of the 'coon that it is " very good-

114

To face p. 114]

RACCOON

PROCYON AND ITS HABITS

natured and sportive, but as unlucky as a monkey."
He furthermore described it as very inquisitive, and
alleges that it will, if the opportunity arise, " like Roger
the monk, get excessively drank." The American
Aubudon, with his colleague Bachman, called it
" cunnning, easily tamed, and makes a pleasant monkey-
like pet." It is indeed a very Paul Pry among non-human
mammals. This renders it not so desirable as a pet ;
for it will uncork bottles, open doors, and generally put
its nose and fingers where they should not be. In a state
of nature the Procyon is " sly, dey-vilish sly." The
beast watches, we are told, the turtle when about to
deposit her eggs, and " sometimes by the margin of a pond
or crouched among tall reeds and grasses, grimalkin-
like, the raccoon lies still as death waiting with patience
for some ill-fated duck that may come within its reach."
All or nearly all is fish that comes to the raccoon's net.
Poultry, mice, eggs, insects and fruit form the staple of
its diet ; and it will turn over stones in its search for
crayfish. The southern species is so called on this very
account. " The habits of the muscles (sic) that inhabit
our freshwater rivers are better known to the raccoon
than to most conchologists," wrote Audubon and
Bachman. And there are legends to the effect that in
its quest of oysters, the raccoon sometimes gets a paw
shut in the shell of the angry mollusc, and thus fast
trapped is drowned by the rising tide. This, however, is
a tale which has been naturally viewed with suspicion.
It is clear, notwithstanding, that the raccoon is very
universal in its choice of food, a circumstance
which is always to the advantage of an animal
with so wide a taste. Omnivorousness is also writ large
upon its teeth, the molars being wide crowned and
tubercular, not thin and with cutting edges as in the
purely carnivorous cat tribe. It seems to be generally
believed that the raccoon handles and washes its food

THE MANED SEA LION

before eating it ; we certainly have noticed something of
the kind among the numerous specimens that have been
exhibited at the Zoological Gardens. Yet Audubon, who
knew his beasts and especially his birds well, distinctly
says that he never saw anything of the kind. Living as
it does in a climate which varies greatly from summer to
winter it is natural that the raccoon should hibernate.
But apparently this habit is not universal in the race.
For they have been seen at large in the winter, braving
the extreme cold of North America. This being the
case it is not surprising to learn that the hibernation is
a very perfunctory affair as compared with the prepara-
tions indulged in by some other mammals. The 'coon
makes for itself no special home for the winter, but lies
coiled up in the hollow trunk of a tree, or even upon
the branches of the same. It is in fact mostly an
arboreal creature, though it can swim and capture fish.
It makes its home in trees and carries on its business
elsewhere. This is one of the animals concerning which
it can safely be said that there is sure to be at least a
single specimen on view at the Zoo, and probably of
both the " common " and the " crab-eating " species.

THE PATAGONIAN AND OTHER SEA LIONS

The Patagonian sea lion, Otaria jubata, is, as its name
suggests, a native of the sea coasts of the extreme south
of the American continent, and of certain adjacent groups
of islands. The term sea " lion, " and the scientific
name of the species " jubata," mark a distinctive char-
acter of this species, which is the possession of a name
not visible in the animal unless its fur has got dry
through basking in the sun. To the several other
species of " otaries " (for example the Cape otary which
is figured herewith), the name sea bear is given, a nan?e
which has distinct merits in that it is perhaps to the
bear tribe among the fissipede carnivora that the Pinni-

116

CAPE SEA LION

To lace p. 1 1 6]

OTARIES AND SEALS

pedia are most nearly allied. An alternative name to
otary as applied to the whole group is eared seal ; both
these names embody a fact which is of considerable
importance for the discrimination of these aquatic
carnivora from seals and walruses. They possess
indeed a tiny external ear, the conch as it is called,
which is completely absent in the seals. The seals and
walruses have to get along with a mere hole in the, side
of the head, and are in the position of a seventeenth
century political or religious offender, who has had his
ears cropped. The persistence of this external ear is
one of several features in which the otaries have retained
more of the characteristics of a land-living ancestor than
have the seals. Other points which can be readily seen
in the living examples at the Zoo are the following. The
fore and hind flippers are not merely flippers as they are
in the seal ; indeed in the latter animal, the hind
flippers are, as it were, soldered to the tail, and form
with it a single steering apparatus. In the sea lions and
sea bears the flippers have still got some independent
movement and their possessors can shuffle along on the
land in a successful if awkward fashion, while the seal
can merely wriggle along as would a man whose legs
and arms had been tied to his body. More than this,
the nostrils are at the end of the snout in otaries, and on
the upper surface in seals, a position which is more
convenient in an aquatic animal whose aim in life
it is to respire at the surface of the water with as little
as possible of the body showing. These various features
lead us to the not unnatural inference that the true seals
have been for a longer period adapted to a purely
aquatic existence than have the sea lions. The more
obvious neck contrasting with the " bull neck " of seals
is a fact to be urged as pointing in the same direction,
while the claws on the hands and feet, though also to be
regarded as survivals, are to be met with in the seals,

117

STELLER'S SEA BEAR

and thus do not place the two families relatively.
There are several kinds of sea lions and sea bears,
probably at least eight, though the exact numbers are
still a matter of uncertainty. From a well known and
northern kind, Otaria ursina, is obtained the sealskin
of commerce. The paradox is therefore true that seal-
skin is not the skin of a seal. These fur-bearing sea
bears are often spoken of as fur seals in contra-distinc-
tion to those which have no fine under fur, but only
coarse hair, and which are therefore called hair seals.
But no anatomical characters, other than this, allow us
to distinguish two groups in the family. Although this
sea lion, and hair seals in general, do not furnish coats
and waistcoasts for the rich and cold, there are other
hair seals who are by no means on this count free from
alarms. Thus Steller's sea bear almost takes the place
among the natives of the Aleutian islands that the rein-
deer does with the Laps. The flesh, fishy, and unap-
petising as it might well be to ourselves, is eaten, and
of course, is said to resemble veal, as all strange meats
are. Its abundant fat is the local substitute for coal and
gas. For the storing of this fuel the animal's stomach
forms a convenient receptacle. The skin is used to
cover boats. The gullet becomes the boots of the hunts-
man or occupant of the boat, and the intestines sewn
together afford him a nondescript and waterproof
garment. Nothing in short is wasted by him except
the skeleton, and even this is sought after by others, for
museums. Sea lions congregate together in herds upon
rocks, which temporary dwelling places are termed
" rookeries," though " Why rookeries ? " we may well
exclaim with Miss Betsy Trotwood. This friendliness,
tempered, however, in the wild state by acts of discipline
on the part of the large males, does not extend to individ-
uals of different species ; and in the large pond at the Zoo,
if there is more than one sea lion an arrangement of

118

INCISORS OF RODENTS

the nature meted out to Box and Cox is adopted. While
one beast sports in the water the other gazes enviously
from the interior of a shed, and separated by a gate ;
otherwise misunderstandings might arise. Sea lions are
fish eaters in a wide and non-zoological sense ; for they
are partial to crustaceans as well. An ingenious ' ' dodge.' '
was adopted at the Zoo by the late Mr. A. D. Bartlett
some years since to tempt the appetite of a sickly sea
bear, which had been left for its health's sake by a
travelling menagerie. The otary was turned into the
pond in company with some live eels ; and the pleasures
of the chase induced it to make a hearty meal. The
intelligence of a sea lion is on a fairly high level, and most
persons have seen its dexterous catching of morsels of
fish and its obedience to the commands of its keeper ;
there will be some too, who remember Leconte, the
old Frenchman who long presided over the sea lions at
the Zoo.

THE GNAWING MAMMALS, ORDER RODENTIA

There is no difficulty whatever in recognizing a rodent,
and in distinguishing it from any other group of existing
mammals. There are only two living creatures which
might cause confusion, and they are the Magadascar
lemur, Chiromys, and the ungulate, Hyrax. But we have
seen that there is no need to perplex ourselves over their
correct placing. In all rodents the canine teeth are
entirely absent, and in all of them there are but one pair
of efficient incisor teeth in each jaw which are long and
chisel-shaped and allow the rodent to perform its
typical function, that of gnawing. It is true, that in the
hares and rabbits there is a minute supplementary
pair in the upper jaw ; but these are so small that they
do not impair the general rodent-like aspect of the animal.

There is an extraordinary variety of rodents, scattered
practically over the whole surface of the world. They

119

VIZCACHERAS

are more abundant in generic and specific types than
any other existing order of mammals ; and the reason
for their abundance and variation may perhaps be sought
for in their small size and retiring ways. They skulk,
burrow, hide in holes, secrete themselves in leafy
retreats, dive under the water, and generally shun obser-
vation. Besides the few forms of rodents which will be
noticed in the following pages, a good many forms are
usually on view in the Zoological Gardens. There are,
for instance, commonly to be seen beavers, once, and
that within the historic period, a denizen of the British
Islands ; squirrels of many kinds, besides the so-called
" flying " squirrels with a parachute stretching from arm
to leg ; the marmot of the Alps, and that of India ; many
rats of diverse kinds ; the South American agouti,
and its ally the guinea pig (really Guiana pig) ; the hopping
jerboa of the East, so like a small kangaroo, and
related Cape jumping hare (Pedetes cafer) ; the little
sandy coloured gerbilles and other rat- like creatures.

THE VIZCACHA

South America, which fosters the muff-producing
chinchilla, also is inhabited by the vizcacha or Lagostomus
trichodactylus, a smallish rodent of the same family,
Chinchillidae. The tail is long and the colour is dark,
agreeably diversified by white patches on the cheeks and
below. Unlike the chinchilla, the vizcacha dwells on
the Pampas, and constructs there burrows in the soil,
which are associated in number to form veritable cities,
the so-called " vizcacheras." Like many of the cur-
sorial rodents, the Lagostomus has its toes reduced to
four on each front limb, and three on each hind limb.
The underground cities which the vizcachas build and
inhabit, consist of many burrows which intercommuni-
cate, so that if an enemy enters by one door the viz-
cacha can bolt by another, like a pickpocket through

120

SOCIABILITY OF VIZCACHA

those convenient houses modified for his benefit. Like
the burrowing marmot of North America miscalled the
prairie dog, the vizcacha harbours, apparently not
unwillingly, a varied assortment of lodgers. They belong
to many classes of the animal kingdom. A fox is the
largest of these boarders, and though he and his vixen
devour the young vizcachas, it is apparently regarded
merely as " churchyard luck " by the parents, who
exhibit no particular symptoms of animosity against
vulpes. A weasel also lives almost entirely with the
vizcachas, and in his sheer innocence of intent it is hard
to believe. Quite harmless are two species of swallow
which build their nests upon the sides of the burrows
like sand martins at home. Various wasps and beetles
complete the list. In North America the rattlesnake
and the burrowing owl live with the prairie dog in har-
mony. In South America the same owl visits the
vizcacheras occasionally, and sits outside. This seems
to be pure sociability on the owl's part, for the bird
does not apparently make any use of its acquaintance.
The chief foes of the vizcachas are the jaguar and the
puma ; the domestic dog they do not care about, but
baffle his frantic attempts to catch them, by coolly,
. but with an exact appreciation of the moments necessary
for the action, dive into their burrow just before his jaws
close upon them. Mr. Hudson, who is the chief
authority upon the habits of this sociable little rodent,
doubts if there is " any other four-footed beast so
loquacious or with a dialect so extensive " as is the
vizcacha. Being a white-fleshed rodent who does not
lead too active a life the meat of the vizcacha is good to
eat.

PORCUPINES

Such terms as " the sharp quilled porpentyne " and
the " werely porpapyne," though bewildering in their

121

DERIVATION OF PORCUPINE

spelling, and tending to the concealment of the origin
of its name, illustrate the principal external feature of
this large rodent. You cannot, however, tell the " war-
like porcupine " by its quills ; for such thick, solid and
sharp hairs, they are nothing else, are common, not
only among rodents, but in the insectivora, and even
in the spiny anteater of Australia, which is a representa-
tive of the most ancient type of mammal known. How
then is a porcupine to be distinguished from an over-
grown rat, a magnified representative of the spiny
mice ? For one thing, it has spines on its tail, which the
spiny mice have not. But to be absolutely certain,
recourse must be had to bony and other internal char-
acters. The porcupines are also larger than any other
spiny rodent, and there is of course no possibility of
confusing them with sharp-nosed and sharp-toothed
hedgehog, or Centetes. The tail will betray the mouse —

Show him a mouse's tail and he will guess
With metaphysic swiftness at the mouse

and at the Porcupine. The spines have of course
given its name to the Porcupine. But it is not certain
whether the derivation from '* Pore Epic," i.e. pig-
spine, is correct, or the more probable " Porte Epic,"
i.e. spine bearer. As to the pig alternative, the fond-
ness for calling beasts pigs with a qualification, is uni-
versal. The porpoise is the pig fish ; the " Porcus
marinus " of the ancients was a beast of some kind,
but one does not know what. The only claim which
the porcupine puts forth to this derivation is that,
according to the Indian naturalist, Jerdon, the flesh
of tthe porcupine resembles roast pig, with a dash
of veal, however, a flavour that seems, according to
travellers and gastronomic experimenters, to be the
flavour of almost everything new to the palate. The
spines enter largely into the genuine natural history of
the porcupine, as well as into legend. They are plainly

122

I

THE PORCUPINE IN HERALDRY

a protective armature, and it will be noticed at the Zoo
that, if a porcupine is alarmed or threatened, it instinc-
tively bristles out its spines and turns its back upon the
quarter whence threatens the supposed aggression.
Yet it is clear that these fixed bayonets are not inex-
pugnable. For we are told that the tiger will make a
meal of a porcupine. As to legend, there is of course
the story that the porcupine shoots its quills. This
legend is utilised in the coat of arms of the French king,
Louis XII., who bore armorially a porcupine with the
motto " Comminus et eminus," i.e. prepared for enemies
close at hand and at a distance. There is a pig-like
suggestion too in the legend that the porcupine is especi-
ally infuriated by, and will savagely attack, venomous
serpents ; for it is well known that a pig will encounter,
trample to death, and munch up the fierce Fer de Lance
of the West Indies. The porcupine is alleged to roll
upon the snake and transfix it with its spines, just as the
purely insect- eating hedgehog of this country is alleged
to roll over fallen apples in the orchard and bear them
off to its lair. If the common porcupine of Asia, Africa,
and even of certain parts of Southern Europe, be watched,
the origin of the legend concerning the shooting off of its
spines will be clear to the onlooker. It has the habit
when annoyed of rustling its spines, and in the effort of
rustling some of the spines will fall to the ground, or
even be shaken to a little distance away. To such a
small cause is the archery of the porcupine reduced. It
is a remarkable fact that the porcupines of north and
South America are arboreal, and that those of South
America, which have a long tail, have that tail pre-
hensile. There is thus an exact parallel between the
monkey of the two hemispheres and the porcupines of
the Old and New Worlds. Of the Canadian Urson and
of the South American tree porcupines (Synetheres or
Coendou), at any rate, of the latter, there are often, if

123

THE VOYAGES OF THE LEMMING

not usually, specimens at the Zoo. It is a curious fact
that a peculiar long-tailed porcupine of the Old World
has such a habit of ridding itself of that tail by mis-
adventure, that the original specimen was ineptly called
Tricky >s lipura.

THE LEMMING

There are several kinds of lemmings, at fewest two,
which are circumpolar in range, and are found in the
extreme of North America and Greenland, in Siberia and
the north of Europe. They are little rodents, especially
closely allied to the real water-rat, or vole, and belonging
like that rodent, to a great family Muridae, which em-
braces anything and everything that can be really
termed a rat. The most familiar kind of lemming is the
little animal which lives in the central highlands of
Norway, and whose migrations are referred to in every
book on popular zoology. It has been an inmate of the
Zoo, though at the moment of writing there are no ex-
amples of it. So associated is this little beast with its
restless and persevering habits, that but a trifle is known
about it when really at home in central Norway. The
migrations seem to be associated with hunger ; unusual
fertility produced lemmings in excess of available food.
It is exactly the same thing that occasionally occurs with
other rodents, more particularly with the field vole, of
which there were phenomenal swarms in Scotland a few
years back. When this event occurs, which is at quite
irregular intervals, the lemmings put their best foot
forward and set forth on their journey. So suddenly, and
in such hordes, do they appear, that in old days they
were held to be rained from the skies, as many persons
believe with regard to frogs at the present day. They
cross streams, descend and ascend cliffs, on their journey-
ings, and in fact are impeded by no obstacle surmount-

124

DR. BREHM ON THE LEMMING

able or apparently insurmountable. This perseverance,
however, leads to nothing ; for from these exodus no
lemming ever returns. Like the Crusaders of old, they
die from various causes on their travels. From falling
into water, from fights with one another, and a vast
quantity of them fall a prey to wolves and gluttons,
buzzards and ravens, who haunt their route and take
abundant toll of the migrants. Occasionally during a
lemming year a fever arises along the route among the
human inhabitants, which is called lemming fever. This
is due to the numerous putrefying corpses left along the
way, and is a testimony to their multitudes. The
rapidity with which lemmings multiply is well put by
Dr. Brehm, who says, " All the young of the first litter
of the various lemming females thrive, and six weeks
later at the most these also multiply. Meanwhile the
parents have brought forth a second and a third litter,
and these in their turn bring forth young." In past
times lemmings lived in this country, and the interesting
observation has been lately made of quite fresh-looking
skeletons, with skins attached, in Portugal. It seems
possible that lemmings still lurk among the fastnesses of
the Iberian peninsula.

THE CAPYBARA

Apart from the mysterious, and until this year almost
fabulous Dinomys, of which the first and only example
known until lately was met with casually wandering
round the courtyard of a house in a remote Peruvian
town, without visible means of subsistence or ascertain-
able residence, the capybara, or carpincho, is the largest
existing rodent. There was once upon a time — literally
" when pigs were swine," for the Suise were of a general-
ized type, and could be better called swine than pig,
which denotes the Chinese domestic variety — a rodent

125

AN AQUATIC RODENT

obviously termed Megamys, with a body as big as an ox.
The capybara is contented with the bulk of a sheep. It
is a rodent whose nearest living allies are the Patagonian
cavy, which looks like a weird long-legged hare, and of
which there are always examples in the Gardens, and of
the restless cavy, better known, when domesticated, as
the Guinea pig. It might be thought that the name of
the latter forbade any close alliance with the American
carpincho. But Guinea in this case is merely a corrup-
tion of Guiana. All the members of this family of rodents
are in fact limited to the southern half of the American
continent. The capybara, whose scientific name is Hydro-
choerus capybara, which of course — the generic name
that is — signifies water hog, is much addicted to water,
and has distinct points of likeness to the ungulates gen-
erally, if not to the pigs in particular. The skin is thick,
and rather sparsely haired, with coarse hairs as com-
pared to such a rodent as the squirrel, or even its ally,
the Guiana pig. The toes are reduced in number, which
is, as we have seen, an ungulate character ; their nails
are approaching towards hoofs in character ; and finally
the last molar tooth is of great length, as in the wart hog
and, indeed, the elephant. Being largely aquatic it is
not surprising to find that the hind toes are to some
extent webbed. These creatures are sociable and fre-
quent banks of rivers, whence they constantly plunge
into the water, in which element they are adept swimmers.
They delight in wallowing in mud like other thick-
skinned beasts. Their gait is a clumsy gallop, and is
compared by Mr. Aplin with that of the Guiana pig.
The step of the carpincho in fact betrays the cavian.
The blundering way in which these heavy rodents
charge when disturbed is a source of terror to horses,
who will not face them. They are literally thick skinned ;
but in recompense they have the most complicated and
furrowed brain of all rodents.

126

ALLIES OF THE HEDGEHOG

ORDER INSECTIVORA

Some of the characters of this archaic group have been
already referred to under the carnivora. Others will be
found below.

CENTETES.

Madagascar is a kind of common lodging-house for
weird and ancient beasts who have found sanctuary in
its impenetrable forests, unfrequented by many carni-
vorous animals, and have thus escaped the extinction
which their relatives have suffered elsewhere. Thus it is
in Madagascar that the vast majority of the lemurs, those
archaic forerunners of the monkey tribe, are to be found.
The more modern types, such as the monkeys them-
selves, and the bears and antelopes and feline carnivora,
have never, as it appears, even gained access to Mada-
gascar, which was cut off, it is believed, from the African
continent some ages since. Among the peculiar beasts
of that great island is the hedgehog-like Centetes, which
belongs to the insectivora, a group which represents, as
it would seem, an archaic state of affairs. Like the
rodents, the insectivores have habituated themselves to
almost every kind of life ; they burrow like the moles,
swim like certain shrews, and the West African " otter "
Potamogale, even fly, when we remember that the
Colugo, Galeopithecus, is at leastn ot very remote from
this group ; they especially favour a lurking existence,
slinking in the underwood, and dwelling in holes ; in
fact they do everything except lead an open and raven-
ing life. It is perhaps for these reasons, coupled with
their small size, that the insectivora, as a group, have
persisted, and are indeed so numerous in their varied
kinds. Centetes is not oy any means unlike a hedgehog
in general aspect. It is a small brownish creature with
a long snout, and with hairs which are stiff and yet are
called hairs. A different name will be given by any one

127

TANREC AND TUPAIA

who handles the Centetes incautiously. It is really not
far inferior to the hedgehog in spininess. In young
stages it has definite bands of long spines down the body.
Spines of course are a common feature of the whole race
of insectivorous animals. They have, too, sharp teeth
and well-developed canines. The bite of Centetes is a
serious matter. It feeds upon earthworms chiefly. The
Tendrec, Tanrec or Tenrec, as its various native aliases
run, is one of the most prolific of mammals. It is said
to produce twenty- one young at a birth. It has no tail
and a very small brain, so small, indeed, that it is no
larger in comparison to the skull than the extremely
minute brains of certain extinct animals of the dim past
belonging to quite other groups, and whose disappear-
ance is perhaps partly to be explained by their lack of
cunning. Measured by this standard the Tenrec is not
long for this world. Few insectivores are to be seen at
the Zoo. They do not readily lend themselves to cap-
tivity. It is clear that moles and shrews are not suit-
able exhibits. The Tupaia, however, a Malayan insec-
tivora that seems to mimic a squirrel, is one of the few
types that has been at the Zoo.

ORDER EDENTATA

This is a heterogeneous assemblage of peculiarly weird-
looking beasts of doubtful relations to other mammals,
and indeed to each other. Though it is plain enough
from anatomical considerations, and from the analysis
of extinct forms, that the sloth, American anteaters, and
armadillos, form a closely related assemblage, it is not at
all plain that these have any relation whatever to the
Manis and the Orycteropus of the Old World, or that the
two latter are in any way related to each other. Why
then, it may fairly be asked, are all those creatures placed
in one order, Edentata. The reasons in truth are of a
negative character, and are simply an expression of the

128

THE ANT BEAR

present powerlessness of zoologists to do any better.
They fit in nowhere else, and in the meantime the group
Edentata may be retained as an assemblage of creatures
which admittedly require sorting out when we are able
to do it.

THE AMERICAN ANT-EATER

One of the most remarkable types of animal life which
frequent the gloomy forests of South America is the
great ant-bear, Myrmecophaga jubata, the maned ant-
eater as it might be better called, in deference to its
Linnaean name. Claws, tail and tongue, are its most
striking attributes, and are most intimately concerned
with its mode of life. It is a large and not uncomely
beast, of a greyish black colour, with a conspicuous stripe
over the shoulder, a small head at the end of a longish
neck, and with a great bushy tail, which is carried in an
arched fashion. Including this tail the ant-bear gets to
be as long as seven feet, and the two sexes are of the same
build and colour. The claws are so long and stout that
the beast has to walk upon the sides of them. Their
massive character is in association with the fact that the
animal tears open the high ant-hills inhabited by the
termites, or white ants of South America, which are
often constructed with great solidity. The emerging
ants are then licked up by the extraordinarily long and
thin tongue, aided by a copious secretion of saliva. In
most mammals the salivary glands are limited to the
head and throat. But in Myrmecophaga these glands
extend right over the breast, and are thus in a position
to produce an enormous quantity of the necessary bird-
lime for the capture of its prey. Like Manis of the East,
Myrmecophaga has a mouth as toothless as that of the
crone. But what it lacks in offensiveness in the mouth
it makes up for by its claws, which can rip open any dog
in a stroke or two. Their more effective use as an instru-

Z.G. 129 K

USE OF BUSHY TAIL

ment and as a weapon is arrived at by the exaggeration
of one of them, the middle claw ; this has grown at the
expense of the rest, and has thus been able with the same
available material to reach a larger size and strength
than if the material were distributed fairly through the
hand. It will be just as well not to investigate in the
Zoo the nature and uses of these claws. An individual
possessed by the idea that the umbrella of commerce
was an implement of use in the study of zoological pro-
blems, proceeded to roke out an ant-bear. The ant-bear
retaliated, and the result was that there was no evidence
on the umbrella, but only in the paws of the bear, that
it had ever had a silk cover. The long and bushy tail has
a use that was at first scouted as improbable, but is now
upheld. During sleep and in stormy weather, Myrme-
cophaga winds its tail round its head and body in such
a way that they must be protected from the weather.
This ant-bear is never arboreal. But South America
nourishes two allied genera, viz. Tamandua and Cyclo-
Ihurus, which both live in trees. The former is not-un-
frequently to be seen at the Zoo.

THE SLOTH

An exceedingly dependent animal is the sloth. It
lives in a continual state of suspense, as Sidney Smith
remarked, like a curate distantly related to a bishop.
The same reverend and witty author furthermore added
that the uses of a sloth hanging from the branches of a
Brazilian forest were not obvious ; but that on the other
hand it might be fairly asked, " What was the use of a
gentleman in Bond Street ? " We need not now ask
such a question concerning the sloth ; there are other
and more pressing queries. There is no better instance
in the whole animal kingdom of a creature which is

130

BUFFON'S VIEWS

exactly suited to its mode of life. Cut down forests and
sloths must inevitably disappear. It is as purely
arboreal as the whale is aquatic. But while many partly
or wholly arboreal beasts (for example, the tree kangaroo,
described later) are much like their immediate relatives
which live upon the ground, the sloth is so constructed
that it differs absolutely from its nearest allies ; its closely
approximated and bent claws can only serve as hooks
for suspension. Nevertheless, the sloth can progress
upon the ground, but only with difficulty and pain.
Waterton relates in his Wanderings, that he kept a tame
sloth ; but, indeed, the term tame as applied to perhaps
the most peaceful even among vegetarian creatures,
seems unnecessary. And upon this sloth he made obser-
vations as to its walking powers. The melancholy, and at
the same time slightly comic, aspect of the sloth, incited
M. de Buffon to the following singular series of remarks
in his natural history. The life of the sloth being res-
tricted, and its general circumstance untoward, the visage
of .the animal has retained their impress ; for " all these
circumstances announce their wretchedness and call to
our mind those imperfect sketches of Nature, which,
having scarcely the power of existence, only remained a
short time in the world, and were then effaced from the
list of beings." It was further the great French natura-
list's opinion that some animals, like some men, seem to
be created only for sadness. De Buffon had to write
with a vigilant and aggressive clergy in his mind and
was compelled to adopt these somewhat hypocritical
sentiments. But in spite of this, which was at the time
the orthodox view of the animal creation, the sloth is by
no means an animal to be pitied. No creature that is
perfectly in accord and harmony with surrounding
nature, inanimate as well as animate, can be distressful.
The visitor to the Zoo will note at once two distinct
features about the sloth ; firstly, its close and shaggy

GREEN COLOUR OF SLOTH

covering of long and coarse hair : secondly, the im-
mensely long and hooked claws, which are two in the
fore limbs in the case of the two- toed sloth, Choice pus,
and three in Brady pus.

It has no fingers to crook to retain its hold upon a
branch ; nature has already hooked them for it in a per-
manent fashion. It can only clutch. The long, wiry
hair droops over its body, and forms an excellent shelter
against a tropical downpour. As to this hair, it has been
pointed out that it fadges well with the sloth's habits.
Instead of lying in different directions in different regions
of the body, as is so generally the case with the mam-
malia, the hair " flows " only downwards ; it cannot
therefore get wet. But a third danger remains besides
the chance of falling, and of getting a soaking. The
sloth has tender flesh, and is an appetizing morsel to
tree-frequenting beasts of prey ; and South America
harbours one of the largest of these, to wit, the jaguar.
Defenceless as the sloth is against such attacks, nature
has provided it with the means of apparently circum-
venting probable foes. It will very possibly be noticed
in examining carefully the hair of the sloth, that this has
often a distinctly green colour. Now it was ascertained
a good many years ago that this green colour was not in
the least due to an actual green colour of the individual
hairs, but to the presence within them of minute green
plants similar to those which colour so vividly the
weather side of trees, to microscopic algse in fact. This
gives to the pelage of our sloth a not unstriking likeness
to lichens, which is borne out by its bunched-up body,
not unlike a tree stump. There is, in fact, in one sloth at
least — there are several species of sloth — a mark in the
middle of the back which suggests a broken end of a
branch. Thus we see that the wind is tempered to the
shorn lamb, if, indeed, so very shaggy a creature may
be used as an illustration of this dictum.

132

RELATIONSHIPS OF EDENTATES

THE ARMADILLO

The " little knight in armour " of South America,
and of that continent only, is perhaps about as unlike
the " dreaming sloth of pallid hue " of the same con-
tinent as any two beasts can well be, that are admittedly
both mammals. And yet, while some of the other types
— the Manis and the Orycteropus — which are by some
placed in the same order, that of Edentates, are really
unlike the armadillo, there are numerous facts in the
structure of the sloth which show it to be akin. In no
other part of the world than in America are there, or
have there been ever, so far as our knowledge enables us
to state, animals belonging to these three types, the
sloths, armadillos and anteaters. The unique structural
peculiarity which they share is that the vertebrae of the
back are fastened together successively by joints addi-
tional to those which exist in other mammals. It is
curious that the opinion of the zoologist is reinforced by
that of a practical hunter, who thought of a rare kind of
armadillo, remarkable for possessing its bony skin plates
only along the side and not on the back, that it was an
hybrid between the armadillo and the ant-bear. Funda-
mentally related though the armadillo and the Myrmeco-
phaga are, they are obviously most diverse in external
form and feature. The immovable stolidity of the sloth
and its comical face, the stately gait of the ant-eater and
its huge bushy tail, contrast with the cheerful pattering
waddle of the armadillo, sheathed in its thick armour.
The armadillo — or, rather, the armadillos, for there are
at least six distinct genera, many of which contain several
species — has the unique peculiarity among mammals
both living and extinct (with the single exception of
certain armoured whales of great antiquity) of possessing
a defensive armature composed of bony plates imbedded
in the skin. But these bony plates do not make it a
tortoise any more than the scales of the Manis make it a

133

MOVABLE ARMOUR

lizard. They clash with a vast series of important facts
which differentiate mammals from animals lying lower
in the series, which have been already enumerated, and,
quite apart from the fact that they differ in many details
from the carapace of the tortoise or turtle, no more
affinethetwo than does the beak of the tortoise, or the
Ornithorhynchus, bridge over the gulf between those
creatures and the bird. The huge, and we may almost
say, " therefore," extinct, Glyptodons, which were allies
of the armadillos, were boxed up in their carapaces ;
the modern armadillos enjoy a freedom of movement
within theirs, since the bony pieces are often distributed
in bands. A species often to be seen at the Zoo, and
known as Tolypeutes tricinctus, has its chest protected,
as ought his to be who first crosses the seas, by a triple
band, not of brass, but of bone. In others again there
are six bands ; and the tiny Chlamydophorus (which will
probably not be seen at the Zoc) has a point of likeness
to the effete Glyptodonts, in having a rigid box envelop-
ing it without jointing. So thoroughly movable are
these bands as a rule, that the armadillo can roll up into
a ball like its namesake, the armadillo woodlouse, and
thus be with impunity played at ball with by a hungry
jaguar, intent rather on solid food than playful trifling.
Nor could the jaguar easily solve the difficulty by swal-
lowing the armadillo like a pill. In its own choice of
food the armadillo is decidedly a carrion lover, and ap-
proaches its food after the devious fashion of a burying
beetle. Instead of openly making for the carcass, the
armadillo circuitously tunnels underground and comes
up underneath it. We are told that on the pampas a
carcass is rarely found that has not beneath it a tunnel
formed by some epicurean armadillo intent on luxury.
At the Zoo this taste is severely restricted, and a diet of
pap and chopped meat offered in its place. Mr. Hudson
relates another way the armadillo has of providing itself

134

THE PANGOLIN AND THE ANTS

with meat. It will attack, and literally saw in two with
the sharp edges of its carapace^ a living snake.

THE PANGOLIN

The pangolin is a corruption of the Malay word,
" Tagiling," which is the vernacular name for an animal
known to zoologists by the scientific name of Manis, and
to us in general, as the scaly ant-eater. The genus
Manis, of which there are some seven species, inhabits
both Asia and Africa. It looks, as it has been well ex-
pressed, " like an animated spruce fir cone." The scales
in fact with which it is thickly beset are brown and
withered-looking, and loosely attached at the base in
quite a vegetable fashion. They suggest that a good
shake will scatter them. Nevertheless, the scales are
very firm, and offer a double protection to their possessor.
When harried and worried by a dog or other carnivore
searching a meal, the scaly ant-eater rolls itself up into
something like a ball, and presents a hard smooth surface
to the enemy. Should the latter attempt a nearer in-
vestigation of the Manis, the scales contract still closer
to the body, and often carry with them a fragment of
flesh from the aggressor's nose, pinched off by their sharp
edges. In two parts of the world, namely in Japan and
in the Malay countries — perhaps, indeed, the legend has
spread from the one place to the other — the Manis is
believed to make another use of its scales. It erects
them and then pretends to be dead. The inquisitive
ant, in the fashion which everybody knows, wanders in
multitudes over the body, and creeps between the scales.
When a sufficient number of ants have thus begun to
investigate the Manis, the latter closes his scales, and
entering the nearest piece of water again erects his scales,
and laps up the ants as they float out. The food of this

135

TEETH AND GIZZARD

animal is entirely ants ; like the American ant-eaters,
but unlike the African Orycteropus, the Manis has no
teeth in its mouth, though the tongue is long and helped
by large salivary glands. Like the American ant-eater,
the Manis has a stomach which may be almost compared
to a bird's gizzard. That is its walls are much thickened
with muscle, and small pebbles seem to be also swallowed
to help in crushing the food which in other animals is
accomplished by the molar teeth. Though toothless as
any hag the Manis triumphs over nature by adventitious
help. It is said, however, to be a particularly stupid
animal. When kept in confinement it wanders on at
night in a straight line, like a Roman making a road, and
if a chair happens to be in the way, climbs over it and
falls down on the other side. All these ant-eaters are not
purely ground-living creatures, like the aard vark.
Many are, it is true ; and burrow therein to a very great
length and depth. An Indian species makes a tunnel
shelving downwards of twelve feet in length, and term-
inates it with a comfortable chamber of six feet circum-
ference, to rest in. Some pangolins, however, climb ;
and in these the toes are turned inwards and downwards
as they are in the great American ant-eater. The largest
Manis is six feet long ; and one species, which obviously
had to be called Manis macrura, has the distinction of
being one of not more than three animals which have
the longest tails. In this animal the tail is nearly twice
as long as the body. The same doubt surrounds the
origin of the Manis as does that of the aard vark. Its
birth is " wrop up in a mistry." And here again no
fossils can be appealed to, to help us out of the impasse.
The brain is not so helpful as it appears to be in the
aard vark. There are, however, rather more grounds
in this case than in that for linking on the Manis to the
American ant-eaters, though, as already said, they are at
present not entirely trustworthy.

136

A BURROWING EDENTATE

THE AARD VARK

A sight of this undoubtedly one of the strangest of
the mammalia will convince the observer of the justice
of the Dutch name for it, viz. the " earth hog." It is
also distinctly like the figure of the Devil in Albert
Diirer's picture of Sintram. The piggish appearance
is mainly due to the soft snout broadened and flattened
at the end with the nostrils on the flattened region.
The long ears, the " piggisneyes " and the somewhat
sparse covering of hairs add to the likeness, and con-
tribute towards the building up of a beast that, if it
were figured as a " restoration " of some extinct form,
would cause jeers at the expense of the draughtsman.
Nature in fact in constructing the aard vark seems
at first sight to have blundered. That will not be the
view of anyone who has had the opportunity of watching
the aard vard on its native Karoo. It buries itself
in the earth with such rapidity, that it can only be
followed by digging ahead in the presumed direction
in which it is going. The Orycteropus is an under-
ground creature living in burrows of its own excavation,
which are thoughtfully and conveniently placed in the
neighbourhood of the tall hills erected by the white
ants upon which this ant-eater of the Cape preys.
The body is eminently suited for burrowing for it
dwindles at the two ends ; the tail is but little distinct
from the body, and has been correctly described as " a
tapering of the body to a point." The deficient hairy
covering is more than matched in another African and
burrowing creature, the little rodent Heterocephalus.
It appears that for burrowing animals the two ex-
tremes of hairiness are the most suitable. At one
extreme we have Heterocephalus and the armadillos,
and at the other the mole ; but in the latter beast the
fur is so dense and close that it presents an even surface
comparable to nakedness. The reason for the extreme

137

MISSING LINKS

is thus seen. Orycteropus feeds upon ants and it is said
to impatiently thump with its heavy tail before com-
mencing operations upon an ant hill ; this throws the
small inhabitants into such a panic that they run
hither and thither in their confusion and pour out into
the jaws of their foe. As it feeds on ants it is not sur-
prising to find that Orycteropus has a particularly long
and viscid tongue like the tongue of other formicivorous
creatures. It is surprising, however, to find in its
mouth, besides a long tongue, an extensive range of
teeth. Other ant-eating creatures, for instance the
anteater, have no teeth. One is disposed to wonder
if this unexpected array of teeth is not an inheritance
from the not very remote days when the Orycteropus,
so to speak, chewed the cud like an ox. The mystery
of its origin is one upon which but little light has been
thrown. While the discovery of numerous fossil links
bind together other groups of mammals, no such con-
nexions are forthcoming in the case of our aard vark.
It is an isolated and friendless type declining to be
allied even to its neighbour, the Manis or pangolin.
The old idea that it came near to the ant-eater of America
has long since been exploded. Probably it is not an
exaggeration to say that no two mammals are further
apart than these two. The only hints that we seem
able to get are in the brain. The nervous system
generally among animals is an exceedingly conserva-
tive system, changing but slightly with other changes,
and then showing up unexpected likenesses in beasts
apparently remote. It has been pointed out that the
brain of the Orycteropus is singularly like that of an
ungulate animal ; and it is perhaps to these creatures
that Orycteropus shows the most likeness. In the
meantime there are at least two distinct species of
aard vark found in Africa, a northern and a southern
form, while in former times, as shown by its fossil

138

ANIMALS OF AUSTRALIA

remains, the Orycteropus was an inhabitant of the
land of Samos and the kingdom of Persia.

ORDER MARSUPIALS, OR KANGAROOS, WOMBATS
AND THE LIKE

The name marsupial indicates the most salient
external feature of this order of mammals, viz. the
possession of a pouch. Constantly it will be possible
to observe this pouch in the case of kangaroos which
happen to have young ones ; for the infant kangaroo
can be seen peering out of the maternal pouch. The
reason for this pouch, or at any rate a fact which accom-
panies the possession of this pouch, is the very imper-
fect condition of the newborn young ; they are tiny
blind and naked creatures, not longer than the little
finger. To the eye of the visitor this pouch is about
the only visible character which links together the
marsupial tribe. In other external features they
differ "very widely indeed. The long-legged, thick-
tailed, leaping kangaroos with their long ears, and
donkey-like face, are extraordinarily different from
the fat marmot-like wombat, or from the comparatively
recently discovered marsupial mole, the golden coloured,
burrowing Notary ctes. The fierce Tasmanian wolf,
Tasmanian devil, and ursine Dasyure, represent another
type of this most diverse order, carnivorous in habit
and with a smaller pouch backwardly directed instead
of forwardly as in the kangaroos. The Phalangers of
Australia and the Koala or " native bear " are soft-
furred arboreal marsupials, quite as different in external
appearance from any of the types that have been
mentioned, as are the latter among themselves. The
American opossums are different again ; and another
extreme of this curiously diverse order is realized by
the tiny " flying " forms which skim from branch to
branch like the flying squirrels of the order Rodentia.

139

KANGAROOS

All these marsupials possess also a pair of bones diverging
from each other like a " V ", which support the walls
of the pouch, and are not found in any of the higher
mammals. These can be easily felt through the skin ;
and though it has been said that the dog possesses a
similar pair of structures, it is not by any means clear
that there is a real correspondence. It will be noticed
that these bones, although they support the wall of the
pouch, are not in the least developed to that end ; for
they occur in the male as well as in the female. With
the exception of the American opossums and a small
creature known as " Raton runcho," or technically as
Ccznolestes, the marsupials are at the present day only
found in Australia and some of the islands to the north
of that continent as well as in Tasmania in the south.
They do not get to New Zealand, which is an island with-
out indigenous mammals at all except a bat or two.

THE GIANT KANGAROO

One of the principal improvements at the Zoo of late
years has been the formation of a respectable paddock
for the enjoyment of the leaping kangaroos, who can now
show us something of their strength and agility. For-
merly the cooped up series of backyards in which they
vegetated gave no chance to realize that a kangaroo
can clear at a single leap a space of some twenty feet.
The kangaroo is certainly like no other animal, except,
of course, its own immediate relatives the other kan-
garoo-like genera. Its rather small head with long
ears is not unsuggestive of that of a donkey ; it has a
mild look which is not an index of its nature, for the
kangaroo when at close quarters and with its back
against a wall is not by any means a mild antagonist.
The body with its huge tail, powerful hind legs, and
diminutive fore limbs is only paralleled by the jerboa

140

To face p. 140]

OTHER KANGAROOS

and the jerboa-rats of Australia, and by the Cape
jumping hare (Pedetes caffer) of Africa. To be agile,
to traverse arid wastes in the search for water or for
herbage, with rapidity, is a sine qua non with all these
creatures which have a partiality for plains, and arid
ones at that. It is interesting and most .instructive
to note how differently in such cases the feet have been
constructed for the due carrying of their owners over
the ground. In the ungulates either the middle toe
or the third and fourth has or have been especially
strengthened to meet the demand. In the jerboa
the Perissodactyle type of foot has been, we must
suppose, quite independently acquired ; for in them
digit number three is in the middle and strikes the
ground first. In the kangaroos, on the other hand, it
is the fourth toe which is predominant ; and it is, as
may be easily seen in the living animal, particularly
strong and furnished with a huge nail. In bipedal
man it is the innermost toe, the first, which mainly
bears the weight of the body. There is thus nearly
every possible arrangement, which varies according
to the group. In the kangaroo the peculiarly tiny
third and fourth toes will be noticed to be tied up in a
common integument. How thick blood is among the
marsupials is shown by the fact that in the phalangers,
arboreal creatures quite unlike the kangaroos in general
aspect, the same toes are similarly swathed in skin.
There are between twenty and thirty kinds of kan-
garoos, including the so called wallabies which are not
now distinguished from the kangaroos ; the only differ-
ence that ever existed was merely one of size.

THE TREE KANGAROO

The idea of a kangaroo up a tree suggests a purely
metaphorical use of the term to most persons for whom

141

TREE-LIVING KANGAROO

kangaroos are essentially ground-hopping creatures.
Nevertheless there is a whole genus of kangaroos
known by the technical name of Dendrolagus, which
name, it will be observed, expresses the fact of their
arboreal proclivities, whose life is spent hopping along
branches and not bounding over the grass. There are
about three different species of these tree kangaroos, of
which a new one has been lately found and named after
the traveller Lumholz. The build of the kangaroo does
not seem at first sight to be suitable to nice balancing
and clambering upon branches. Yet it is highly
interesting to notice how, with the minimum expenditure
of energy in the way of alteration, Nature has been able
to convert a purely terrestrial animal into one which
is as distinctively arboreal. The long tail remains ;
but it is furry throughout and of somewhat more
slender dimensions ; it is no longer wanted as a prop
for the animal when progressing slowly along the
ground. It rather serves the Dendrolagus as a balancing
pole to aid in its successful leaps from branch to branch.
And for this purpose it need not be quite so massive
and so comparatively short-haired as in kangaroos and
wallabies. The toes also, which have greatly prolonged
nails in the leaping kangaroo, have these nails much
shorter in the tree-frequenting beast. The fore limbs,
too, are rather longer in proportion than those of kan-
garoos ; otherwise there is but little change in habit.
Dendrolagus has the mild somewhat asinine features of
kangaroos, the same two projecting under incisors
like French caricatures of the English " Mees," which
it is to be presumed can work upon each other like the
blades of a pair of scissors ; they can at any rate in
the common kangaroo, a fact which was shown a good
many years ago. In short, there is nothing of far
reaching importance either externally or internally,
that differentiates this creature from other kangaroos.

142

BURROWING MARSUPIALS

WOMBATS

The Zoological Gardens are rarely, if ever, without
these fat somewhat uncouth marsupials, suggestive of
an overgrown marmot. They are coarsely hairy, and
waddle when unexcited, though when needs must they
can run with some rapidity. The stumpy tail heightens
the likeness to the European marmot, as do also the
strong and rodent-like incisor teeth in the front of
the jaws. In fact, as has been often pointed out, the
wombat is an excellent example of what is known as
convergence ; starting from a totally different place in
the order of nature it has arrived at much the same
goal as has the marmot or some such burrowing rodent.
It walks heavily on the flat of the feet, and eats roots
for which it digs. In the burrows there is some degree
of sociability exhibited ; and this again is a rodent-
like character. One has only to recall the prairie mar-
mots, and the vizcachas of North and South America.
It has, however, the pouch of the ordinary marsupial
pattern ; and its young are doubtless born in imper-
fection as those of other marsupials, though that matter
is for the present shrouded in some obscurity. Although
nocturnal in their native Australia and Tasmania, the
wombats at the Zoo show themselves during the day
like other nocturnal beasts do in that institution. Like
many other marsupials, the " pouched mouse," to trans-
late its scientific name of Phascolomys is for the most
part silent ; it is not without interest that silence
is apt to be an attribute of primitiveness and chatter
due to higher specialization. We all of us know the
silent man whose few recorded words were not in-
dicative of great brain power. Anyhow newts are silent
and so are reptiles and many of the older types of birds,
while the marsupials and rodents and insectivores carry
on the generalization into the mammals. At times,
however, the wombat hisses ; one species is said to

143

FOOD OF PHALANGERS

give vent to a " groan." In captivity it is as a rule
amiable, the amiability being possibly associated with
stupidity. Sir Everard Home, however, the famous
surgeon and anatomist of the end of the eighteenth
and beginning of the nineteenth centuries, thought the
wombat not unintelligent though he agreed from per-
sonal observation as to its amiability.

THE VULPINE PHALANGER

The vulpine phalanger is not especially fox-like
in aspect though it has somewhat of the sharp-snouted
eagerness of that animal, toned down, however, by
marsupial stupidity. Trichosurus vulpecula (between
this name and Phalangista vulpina choice may be
made) has departed considerably from, or rather has
not nearly arrived at, the kangaroo type of structure.
Still there are numerous facts which show it to be allied
to the kangaroos. For instance the second and third
toes are bound together in a common integument as in
the leaping and long-tailed Diprotodont ; and it has
the same strong lower incisors which, however, it is
alleged, do not meet, and move upon each other in the
scissors-like way that has been recorded in the grazing
kangaroos. Trichosurus, in fact, is purely arboreal,
though it will at times descend to the ground ; on
these occasions it walks in a flat-footed and archaic
way. It is, however, most suited to a life in trees, and
it has as an aid to effective climbing, a prehensile
tail, so common a feature in tree-dwelling animals. It
chiefly affects the blue gum tree of its native Australia
and eats the leaves and shoots of that tree, occasionally
varying its diet, as is the way with many vegetable-
feeding animals marsupial and otherwise, with animal
food. In captivity small birds are enjoyed by it. It
is often called " opossum," but it has of course nothing
to do with the opossums of North and South America,

144

FLYING IN MAMMALS

save the bare fact that it is, like them, a marsupial.
The real and genuine opossums belong to the carnivorous
section of the marsupials, the Polyprotodonts. They
are, however, tree climbers and have the same pre-
hensile tail and sharp claws which distinguish our
Trichosurus. The pouch of Trichosurus only harbours
at most two young ones and more usually one only.
It has not the often enormous philoprogenitiveness
of the "'possum." In Australia and Tasmania it is
hotly pursued on account of its moderately valuable
fur. This is its attraction to the white man. The
black man thinks less of the fur than of the flesh be-
neath it, and regards Trichosurus, in spite of its rank-
ness in the European nostril, as desirable meat.

BELIDEUS BREVICEPS

We must not leave the diprotodont marsupials
without a reference to the flying forms of which the
present representative (also called Petaurus breviceps) is
often to be found at the Zoo. It is a small, soft-furred,
mousy-looking creature of grey colour with a black
stripe down the back. It is not more than eight inches
long and has a bushy tail of about the same length.
The term " flying " as applied to these phalangers must
not of course be taken literally. They cannot soar
upward like a bird ; the most that can be done is a series
of skims from bough to bough, the distance to the ground
being lessened at each effort. The flying, such as it
is, is effected by a parachute-like membrane attached
along the sides of the body between the limbs. It
seems to be likely that all kinds of flying really originated
from some such mechanism, which gradually became
restricted to the fore-limbs in the more perfectly flying
birds and bats. A loose fold of skin at the sides is
sufficient for a beginning ; this becomes intensified,
and then the " patagium " in birds is limited to the

Z.G. 145 L

POLYPROTODONTS

front of the fore limbs, a trace of the primitive lateral
membrane being left in what is called in those animals
the metapatagium. There is a kind of a hint that
in the earliest known bird, Archczopteryx, a lateral
feathered membrane existed besides the special patagium
with its feathers in front of the fore limb. A remarkable
fact about these small flying phalangers is that the
power of flight appears to have been independently
produced more than once in the group. For we find
several types of them each of which is separately re-
lated to a non-flying form ; we suppose, therefore,
that each has been evolved separately. The same
conclusion can be come to with regard to the flying
squirrels, real squirrels that is to say, for the marsupials
which we are now considering are sometimes termed
flying squirrels. In Sciuropterus and Anomalurus, of
which the former is often to be seen at the Zoo, we
have parachuted squirrels not nearly akin to each
other, and therefore possibly to be derived from different
forms of merely arboreal squirrels. The carnivorous
polyprotodont marsupials have not as yet produced
any flying forms.

THE TASMANIAN WOLF OR THYLACINE

This wolf-like creature is not a wolf but a repre-
sentative of the polyprotodont section of the marsupials,
called polyprotodont because the lower incisors are
numerous instead of reduced to two as in the vegetable-
feeding diprotodonts. The thylacine and its polypro-
todont allies show another feature, not found in any
other mammals, except the whales, and that is that the
total number of the teeth exceed the normal forty- four.
This is the original number of teeth, as it appears, in
the higher mammals, as testified to by various extinct
forms ; from this perfection of tooth numbers most
living mammals have degenerated. Another feature

146

A MARSUPIAL DOG

about this and of course other marsupials is the exist-
ence of a pouch ; but the thylacine is remarkable in
the fact that the male has very considerable traces of
this pouch, which are not, however, large enough to
render it a functional organ for the protection of the
newly born young. The name thylacine signifies, of
course, pouched dog. The inhabitants of Tasmania
call it also tiger and hyaena, these names being suggested
by the transverse stripes upon the body. It is more
like a dog than anything else ; its head is long with a
long muzzle, and the skull at first sight is so like that
of Canis that it was frequently used as a " catch " in
examinations. The proper marsupial characters are
there, but masked by superficial resemblances. The
thylacine is now limited to Tasmania, and it has been
suggested that the advent of the dingo dog, which
accompanied as is thought the Australians in their
wanderings, is partly responsible for its disappearance
from the mainland of Australia, where it once lived.
Its days will probably not be long in the land where
it now abides ; for it has the pernicious habit of sheep
stealing and the further habit of killing a new sheep
each time that it feels in want of a snack. So the
Tasmanian farmers, probably influenced more by
economic than zoological considerations, will see to it
that the thylacine does not multiply excessively. It
has, however, this advantage in battling for life with
the colonists, that it apparently can produce four young
at a birth. We have spoken of the superficial likeness
which the thylacine bears to a dog. This likeness is
more apparent in stuffed animals than in the live
Tasmanian wolf. The spry alertness of the dog is re-
placed in life by a gloomy, distrustful, and unintellectual
appearance, which is most unsuggestive of any dog.
The thylacine has a curious habit which has been lately
adverted upon. When standing at ease it plants down

THE LOWEST MAMMALS

its tail firmly so that it forms a support for the body.
This is quite analogous to the support given to the
kangaroo by its tail.

It has been remarked that the thylacine shows a pre-
ference for mutton over any other article of diet. Be-
fore Van Diemen's land was discovered there were
plenty of thylacines but no mutton. In those days it
had to content itself with marsupials only ; an observer,
however, has stated that nowadays its palate has been
so vitiated by civilization that it will not satisfy a
healthy appetite by devouring the wombat, which often
occurs in plenty near to its haunts. But on the other
hand a spiny ant-eater (Echidna) was once dug out of
the stomach of a thylacine, showing that when pressed
for food it is not particular. The first specimens ever
acquired by the Zoological Society came over in the
year 1850. They were shipped in company with
twelve fat sheep to serve them on the voyage. The
next thylacines were procured in 1863, and then until
1883 there were no specimens of this animal procured for
the Zoo. Since that date, however, there have been
several ; and it is possible always at any given time
to find in the Gardens this the largest of existing poly-
pro todont marsupials. It is more likely, however,
that several of its allies, such as the dasyure and the
American opossums will be on view.

ORDER MONOTREMATA, THE ECHIDNA AND THE
ORNYTHORYNCHUS

In the general sketch of mammalian organization
we have dealt with this group, which occupy most cer-
tainly the lowest position among the mammalia and
still retain more than one early and non-mammalian
character in their anatomy.

148

ANT-EATING ANIMALS

THE AUSTRALIA ANT-EATER

This animal is undoubtedly Australian and is also
an eater of ants, and yet the name seems ill chosen, for
it suggests a comparison with the ant-eaters of America
and of the Old World. Echidna has nothing whatever
to do with those Edentates since it belongs to a quite
different order whose general characters have been
sketched out. Of Echidna aculeata there is as a rule,
or at least often, a specimen to be seen at the Zoo. Its
general characters mark it out as distinct from any other
mammal, from which indeed it can readily be differen-
tiated without having recourse to its skeleton. The
long and toothless snout recalls the Myrmecophaga and
the Old World Manis ; and a long and viscid tongue
protrudes itself in the same way from these toothless
jaws. But the body is covered with a dense covering
of sharp spines, mingled with hairs, in a fashion more
like that of the hedgehog than of any other mammal.
The ways of the Echidna, when in search of termites,
are much those of its ant-eating representatives in other
countries. Its stout claws are able to make a breach
in the walls of the fortress manned by the ants, and
into this breach it thrusts its long tongue and waits
until the exploratory and indignant ants have limed
themselves thereon. In default of ants the Echidna
will put up with worms, and larvae, which it extracts
by means of the same long and thin tongue, which can
be inserted into crevices and can draw therefrom the
lurking insect. Nature has tempered the wind to this
exceedingly unshorn lamb by endowing it with a
nocturnal way of life, and with a liking for concealment
in thick scrub. But even this does not entirely free it
from persecution. For in spite of its spines the thyla-
cine, as we have already said, has been known to swallow
a spiny ant-eater whole, just as the leopard in India
will grapple with the equally spiny porcupine. The

149

AN EGG-LAYING MAMMAL

Echidna moves with a shuffling gait and walks badly
upon the sides of its feet. This is precisely the way in
which the Myrmecophaga walks, and in both cases the
habit has at least the result of preserving unimpaired
the sharp claws so necessary to dig down the foundations
of ant-hills. Everybody knows nowadays that this
mammal lays eggs. And furthermore as in other egg-
laying vertebrates, the young, when ready for hatching,
has a knob on its snout which enables it to break the
shell and emerge into the world. When it does emerge
it is still taken care of by the mother, who keeps it in her
pouch for certain time, and afterwards allows its out
for a run and at stated intervals picks it up again and
puts it in the pouch to be fed. When the mother in-
tends to rove far she thinks of her infant and places
it securely in a burrow dug for the purpose. It is a
very interesting fact that an abundance of termites
in various parts of the world has resulted in the modi-
cation of such diverse types of animals for their en-
joyment. The Echidna was made for the termites, not
the termites for the Echidna.

150

BIRDS AND FEATHERS

CHAPTER VI

Birds

THE most uninitiated can recognize without the
faintest difficulty the characters that distinguish
birds from other animals. But it must not be assumed
at once that to define them as feathered bipeds is quite
enough. For, to begin with, birds are scaly as well as
feathered, thus showing a glimpse, externally visible, of
their unquestioned relationship to the lower lying
reptiles. The feet are always scaly, in parts at least,
and generally entirely so. Anyhow, no creature that
is not a bird has feathers or even anything at all
approaching to feathers, in nature ; and per contra, no
bird is without feathers. More than this, all birds
possess wings, even the wrongly called Apteryx, which
has tiny wings concealed beneath its feathers. The
term wing here, it will be observed, does not necessarily
mean an organ of flight. Though all birds possess
wings, all birds cannot fly. Besides the Apteryx, the
ostrich tribe generally are purely cursorial, and so are
certain rails and one or two other birds. What is meant
by wing in this sense is a fore limb, actually and accur-
ately comparable to the arm of man or the forelegs of
a cat, in which the number of fingers is reduced from
five to three, and the proportions of the remaining
bones is somewhat altered from what is found in reptiles
and mammals. This being the case, all birds are bipedal,
which is another distinguishing character, though it is

T5I

THE " FOUR-FOOTED " BIRD

very faintly discounted by the fact of the " quadru-
pedal " movements of the young of the Hoatzin and a
few others. No birds have teeth ; that is, no living
birds, for a few now extinct forms had these structures.
Every bird has a horny beak, which in some sense stands
in lieu of teeth. It is noticeable that birds have an
erect and alert attitude, which contrasts with that of
the gloomy reptile. The eyes are clear and open, not
closed, except, indeed, during actual sleep, in a
drowsy fashion. Hearing as well as sight is well
developed, and, indeed, the only sense in which birds
are as a rule rather deficient is that of smell ; but some
experiments have gone far toward showing that after
all, birds can detect varying odours rather more accu-
rately than has been supposed. In external form birds
are most obviously built upon one common plan. This
is recognized in popular parlance by the fact that a
given bird is apt to be spoken of merely as a bird, while
a mammal is more usually classified roughly ; it is
spoken of as a cat, or an elephant, etc. The flight of
birds, as well as their lightness of movement when
hopping upon the ground or among trees, is a character-
istic of the group, and is associated with air spaces
which ramify among the organs of the body and in the
substance of the bones. These air spaces are outgrowths
of the lungs ; and while they assist in producing a light
frame suitable for flying, must also, one would imagine,
improve the respiration of the creatures by bringing air
into contact with the entire system. No living reptile
or mammal has anything approaching to this aeration
of the body. It is possible, however, that certain
extinct reptiles, particularly the flying Pterodactyles,
had something of the kind ; so too had, in the opinion of
most, the hopping and often gigantic Dinosaurs of the
past. Associated with, and perhaps due to, this is the
hotbloodedness of birds. Their temperature is higher

152

ANKLE AND FOOT

than that of mammals, and the older authors saw in
this physiological likeness a reason for associating
together birds and mammals. Every fact of structure,
however, contradicts such an association, which is now-
adays held by no one acquainted with the facts. But,
on the other hand, the nearness of the sprightly, intelli-
gent bird to the sullen and unintelligent lizard has been
perhaps a little overrated. The group of birds, in fact,
is a group which is 'quite equivalent to that of reptiles on
the one hand and to mammals on the other ; but the
two first are rather nearer to each other than either are
to birds. In fact, the common starting point of both
birds and reptiles was, as far as we can see, something
in the nature of a very simply organized reptile. To
return, however, to our living birds, with which alone
we are concerned here. It will be noticed, particularly
well in the case of a long-legged bird such as a crane or
stork, that when a bird is standing upright it stands
upon its toes only. Above the toes, which are either
three or four in number, with a few exceptions, such as
the ostrich, is a long bone which is not, as might be
supposed, the equivalent of our shin bone. This long
bone is in reality the ankle bones, plus what are techni-
cally termed the metatarsals, i.e. those bones which in
ourselves lie between the ankle bones proper and the
phalanges or bones of the toes themselves. In the human
foot the phalanges are the separated toes, while the
metatarsals occupy the greater part of the foot. Birds,
therefore, have this region of the foot enormously
elongated. But the feature is not absolutely distinctive
of them, since even in mammals which walk upon their
toes, like the horse, the metatarsals are also long. There
are other instances of the same elongation of the middle
part of the foot.

All birds, so far as is known, lay eggs, from which are
hatched in due course young birds that resemble their

153

EGGS AND NESTLINGS

parents much more closely than do the newly hatched
young of the majority of the Amphibia. No bird is
ovoviviparous, as are some reptiles. Moreover, as a
very general rule the eggs of birds are not merely dropped
promiscuously, but laid, sometimes even in a regular
position, in definite nests ; these nests are often com-
plex structures of some architectual pretensions. The
eggs are for the most part coloured, while the eggs of
reptiles are never coloured, but always white. A good
many birds also lay white eggs. While a reptile emerges
from the egg in the likeness of its parents, the young
bird does show some differences from its parents, though
these are never of a kind such as to justify the use of the
term larva for a newly hatched bird. The only sugges-
tion of a larval form among birds is perhaps the Hoatzin,
where the mobile fingers with well developed claws at
the ends are organs modified for the purposes of the
nestling, and thus just come under the category of
what is meant by a larva. All these facts, except per-
haps the last, are familiar enough to every one ; but it
is just as well to emphasize them in order to point out
the distinctions between birds and other vertebrated
animals. Newly hatched birds differ in different cases.
In some species they are completely nude and devoid of
feathers. In others they are covered with down, which
is shed by being thrust up upon the tips of the subse-
quently produced nestling plumage, which itself gives
way later to the final and annually deciduous plumage.
The twittering and " cheeping " of the young is
succeeded in many birds by a most elaborate voice,
produced by the movement of a vibrating membrane
at the junction of the two bronchi, into which the at
first single air tube (trachea), leading to the lungs,
divides. More is said of the bird's voice later. In the
meantime, it is as well to note that the possession of
a voice of the kind which reaches its maximum for

154

BIRD GROUPS

beauty and variety in the nightingale, is a character of
birds which is not found in any reptile or indeed in any
other vertebrate, in spite of Mr. Ruskin's singing ser-
pents ! There are more kinds of birds in the world
than of any other group of vertebrated animals, very
many more. They are the insects among vertebrates
by reason of these numbers, and of their gaudy hues,
also unequalled in generality of occurrence and in
variety among other vertebrates.

In spite of their general uniformity, the " aery cara-
van " can be divided up into a number of distinct groups,
which, however, have by no means the value of the
major, or even of the minor, subdivisions of the mammalia
or of the reptiles. The range of structural variation
among birds is possibly about equal to that of the
lizards among reptiles, or of the frogs and toads among
Amphibians. We may acknowledge the following
groups, to which we shall not apply the term orders, as
that would suggest an equivalence with the orders in
the mammalia : (i) Passer es, all the small perching
birds, such as crows, thrushes, wagtails, birds of para-
dise, swallows, etc., etc. ; (2) Pici, that is, woodpeckers,
barbets, and toucans ; (3) Alcedines, including king-
fishers only ; (4) Colii, an assemblage of very limited
extent, confined to the African mouse birds or colies ;

(5) Trogones, the American and Afro-Asiatic trogons ;

(6) Coracia, i.e. rollers, bee-eaters, motmots, todies,
puff birds ; (7) hornbills and hoopoes constitute the
group Bucerotes ; (8) Macrochires, humming-birds and
swifts ; (9) Caprimulgi, goat suckers ; (10) Striges, or
owls ; (n) Psittaci, or parrots ; (12) Cuculi, cuckoos ;
(13) Musophagi, touracous ; (14) Opisthocomi, the
Hoatzin only ; (15) Galli, the gallinaceous birds, phea-
sants, curassows, turkeys, megapodes, guinea fowls,
quails, etc. ; (16) Columbce, pigeons ; (17) Pterocletes,
sand grouse ; (18) Turnices> the quail-like birds Turnix

155

PASSERINE BIRDS

and Pedionomus ; (19) Ralli, rails and coots ; (20)
Otides, bustards ; (21) Limicolce, snipes, plovers, curlews,
etc. ; (22) Alcce, auks, guillemots ; (23) Grues, cranes,
the New Caledonian kagu, the American cariama, the
trumpeters and the sun bird Eurypyga ; (24) Colymbi,
divers and grebes ; (25) Sphenisci, penguins ; (26)
Steganopodes, pelicans, cormorants, etc. ; (27) Hero-
diones, herons and storks ; (28) Tubinares, albatross and
petrels ; (29) Palamedece, screamers ; (30) Anseres,
ducks, geese, and swans ; (31) Accipitres, eagles, vul-
tures, hawks ; (32) Tinami, tinamous ; (33) Struthiones,
ostrich tribe. In the following pages will be found
accounts of birds belonging to the majority of these
groups.

THE COW-PEN BIRD

The enormous preponderance of Passerine birds over
all others is shown by the fact that in the list of animals
published by the Zoological Society, no less than 516
species out of a total of 1,676 are members of the
Passerine group, which are, or have been, on view in
the Society's menagerie. This being the case, we cannot
hope to give an adequate idea of their endless variety
of colour and, though to a much less extent, of form,
but must content ourselves with saying something
about one or two types only. Passerine birds do not
run large. The biggest is the raven ; but they are
some of them excessively small, though the humming
birds seem to include the smallest members of the bird
creation, and the humming birds are not Passerine, but
members of a distinct group. In the Passerines the
organ of voice, or the syrinx, to use Prof. Huxley's
term, reaches its highest complications in the way of
structure and consequent efficiency as an organ of sound-
production. A larger number of muscles, each moving
the sound-producing membrane and the cartilages to

156

DOMESTIC ECONOMY

which it is attached in a slightly different fashion, and
thus ensuring variability of sound, exists in the Passerines
than in any other birds. The birds that come nearest
to them are the parrots, with whose powers of varied
utterance every one is familiar. It is curious that per-
fection of voice organ does not go hand in hand with
variability of voice. The hoarse crow and the melodious
nightingale have a practically identical syrinx. But
then, after all, the voice of the prima donna is more
flexible and varied than that of the itinerant vendor of
cat's meat, though both have a voice-producing organ
of identical structure. Externally the Passerinea are to
be detected by the four toes, of which the hind toe is
very prominent and turned backwards, and by the
fewness of the scales upon the legs. With this much by
way of a preface we shall consider a typical Passerine
bird, the cow bird, or more correctly the cow-pen bird,
so called on account of its fondness for visiting cow- pens.
This bird, known to science as Molothrus (or, more
correctly, as it appears, Molobrus, the former name
having been originally a misprint) bonariensis, is black
in hue throughout, and is naturally also called the
blackbird. It is of about the same size as the blackbird
of this country, and is like it, a typical Passerine, with
the same voice organ and structure in general. It is,
indeed, the habits and not the structure of this bird
which are so interesting and unexpected. Every one
knows of the parasitic way of life of the immoral cuckoo,
who entrusts to strangers the rearing of its young, and
who, besides thus evading the duties as well as the
pleasure of maternity and paternity, is, when young
and in the foreign nest, a bloodthirsty tyrant to its
fellow nestlings ; these, the rightful owners of the nest,
it turns out and leaves to die upon the hard ground
beneath. This very same habit is inherent in the
Molothrus bonariensis, and in some of the other species

157

INSTINCTS OF MOLOTHRUS

of the genus. Moreover, just as a criminal will practise
upon his own class, just as there is no honour among
thieves, but thief will rob thief, so one species of Molo-
thrus, viz., M. rufo-axillaris, will lay its eggs in the
nest of M. badius, a form which is not itself parasitic.
Nature has aided and abetted this iniquitous mode of
life in many and varied ways. These have been care-
fully studied upon the spot by Mr. W. H. Hudson, from
whose account of the same in the Proceedings of the
Zoological Society we shall quote. The cow bird appears
to have adopted the habits of the cuckoo at a later
period in the history of its race than that bird, for it
often makes rather serious mistakes. For example,
Molothrus has been known to drop its eggs on the
ground, omitting to remove them carefully and subse-
quently in its bill to some adjacent nest, as does the
cuckoo. Its instincts are as yet so primitive and
uncultured that the bird will lay its eggs in an old
and deserted nest, or fail to hit the right time for egg
laying, when its young, being born too late, perish of
neglect at the hands of their foster parents. This latter
error, however, appears to be remedied by the fact
that the young are hatched especially early, and are
also peculiarly strong. Molothrus, when it does success-
fully lay its eggs in a stranger's nest, is apt to make
assurance doubly sure by pecking at and destroying
the legitimate eggy occupants of the nest ; in doing
this, it will occasionally peck at its own eggs, or rather
those of another Molothrus who has been beforehand
with it. This danger to future generations of Molothri
is to some extent evaded by the very hard nature of the
shell, which resists pecking more efficiently than do the
eggs of the unconsulted hosts. The cuckoo's eggs, as a
matter of quite common knowledge, are varied in hue,
so as to give them a better chance of escaping unnoticed
in the nests of their unwilling hosts. Precisely the

158

ESTHETIC BIRDS

same variation in colour characterizes the eggs of
Molothrus bonariensis, which range from pure white
through a spotty condition to eggs of a fine red through-
out. Another fact which seems to show the compara-
tive recentness of the parasitic habit is that Molothrus
occasionally builds nests for itself, and inspects and
shows a general interest in the nests of other birds,
sometimes even altering their structure and adding a
finish.

BOWER BIRDS

The last compartment of the Western Aviary has for a
long series of years always contained examples of the
bower bird (Ptilonorhynchus violaceus), and, as a rule, at
least some attempt is made every year by these birds
to construct the " bowers " which are known, by name
at least, to most persons. This and the other kinds of
bower birds are Passerine birds with no special features
of structural interest except the difference, so marked,
in the coloration of the two sexes. In the present
species the male is a glossy violet shot black, while the
female is a speckly greenish. It is the minds, however,
rather than the bodies of these birds which are of such
great interest, and so hard to understand. It is in-
variably the case that when there is a considerable
difference of appearance between the two sexes, when
sexual dimorphism, as it is called, occurs, that the male
bird is the more brilliant in its hues of the two, and that
its brilliancy of hue is emphasized by various antics
which are performed in the breeding season ; this
behaviour is, it is thought, for the delectation of the
hen, and as an attempt to gain her favours at the ex-
expense of a less ably performing and duller-hued rival.
As a matter of fact, such performances are not exclu-
sively indulged in at the breeding season by all these
diversely coloured birds. With the bower bird this

159

COLOURS OF WOODPECKERS

behaviour is complicated by a course of action which
was first made known by that well equipped ornitho-
logist, the late Mr. Gould, who went to Australia in 1837
for the joint purpose of collection and observation.
The male builds with some little, but not much, assist-
ance from the female, whose main role is to look on and
admire, "a kind of archway or bower made upon a plat-
form of twigs by other twigs, interlaced where they
meet at the top. Round and in this are scattered
attractive objects, coloured, or startling by their white-
ness. Bleached bones and gaily coloured shells and
pebbles combine to form an aesthetic playing ground.
Round and through this the male rushes in amorous
play, delighting the female by his beauty and activity.
It is thought that the love of the little jackdaw for the
cardinal's ruby ring is a germ of the same, and in the
bower bird more fully developed, habit. The nest, it
should be remarked, has nothing to do with the bower ;
it is constructed for business purposes only, and is plain
and unadorned.

THE GREEN WOODPECKER

Woodpeckers are numerous, wherever there are trees,
in nearly all parts of the world ; but they do not occur
in Australia, or in that peculiarly peopled island,
Madagascar. Woodpeckers are apt to be gay in colour,
and of all colours. Green, red, yellow, pure white, and
more dingy hues ornament the birds. Our own green
woodpecker (Gecinus viridis) is a good type of the race
to consider more closely ; and, indeed, one woodpecker
is as good as another, or nearly so, to illustrate the
peculiarities of this rather sharply marked off group of
birds. A thick strong bill and (save in one or two kinds)
four toes, of which two are turned forwards and two
backwards, thus affording a strong grip upon the bark

1 60

HABITS OF WOODPECKER

of a tree, characterize these birds. The green wood-
pecker, which the Nature writer genially calls " Yaffle,"
is a denizen of most parts of England, and is one of our
handsomest birds, green, with a yellow patch upon the
back and red streaks on the head. It frequents trees,
as do other woodpeckers, and extracts from crevices
by means of an extraordinarily elongated tongue (another
character of the family Picidse, but not of the rest of
the group Pici) insects, upon which it feeds. The " tap,
tap " of the woodpecker— which, as a matter of fact,
seems to be usually the nuthatch, not the woodpecker
— is, in spite of Henry Kirke White, not applied to
" the hollow beech tree." It has been justly pointed
out that this is the one tree not at all suitable to wood-
peckers, for the bark clings tight and does not furnish
crevices wherein may lurk insects. The variant " hollow
elm tree " of the undertaker in David Cop per field is
better. The bill as an instrument serves the wood-
pecker for another purpose besides dislodging insects.
With this heavy combined hammer and chisel the bird
excavates a hole for its nest. In the hole are laid the
white eggs which characterize this, as they do so many
birds which deposit their eggs in concealed situations.
The woodpecker exhibits the truth of the oft-quoted
half line, " Sic vos non vobis," for, after the woodpecker
has arduously excavated a suitable cavern, a pair of
starlings at once take possession of it tor their nursery.
The somewhat mocking cry of the green woodpecker
has been rendered " glu-glu-glu-gluk." It seems that
there are about 350 known species of woodpeckers in
the world, but only three of these live regularly in this
country, though the number may of course be in-
creased by casual visitors. Anatomically the wood-
peckers seem to come nearest to the toucans and
barbets. But they are a very clearly marked family,
notwithstanding.

Z.G. l6l M

THE HORNBILL
THE RHINOCEROS BIRD

In the East, where alone they live, the hornbills are
often called toucans, which is an unnecessary con-

w

HORNBILL.

fusion between two perfectly distinct kinds of birds.
The exclusively American toucans have, it is true,

162

TOUCANS AND HORNBILLS

prominent bills like the hornbills of India and Africa ;
but their feet have the toes in twos, one pair behind and
one in front ; they are like the cuckoos and some other
arboreal birds, " zygodactyle." The hornbills have a
foot which is efficient for grasping purposes, but three
toes closely applied look forwards and only one back-
ward. Still, the two families of birds are not very
remote, and the one takes the place of the other in
forests of the tropics of New and Old Worlds. You can
tell a hornbill, as its very name denotes, by its huge
bill. This would seem to necessitate an unusually
strong head to sustain it. As a matter of fact, additional
resistant power is arrived at in these birds by a complete
fusion between the two first vertebrae of the neck,
which are in nearly all other birds separate and move-
able, the one upon the other. Besides, the conviction
of impossible top-heaviness forced upon the uninformed
mind by the look of a hornbill is dissipated when the
dried skull of one of these birds is inspected. It is then
seen to be formed of the most delicate bony substance,
arranged in a loose network of bony thread. To watch
a hornbill hop lightly from bough to bough finally sets
the mind at rest, and shows that Nature here, as else-
where, has known what she was about in framing the
hornbill. The bizarre suggestion of the bill, with its
superincumbent casque (not present, however, in all
hornbills), is not borne out by an acquaintance with
the way of life of the bird. It lives largely upon fruits,
which a long bill enables it to wrench off from their
native branches, the leverage being thereby increased.
Large though these birds are, they are exceedingly
light, and for reasons revealed to the anatomist. When
a hornbill is dissected, it is only necessary to remove
the skin from the leg, when all the muscles, nerves, and
vessels stand out as if separated by painstaking use of
the scalpel. The reason for this is that the flesh is dry,

TREE HORNBILLS AND GROUND HORNBILLS

like that of a hare or an antelope, and air spaces traverse
the body throughout. The bodies of all birds are
aerated by expansions of the lung ; but the hornbills
are particularly so, and the absence of fat conduces to
this spareness of appearance. Their flight appears
heavy in spite of this, and they make a great deal of
noise, especially at getting off, which has been compared
by Dr. Russell Wallace to the puffing of a steam
engine. It is not all hornbills that lead an arboreal
life. In Africa are at least two different species of
ground hornbills, which are rightly placed in a distinct
genus and termed Bucorax and Bucorvus. Their beak
is not quite so huge as in the more exaggerated form in
which it is found in Buceros and its allied tree dwellers.
But it is still of respectable dimensions. Bucorvus
sidles and prances with some stateliness, and, instead
of living upon fruits, catches reptiles. It is not unraven-
like in aspect, and is distinctly intelligent, to judge
from the numerous specimens which have been on view
at the Zoo in late years. The gait of this bird has pro-
duced some alteration in the structure of the foot. It
is still of the pattern of its tree- frequenting relatives ;
but the inner toe of the three forwardly- directed ones
has a much more massive formation than that of
Buceros, and is of greater length. It is noteworthy that
the same effect has been produced here as in man com-
pared with the arboreal apes. Our great toe is the
strongest of the toes, and bears most of the weight of
the foot. So in the Bucorvus it is the physiological
equivalent of the great toe 'which .is correspondingly
increased, for the real big toe is turned back. Now in
ungulate animals which are also digitigrade, pressure
upon the foot is associated with the disappearance of
the outer toes and the predominance of the middle toe
or toes. It is in some of its breeding habits that the
hornbill is so remarkable and different from other birds.

164

THE HOME OF THE HORNBILL

Buceros and its allies lay white eggs and deposit them in
a hole in a tree. It has been pointed out that birds
that lay white eggs generally deposit them in a situation
remote from the light. But this is by no means univer-
sally true. Some exceptions referred to in the present
book are certain cuckoos and the podargus ; there are
others. Still, the hornbills conform to this partial
generalization. When the time has arrived for egg-
laying and incubation,. the male bird carefully plasters
up his wife within her dwelling and takes upon himself
the care of feeding her. He remarks, in effect, that she
must attend to her family and not gad about ; but at
the same time does not spare himself, for males in the
breeding season are frequently in a miserable physical
condition. They are merely, as it has been expressed,
a bag of rattling bones. On the other hand, the newly
hatched young are little lumps of fat and jelly, feather-
less, and impotent to help themselves. This careful
guarding of the family may be a defence against the
prowling and marauding cat, as well as other carnivores
and snakes. It is certain that the visitor will find
several hornbills at the Zoo. There are in Nature more
than sixty species at present known.

THE " MORE-PORK," CUVIER'S PODARGUS

Aristophanes made birds talk, and so too did Chaucer.
This practice is continued by those who in modern times
have invented pseudo-vernacular names for birds based
upon their supposed utterances. Some of the remarks
thus put into the mouths of the feathered creation have
a point, others have not. As an instance of the latter is
a weird-looking bird of which there have been several
examples at the Zoo, the last but one of which was
harboured in the insect house. This bird, Podargus
cuvieri, is one of the churn owls or goatsuckers, and is a

165

GOATSUCKERS

native of Australia. The goatsuckers, or Caprimulgidae,
show characters which are magnified in the Podargus.

THE " MORE-PORK.

1 66

CAPRIMULGIM; AND OWLS

They have enormous mouths, which are carried agape
in their flight and catch innumerable insects. The bill
is small, since it is not needed as an assistance to feeding
or fighting, the two principal occupations of the " lower "
animals. The plumage of Podargus is, as is that of other
goatsuckers, a soft mixture of browns and greys, a
" crepuscular " hue, in fact, which assorts well with a
nocturnal life. The " More-Pork " looks something
like a caricature of a bird by Lear. Its head is enor-
mous, and its body shrunken. A pair of large yellow
eyes complete a picture which is ludicrous. One speci-
men at the Zoo was fed with new-born mice, which were
gulped with ease down its huge throat. In Australia
it feeds on insects. The proper name of this bird
appears to be Podargus strigoides, and the name is
suggestive of the resemblances of the bird. Since the
owls have been by almost universal consent divorced
from the hawks, their likeness to the goatsucker tribe
has been all the more commented upon. They have the
same retiring shades of browns in their plumage, they
fly softly like aerial Agags or moths, and they are noc-
turnal. All this, of course, is hardly enough to prove
a close alliance. But the facts may be slight indications
which will be confirmed by later studies of the birds.
It is curious, too, and not unsuggestive, that in New
Zealand the name " More-Pork " is applied to an owl.
Our bird is naturally considered to be a bird of ill-omen
on account of its really ghastly looks, and its habit of
sitting upon tombstones confirms the popular view.
Its near ally, the oil-bird, or guacharo, of South America,
shares its ill-omened reputation, which is enhanced by
a living in caves. The Podargus is remarkable among
goatsuckers for building a nest on branches. The others
lay eggs °n the ground. The tribe generally does not
lend itself to confinement, and it is unlikely that the
visitor will meet with more than one example of the

167

THE WHITE OWL

Caprimulgidae in the large collection of birds at the
Zoo ; and that will doubtless be a Podargus.

THE SNOWY OWL

It is true that visitors to the Zoological Gardens are
not so much in search of British animals as of unfamiliar
exotics ; but the snowy owl (Nyctea nived) may be fairly
taken as an example of the owl tribe, though it does
occasionally creep, intrude, or climb into the fold of
British birds. It cannot, however, be really considered
to be a British bird in the full sense of the adjective,
inasmuch as it is at most a rare straggler. As its
plumage really tells us, the snowy owl is a fowl of cir-
cumpolar range, though some ornithologists have
differentiated an American from an European form.
These birds prefer the desolate and snowy tracts of the
extreme north, and " there," as Isaiah said, " shall the
great owl make her nest, and lay, and hatch, and gather
under her shadow." The late Dr. Stanley, in his
well-known book upon birds, even went so far as to say
that the snowy owl, when surprised in more temperate
latitudes, as it has been on more than one occasion,
hopped from snowy patch to snowy patch, and avoided
the snowless intervals, where it would be more con-
spicuous. The bird is, in fact, one of those polar crea-
tures, like the white bear, which appear to be coloured
in relation to their normal surroundings, and in which
this white colour is borne winter and summer alike.
Nyctea, however, is not wholly white, but spotted with
black. This owl is typically owl-like in its form ; in-
deed, the group of Strigidae is one which is sharply
marked off from other birds ; there is never any doubt
whatever about a given bird as to whether it is or is not
an owl. It is also one of the largest of owls, and dispels
in its own person a common belief about owls, i.e. that
they are not only nocturnal, but cannot bear to look upon

1 68

To face p. 168]

SNOWY OWL

NAMES OF OWLS

the sun. The snowy owl, which lives, during summer
at least, in a country of perpetual daylight, would fare
but badly were it to be nocturnal or even crepuscular.
The popular belief in the night-loving habits of owls is,
of course, accurate in so far that the majority of owls
do, as a matter of fact, hunt at night. But that is quite
a different thing from saying that no owl can suffer the
day. The names Heliodilus, " sun-fearer," and Photo-
dilus, " light fearer," serve only to perpetuate this
inaccuracy. These names are those of two Madagascar
genera of owls. The snowy owl does not share in a
curious defect of organization which mars many owls.
The earholes, particularly large, do not show either
superficially or in the underlying skull an asymmetry
which is a common feature of strigine architecture.
Like others of its kind, Nyctea nivea (or scandiaca ; it
has several names, like most birds that have been long
known) is rapacious in mode of life, a characteristic
which involves adequate beak and claw, and has been
largely responsible for placing the owls with the hawks,
eagles, and vultures, and separating them only from
those birds as nocturnal Rapaces. On the other hand,
the noiseless flight, the dull greys and browns of colour
have led some to associate these birds with the tribe of
goatsuckers ; a likeness of plumage and flight which may
be, after all, not so delusive as a test of affinity as some
such resemblances are apt to be. All that one can say
at present with even moderate certainty is that the
Striges are not hawks ; they are not by any means to
be placed in the same division with the Accipitres.
What they are exactly is left to future enquirers ; at
present the anatomical knowledge, and also the absence
of intermediate types which show a leaning, forbids
any dogmatism. The snowy owl pursues birds, and has,
as have most carnivorous creatures, a distinct partiality
tor the wounded and therefore defenceless birds. It is

169

PARROTS OF NEW ZEALAND

said also to fish. Though the snowy owl is no longer
to be reckoned an inhabitant of Great Britain, its
absence from this country of late years is probably to
be looked upon as due to amelioration of climate. For
the discovery of bones, or, to be accurate, a single bone,
in the celebrated cavern, Kent's Hole, near Torquay,
shows unmistakably that the snowy owl in former and
colder periods was a genuine dweller in the south of
England. In relation to the colour of this owl and its
habitat, it is interesting to note that the Virginian
eagle owl (Bubo virginianus], a bird also to be found in
the Gardens), is whiter as it approaches nearer to the
north.

THE KEA PARROT.

New Zealand has only a few kinds of parrots to boast
of, unlike the neighbouring Australia. There are not
more than half a dozen species or so, but two at least
of these are of extreme interest ; these two are the owl
parrot or kakapo (Strigops habroptilus], a flightless form
with the face of an owl, as its name denotes, and of
peculiar structure, and the kea and its ally, the kaka, of
which we shall speak here. This bird, which is known
by the scientific name of Nestor notabilis, is of a dull
olive-green hue for the most part, the feathers being
tipped with black. The rump and the inside of the wing
are red. It has a long bill and is a good-sized parrot
altogether. It used to be classed with the Australian
and Eastern lories ; but Dr. Garrod, at one time Prosec-
tor of the Zoological Society, proved that it is not akin
to those brush- tongued parrots, although the tongue is
slightly frayed out at the end. He thought it to be a
near ally of the typical parrots represented in almost
every house in this country by the familiar and African
grey parrot. Others have thought that it should be
raised to the dignity of a special family among the

170

HABITS OF THE KEA

parrots, and in that position we shall leave it without
further comment. The general aspect of the bird will
leave no doubt upon the mind of the visitor that he is
looking at a parrot ; but it will probably not occur to
him that this bird is a murderous fowl, which has as it
were deliberately trodden the Accipitrine path and
deserted the innocent and frugivorous ways of most of
the parrot tribe. Inasmuch as there are, or were, some
ornithologists who regarded the parrots in general as
modified hawks, this revived taste for flesh seems to
have a meaning ; but, on the whole, it is to be pointed
out that the parrot tribe, whatever their real affinities
are, are not to be placed anywhere near to the eagles,
vultures, and hawks, in spite of their hooked beak and
cere at the nostril. Probably they are to be looked
upon as nearer to the plantain-eaters of Africa and to
various allies of those. In days gone by the kea was a
vegetarian, or at most an insect-eating bird. But
with the colonization of New Zealand came in due course
mutton, and the kea adopted the habit of loafing round
sheep-killing establishments and nibbling at garbage.
From this comparatively harmless taste the kea found
it but a short step to murder, and nowadays a herd of
keas will surround and kill a live sheep, particularly
perhaps a weakly one. So successful did these raids
become that the government was invoked to protect
the farmer and the slaughterer. It seems to have taken
some time for the kea to develop fully this noxious and
carnivorous habit. For the facts of its depredations
were only published for the first time in a scientific
journal so lately as 1871 ; and the advent of specimens
at the Zoo have never failed to elicit from the daily
press further comments on what is indeed a genuinely
remarkable fact. It is frequently remarked in such
communications that the goal of the kea's bill is the
kidney fat. It is true that the lumbar region is the one

171

STRUCTURE OF THE VOICE ORGAN

generally attacked, and a well-known surgeon exhibited
some years since a preparation of a sheep so treated, in
which the bird had performed the operation of " colo-
tomy," or cutting into the large intestine. But it is
now certain that the kea actually prefers lean to fat,
like our old friend Jack Sprat, but, unlike that gentle-
man, will eat both substances. One might think
possibly that this change of feeding habits — which may
ultimately be responsible for a change in at least the
digestive organs of subsequent keas, and be thus a most
excellent example of the influence of man upon faunas —
having been acquired would be fixed, and that animal
food would now be a necessity. This, however, is not
so. Specimens at the Zoo have been fed on ordinary
parrot food, and have thriven thereon and showed
no symptoms of pining for unnatural mutton chops.
Nevertheless, mutton chops have often been freely sup-
plied to these birds when in the parrot house. The cap-
acity for an entire change of diet gives the philosopher
room " furiously to think,'' for it seems likely that many
kinds of beasts in the past have disappeared from the
face of nature through inability to adopt such liberal
opinions, and it is a fact that omnivorous creatures,
who need therefore place but little dependence upon the
vagaries of Nature, are often of primitive and long
existent kinds. This parrot, like others, has a voice.
Sir Walter Buller asserts that it mews like a cat, and
that it also utters a " whistle, a chuckle, and a sup-
pressed scream," a round of noises which is unsurpassed
in the bird tribe. This flexibility of voice (and it may
be added that the kea can be instructed in the art of the
usual parrot unpolite conversation) depends partly in
these birds upon the complicated structure of the voice
organ. That organ has several muscles pulling different
ways, and thus allowing of much change in the shape of
the air column, which causes the vocal chords to vibrate

172

KEA AND KARA

and thus sound. It lives a good deal on the ground, as
might be supposed from its propensities to convert
sheep into mutton. And when on the ground it hops in
a corvine fashion instead of adopting the more usual
psittacine waddle. Nestor meridionalis is the only
other living species, and its Maori vernacular name is

KEA PARROT.

Kaka. This Nestor does not appear to have as yet taken
to a diet of mutton ; it feeds upon insects, and is more
arboreal than its ally. Both species may be seen at the
Zoo from time to time. Both also nest in crevices of
rocks, and of course, as all parrots do, lay white eggs.
The laying of white eggs is correlated with a concealed
nest, but the correlation does not amount at all to any-
thing like cause and effect. For eggs placed in exposed

173

SOME CUCKOOS

nests are sometimes white, and coloured eggs are often
secretly hidden from prying pard and other egg eaters.
The New Zealand archipelago once nourished two other
species of Nestor, both of which are now quite extinct,
so far as we know, though the recent occurrence of the
supposed extinct rail, Notornis mantelli, makes us careful
in making too clear a statement on the point. It seems
unlikely, however, that we shall ever see again either
Nestor productus or Nestor norfolcensis.

THE KOEL

As a representative, and that a very typical one, of
the .cuckoo tribe we shall select the Oriental koel (Eudy-
namis orientalis, or honorata as the name apparently
more correctly runs). This bird, like other cuckoos,
has what is called a zygodactyle foot ; that is, the toes
are arranged in twos, one pair being turned forwards
and the other backwards. The " great " toe and the
fourth toe are those which are turned backwards, and the
result of this is an effective grasping organ, from which
alone it might be safely inferred that the cuckoos are
arboreal birds. And yet this generalization is marred
by the fact that there are cuckoos which pass at least
a great deal of their time upon the ground, such as the
American Roadrunner (Geo coccyx}. That originally
cuckoos were typical " insessores " seems however to
be clear. The koel is at least often to be seen at the
Gardens, and it is one of the few cuckoos in which the
two sexes vary greatly in colour. In fact the variation
in plumage from the cock to the hen is as great as in
any bird. The cock bird is black and the hen brown,
with white spots and bars. In our common cuckoo,
Cuculus canorus, a careful examination shows slight,
but very slight, differences of colour in the two sexes.
It has a good strong curved beak and yet, unlike our
cuckoo, who seems to take a delight in the most bristly

174

VIEWS CONCERNING CUCKOOS

and " warningly coloured " of caterpillars, the koel
is a pure vegetarian. This bird in its several species
is widely ranging in the East, but belongs entirely to
the eastern hemisphere. Its name is plainly onomato-
poeic. Its voice is melodious, and we are informed that
it is used by the youthful oriental as a comparison
standard of the voice of his beloved as is its plumage
of her beauty. But on the other hand it is black of
heart like other cuckoos, and leaves to others the care
of bringing up its offspring. This cuckoo lays its eggs
for choice in the nests of the Indian crow (Corvus
splendens), and it is remarkable that the wiliest among
Indian birds does not frustrate its unbidden guest.
Its eggs, too, are like those of the crow in colour, though
smaller ; it is said that the newly hatched cuckoo ejects
its foster brethren in the good old fashion of the British
cuckoo. It diverges from its ally in this country in
the fact that it is not migratory, and is entirely stay-at-
home. Some would write the name cuckoo " cuckow,"
a reversion to an older, but not in our opinion " more
scholarly," method of orthography. For as the word
is, like the word " koel, " distinctly formed in imitation
of the note of the bird itself, other old transliterations
might be invoked. Thus we might insist upon calling
the bird " Gukgo," and indeed that word is a trifle more
suggestive of the bird when he " alters his tune " in
June. There are at least two remarkable facts about
the cuckoo tribe, with the outlines of which every one
is acquainted, and about which it is necessary to say
something. The parasitical habits have been known
from the remotest antiquity. The knowledge of the
same has gradually accumulated, but there are still
problems that require solution. It is always mentioned
as a curiosity of the history of Natural History, that
the habits of the cuckoo were largely elucidated by the
discoverer of vaccination, Jenner. What the cuckoo

175

PARASITISM OF CUCKOOS

actually does is broadly this. The eggs are produced
rather continuously, so that the bird could not very
well place them all in one nest and then proceed to the
duties of incubation. The process would be too long
for the life of the parent. Thus it has had recourse
to its well-known habit. In accordance with the varied
hospitality upon which the cuckoo insists, the eggs vary
greatly in colour ; but whether there is always a cor-
respondence between the nest selected and the colour
of the eggs laid therein is not so certain. It has been
suggested that individual cuckoos acquire the habit of
laying their eggs in the nests of a given species, or even
for a series of seasons in the nests of the same individual.
That therefore the eggs, by a process of elimination,
get to be like those of the adopted foster parent, and
that the variety of egg coloration in the cuckoo is a
matter of individual cuckoos, and not individual eggs
of the same cuckoo. It is furthermore plain that the
young cuckoo is stronger and more muscular than its
fellow nestlings and that it actually does forcibly eject
them. But this predatory instinct on behalf of its
young is not universal in the cuckoo tribe. All the
immediate allies of the Cuculus canorus'oi our islands
are parasitic. But Eudynamis is the one exception
apparently among the group of cuckoos to which it
belongs that shows this characteristically cuculine habit.
This shows of course that the habit is but a recent one,
a point of view that is supported by the rare occurrence
(one case at any rate has been authenticated), of
common cuckoos building a nest of their own, and
attending to their own offspring The lark-footed
cuckoo (Centropus), usually to be seen in the Zoo, is not
parasitic. Now it is interesting that this cuckoo, like
some others which are equally independent of the
assistance of other birds, lays a white egg. The para-
sitic species have apparently all of them spotted and

MIMICRY OF CUCKOOS

blotched eggs, so that they are more or less like the
average bird's egg.

Another matter of interest concerning cuckoos is the
frequently close likeness which many of them bear to
other birds of quite different groups. This " mimicry "
is to be seen in our own cuckoo, whose likeness to a hawk
was commented upon by Aristotle. That small birds
share in the deception seems to be shown by the fact
that they will " mob " a cuckoo, apparently under the
impression that they are annoying their hereditary
enemy. The Indian " brain fever bird " (Hierococcyx),
is still more like a hawk, and it has deceived into a state
of excitement small birds at the Zoo. The advantage
of such a likeness may be held to be proved in these
cases where a superficial resemblance may protect a
feeble bird from assaults on the part of ravening, but
timid and suspicious, fowls. There are, however, other
cases somewhat different in their nature. A large
Sumatran ground cuckoo (Carpococcyx radiatus) lately
exhibited in the Insect House at the Zoo, had the swag-
gering strut of that " miles gloriosus " among birds,
the " game bird." It may be that here the aspect of the
cuckoo suggested to the hawk that under the swaggering
gait lay an armature of spurs. The cuckoo to which
we have already referred, viz. Centropus, includes a
species which is named " phasianus," a name which
suggests precisely the same kind of similarity.

TOURACOU

The touracous with their brilliant colours, often red
and green, are common occupants of the cages at the Zoo.

These beautiful birds are African, and only African,
in range. They are eminently tree- frequenting birds,
and the outer toe is reversible in order that it can enable
the bird to grapple with different needs as it moves
from branch to branch. It is generally held that the

Z.G. 177 N

COLOURS OF TOURACOU

touracous come nearest to the cuckoos in systematic
position. But it is clear that, after all, they are a
somewhat isolated race. The principal fact of interest
about them is the red colouring matter of the wing
feathers. In considering the peacock, it is pointed out
that colours in birds' feathers may or may not depend
upon the presence in the feather of a pigment of that
particular hue. In the peacock the bright metallic
tints are the product of the feather structure and of a
blackish pigment below. In the touracou, on the con-
trary, the red feathers contain a red pigment, which
can be dissolved out, and which shows in solution the
same fine colour that it shows when embedded in the
substance of the feathers. Some characteristics of this
pigment have given rise to what must be regarded as
rather a legendary history. It has been noticed that
in wet weather these birds confine themselves to the
densest shades of their native thickets, a proceeding
on their part which is not at all unusual for a bird. But
a special reason for this was alleged in the case of the
touracou. The red pigment was held to be dissolved
out by the warm tropical rain, leaving the feather
blanched. It was furthermore added, with perhaps an
eye to paradox and effect, that when the bird was shot
and happened to fall into water, it dyed the stream
red, not with its own blood, but with the dissolved
crimson pigment. The actual facts upon which these
statements have been based is that the colour can be
removed from the feathers by steeping them in alkalis.
And furthermore that ordinary tap water, which is as a
rule slightly alkaline, will be tinged to a perceptible
extent after a feather has been steeped in it, particularly
if the water be warm. It is, however, doubtful whether
a touracou is bleached by exposure to a tropical or
any downpour. The name turacin has been applied
to this pigment, and it is characterized, a somewhat

CRANES AND STORKS

rare occurrence among animal pigments, by having a
spectrum with absorption bands. It furthermore con-
tains copper. It is a highly interesting fact in view of
the supposed relationships of the Musophagidce, as the
family is termed, to the cuckoos, that the same pigment
has been found in a cuckoo.

THE GOLDEN CROWNED CRANE

This bird, the handsomest though not the largest of
the cranes, sensu stricto, is one of those birds which may
certainly be found in one of the outside paddocks of
the Zoo. In fact, cranes generally are a strong feature
in the Gardens, and nearly all the known species have
been exhibited. A great many may usually be seen
at any given time, and thus the visitor can note the
points in which this crane differs from its allies. It has,
as in cranes generally, a sharp and longish beak, though
not so long as in the typical cranes of the genus Grus ;
its legs again are long, but not so long as in the typical
cranes. It has, however, what no other crane has, a
tuft of golden coloured feathers, consisting merely of
the stems of the feathers without their lateral branches,
the barbs, upon the crown of the head, whence of course
its popular name. The cranes, as a race, could only be
confounded with the storks, to which their long and
pointed bills ally them. But this apparent likeness,
as well as the fact that both groups of birds have long
legs, is not a sufficient reason for placing them near
together in the face of certain profound differences.
Even by external characters it is easy to draw a line
between the storks and cranes. The latter have a
small hind toe, and the nostrils are far forward on the
beak ; in storks the hind toe is large and the nostril
is at the base of the beak. Internally there are im-
portant differences, especially in the skull. In the
stork tribe the bony palate is continuous across the

179

TACITUS AND THE PHCENIX

mouth, while in the cranes a soft interval is left in the
middle line. Cranes, moreover, do not as a rule perch
high up in trees or upon buildings ; while both herons
and storks do. Our particular crane is a native of
Africa only, in which continent it is represented to-day
by two species, to which the scientific names of Balearica
chrysopelargus and B. pavonina are applied. Balearica
suggests another habitat ; but apparently the occurrence
of either species of crane away from Africa is extremely
rare. It has, however, been alleged to have been,
in the eighteenth century, an inhabitant of the Bale-
aric islands. This evidence however, when duly sifted,
appears to amount to a statement by a Spanish gentle-
man who died in 1784, that he had heard it said that a
specimen was found in those islands in the year 1780.
Its rarity in Europe and Northern Africa and its occa-
sional wanderings into these countries, coupled with
its beautiful crown of gold, may perhaps be at the
bottom of the phoenix stories. Tacitus tells how in
the consulship of Fabius and Vitellius, " Post longum
saeculorum ambitum avis phoenix in ^Egyptum venit."
Now so rare is the crowned crane in Egypt that the late
Mr. Blyth could find no record of its occurrence in
that country. Thus a rarely appearing bird, unfamiliar
therefore, and with a flame-like and radiating crown of
feathers, would strike an imaginative people as some-
thing odd ; and out of these actual facts one hardly
knows what superstructure may have been built.
There is a pretty tall one if the phoenix has anything
to do with this bird. Barring the eagle's beak, the crowned
crane would serve as an excellent replica of the phoenix
in the so-called Life Assurance Corporation's advertise-
ment. We are, however, concerned here with a living
and very real, and not with a fabulous, bird. In the
skull of the crowned crane is a curious feature which is
not a little deceptive. Underneath the crest the fore-

180

CAPE CROWNED CRANE.

181

HORNS IN BIRDS

head shows a pair of elevations of the bone which suggest
exactly the bony horn basis in certain mammals. It
seems to us very probable that if nothing were known
concerning this crane save its skull-cap, it would have
gone down to posterity as a horned bird. And very
likely the tiny horn on the head of the horned screamer
(Palamedea cormita), a close ally of the screamer Chauna,
as we note on another page, would have been quoted as
the last vestige in a living bird of a former horned race.
But the crane is not horned, only crested. The deep
note of cranes, of intense loudness, is familiar to all
visitors to the Zoo, and is especially to be heard at evening.
It is aided by the long windpipe, which is coiled like a
trumpet and adds of course by this increase of length
to the volume of the sound produced. This special
arrangement is not found in our crowned cranes, who
are thus less specialized and more primitive representa-
tives of the crane tribe than the remaining forms.

THE SCREAMER

South America is the home of many waning races
of birds and beasts ; in its dense forests there lurk repre-
sentatives of whole groups, which once flourished abun-
dantly upon the the land, but are now reduced to scarce
waifs and strays, the flotsam and jetsam of a previous
order of things. There is one living " diprotodont "
marsupial, the sole remnant of the otherwise extinct
family Epanorthidce ; the rail-like Heliornis or Podoa
forms, with two allies in Africa and the East, the sole
remains of a group of birds possibly antecedent to the
widely spread rails and water hens of the rest of the
world ; the mysterious Guacharo or oil-bird is of a type
peculiar to itself at present, and the " Four-footed "
bird of the northern parts of the South American con-
tinent (Opisthocomus cristatus) has not a single close ally
living anywhere else. Among this wreckage are to be

182

AERATION OF CHAUNA

placed the birds known as Screamers or Kamichis,
known to us by three species, usually referred to two
distinct genera, viz. Chauna and Palamedea. The
Derbian or the crested screamer (Chauna derbiana and
C. cristata) is a bird which looks like nothing else in the
bird way. It has the head of a fowl attached to the body
of a good-sized goose, the whole surmounted upon
longish legs with straddling toes. The long legs suggest
wading, and the large " feet " with divaricated toes safe
progression upon treacherous and marshy soil. The
bird is in fact at least partly aquatic ; and the likeness
to a goose is not wholly a matter of outward appear-
ance. But it cannot be definitely placed in that large
order, which includes the geese, swans and ducks ;
rather is it to be looked upon as the vestige of a group
which perhaps produced, as a mere side issue, the anati-
form birds. The main stem with its archaic characters
has come down to us in these three desolate birds which
form the subject of the present article.

The chaunas have a puffed out and even gouty appear-
ance about the legs. Coupled with a slowish gait this
suggests overfeeding, a complaint which is not un-
known at the Zoo through the unnecessary kindness of
visitors. It is, however, merely a conspicuous expres-
sion of a state of affairs which characterizes birds in
general and not the screamers only. These birds,
like others, are literally " puffed out with wind and the
rank mist they draw " in order to lighten their some-
times cumbrous bodies. The lungs of birds are not
simply bags more or less subdivided into multitudin-
ous chambers as in ourselves and other animals ; but
they communicate with a complex system of ramifying
air cavities spread through the body and permeating
even their very bones. There is hardly a portion of the
bird's body which is free from air- containing spaces, a
state of affairs which obviously aids it in spurning the

183

MR. HUDSON'S OBSERVATIONS

dull earth. But curiously enough, in view of the fact
that in nature the coat seems to be invariably cut accord-
ing to the cloth, the amount of aeration is not precisely
correspondent with the capacity for flight. So thoroughly
is the body of the screamer lightened in this way that
when the skin is pressed it absolutely crackles with
exploding bubbles. The chauna, however, though
largely a ground bird, can fly and soar to a great height.
Mr. W. H. Hudson described it as circling upwards like
the lark and uttering continuously its melodious sounds
from the topmost air. The visitor will perhaps hardly
agree with the author of that delightful and instructive
work, The Naturalist in la Plata in considering the
screams of the chauna as tuneful ; but Mr. Hudson asserts
that in captivity the original melody is lost ; and in any
case a distance and rarefied air may produce a softening
of the ear-piercing-shrieks of the captive bird more
reminiscent of the lark than one is disposed to admit
after a visit to the Zoo. For when a pair of these birds,
aided by the friendly rivalry of the cariama, the other
screamer, really lay themselves out for a prolonged
conversation, the noise is almost insupportable. Far
out in the wilds of Regent's Park this awful din can
be heard, farther away than any of the multitudinous
sounds inherent in the menagerie. The Palamedea
differs in a number of points from Chauna. The most
striking unlikeness is in its possession of a single and
small horn upon the forehead. It cannot be very ser-
viceable either for defensive or offensive purposes, on
account of its weakness and flexibility. Besides, if
Palamedea, or for that matter Chauna too, feel any
desire for aggression, and they often do, each wing has
a hard and exceedingly serviceable horny outgrowth
with which a formidable wound can be inflicted. These
latter spurs are found in some other birds, for instance
in the appropriately named " Spur- winged Goose."

ANCESTRY OF SCREAMERS

The horn on the head must therefore be either a sexual
adornment or a relic from the past. In the latter
case it may perhaps be looked upon as an inheritance
from those long since defunct and bird-like reptiles,
the Dinosaurs ; and like an armorial bearing of a military
kind, be rather a mark of aristocracy than an indication
of a pugnacious and offensive character. We have

SCREAMER.

intimated that the screamers are of ancient lineage.
That conclusion is accepted on account of the fact that
they cannot be definitely referred to any existing group
of birds, coupled with certain traces of reptilian con-
ditions in their organization. The most noteworthy of
these is the character of the ribs, which have not, as
have all other existing birds without exception, certain

STRUCTURE OF CHAUNA

little hook-like processes upon them, which serve for the
firm anchoring of certain muscles. These " uncinate "
processes, as anatomists term them, are also wanting
in that undoubtedly archaic and " mediaeval " bird,
Archceopteryx. Another ancient character has been
shown by the secretary of the Zoological Society, Dr.
Mitchell, who has justly likened the coils of the intestine
to those of a crocodile. It is an odd thing, as showing
how those who interpret extinct animals may fall into
unwitting error, to note that the median horn of
Palamedea leaves no traces of its presence upon the
skull ; whereas the skull of an entirely hornless bird,
the Cape crowned crane (Balearica), which we have
described on another page, has a bony excrescence or
rather a pair of them on the skull ; this would lead the
naturalist, were he only acquainted with the skull,
to gratuitously present to the Cape crowned crane a
pair of rather large horns, and to descant with ap-
parently well justified inference upon a descendant of
horned Dinosaurs. As we see, the precise reverse of
the indications offered by the skull exist. The Pala-
medea is horned, while Balearica is not.

These clamorous inhabitants of the Zoo are, as a rule,
to be found in the well filled Eastern Aviary. But
in the summer months they are sometimes moved for a
change farther west into open paddocks suitable in size
for walking exercise. In such a situation and in the
year 1904 the Chauna bred and reared three young.
This event happened for the first time in the history of
the Society, though many pairs have been exhibited.

THE CONDOR

The condor, together with the king vulture, the
" turkey buzzard," and the Calif ornian vulture, form
an assemblage of birds which are collectively known
by the general term of " the American vultures,"

186

MIMOGYPES

which only explains that they are inhabitants of America
and that they are vultures. A deft name introduced
by the late Mr. Seebohm, viz. Mimogypes, emphasizes
the now widely received view, that these birds are not
near allies of the vultures proper, i.e. those of the
Old World, but that they are vulturine in habit though
belonging to quite a different group of birds. No one
looking at the great condor of the Andes would come
to any other conclusion than that it is a vulture ; and
yet even externally, it may be distinguished from its
carrion-loving allies of Europe, Asia, and Africa. The
feet in the first place are decidedly feebler than those of
vultures, strictly speaking. The bill is less developed,
and it would be noticed after a short time that the condor
has no scream, or indeed voice of any kind, to raise the
echoes such as is possessed by the birds of prey of this
side of the Atlantic Ocean. It can, in fact, only hiss.
The reason for this is quite the same kind of reason as
that which forbids to the true storks the capacity for
uttering their sentiments. The bird has not a " syrinx, "
as the avian voice organ is termed. The windpipe or
trachea passes without change of character into the
two tubes, the bronchi, which supply with air the two
lungs. No modification of the cartilaginous rings at the
bifurcation, no muscles for altering the approximation
of these rings, are there to aid in the production of a
definite voice, even if only one capable of expressing
itself in a scream, which is the hawk-like mode of ex-
pression. The condor, too, and its immediate allies,
do not possess what so many birds do possess, i.e. two
blind tubes, the caeca, arising from the intestine. In
the hawks, eagles and vultures of the Old World these
caeca are always present, though very tiny ; in Sar-
corhamphus even the very vestiges have gone. There
is no trace of the blind appendages. Other anatomical
features which differentiate these birds need not be gone

187

WEIGHT OF CONDOR

into ; but they exist, and are of importance. Anatomy
forbids us to place the American vultures quite close
to the accipitrine scavengers of the Old World.

The condor with its black plumage, except on the
wings where it is grey, and the tips of the big wing
feathers which are white, the white ruff like a lady's
feather boa round its neck, its naked throat and the
wattle which rises on the head of the cock bird, is one
of the largest of flying fowls : it has an expanse of wing
which is hardly surpassed in the " aery caravan." A
specimen in the Zoo had a stretch of wing of 7 feet
6 inches, and the bird is said to reach so great a span
as 9 feet. But even then it is equalled by the Marabou
stork, which expands its wings to precisely the same
length, at any rate so far as concerned a large individual
at the Zoo. The condor, which measured seven feet and
a half, had a body weight of 131 lb. 9 oz. But a rela-
tionship between weight and expanse of wing is not
by any means always accurate in the bird tribe. A
lammergeier, for example, of 10 lb. in weight had a
wing expanse of 8 feet 8 inches. Nevertheless, there
is no doubt about the fact that the condor is a powerful
flyer, and its soaring capacity is a matter of universal
knowledge. It is precisely " every schoolboy " who
does know this fact, for the condor figures largely in
tales of adventure. That it will attack persons, or at
least threaten to do so, seems to be a fact. When thus
attacking it has the cunning to take advantage of sun-
light, and only to attack in brilliant weather, when it can
swoop down with its back to the sun, whose rays dazzle
the swooped-upon one. It delights in the fastnesses
of the Andes of Peru, and prefers to live at an altitude
of from 9 to 16,000 feet. The " scenting " of prey by
this and other vultures is a matter of common notoriety ;
but the causes of such keenness are not thoroughly
agreed upon. It seems to be useless to attribute the

1 88

SENSE OF SMELL

instinct of the bird for offal to the sense of scent. The
brain of the bird shows that it can have but little power
of smell. For the olfactory lobes, those regions of the

CONDOR.

brain which are largely developed in keen-scented
creatures, are exceedingly inconspicuous. The real
explanation appears to be vision. A condor hard by
the corpse detects it with ease while circling in the air

189

AN ABERRANT HAWK

above. A condor a trifle farther off observes the interest
shown by its companion, and so on to the uttermost
verges of Peru. The condor is sure to be on view at the
Zoo, it is so very excellent a bird for menagerie pur-
poses— a statement which would appear to be unlikely
if there were no facts to support it. But they live long,
and in the year 1889 died an old bird which was purchased
so long ago as 1856. The very first specimen ever
acquired was bought in 1853. Besides the common
condor known as Sarcorhamphus gryphus, is another
form, the " condor pardo," which is through life of
a brown colour, a hue which belongs to the young of
the common species.

THE SECRETARY BIRD

This handsome long-legged hawk is practically always
on view at the Zoo. Its grey body with black wings,
its stilt-like legs, and the tuft of feathers on the head
which have suggested the name, mark it out as an
abnormal form of the Falconid tribe. Its deeper lying
structures show it to be not very far removed from the
eagle tribe, but still to form a very distinct group of its
own, which is thought by some to be nearer to the root
of the rapacious birds than any existing form. The
bird is purely African, and ranges from north to south.
On the west it has been given a different name. Its
range in that continent is not at all unlike that of the
crowned crane. The name of secretary bird is thought
by some to have been derived from the tuft of feathers
on the head, which suggest a bunch of pens carried by
a clerk. Others again have held they are like arrows,
and that the name is a corruption of Sagittarius. Ser-
pentarim reptilivorm is its scientific appellation. The
bird is one to be fostered, and it is indeed on the
protected list ; for it attacks and gets the better of the
numerous venomous serpents of Africa. Its mode of

190

STORIES OF LE VAILLANT

fighting is to use one wing as a defence, and to buffet
with the other, until the puff adder or cobra is wearied
of the strife, when it is swallowed. Sometimes, though
rarely, the serpent is the victor, and it is said that if the
snake bites a feather the secretary bird will immediately
pull it out. Considering the points of likeness which the
secretary bird does bear to the crane tribe, from which,
according to the opinion of at least two bird anatomists,
it is perhaps to be derived, it is significant that its voice
" precisely resembles the call of the Stanley crane."
Its feet and beak, however, proclaim it a hawk. So
too, its eggs, which are white blotched with red ; but
then eggs are not so decisive as marks of affinity,
and crane's eggs are after all not so very dissimilar.
The energy of the secretary bird in pursuing reptiles
is attested to by the traveller le Vaillant, who withdrew
from the stomach of one of these birds twenty-one small
tortoises up to two inches in length, eleven lizards of
seven to eight inches, three serpents as long as the arm,
and a multitude of grasshoppers. In confinement it is
apt to take toll of the fowl run ; but in a state of nature
it does not seem to care for birds. The bird builds a
huge nest which is used year after year, and is even added
to. Therein are deposited two eggs. The secretary
bird establishes spheres of influence, like the robin over
here. It is apt, like mankind, to be much occupied
with boundary questions, and will not tolerate aggression.

THE OSPREY

The osprey treated of here has of course nothing what-
ever to do with the plumes of feathers known to the
" trade " by that name. The latter are the spray-like
crests of the white egret, one of the herons. The osprey
of this book is a hawk which gets its livelihood in a way
which is rare among rapacious birds, that is by fishing.
Its name is believed to be a corruption of Ossifraga, i.e.

191

DESMOGNATHOUS PALATES

bone-breaker, a name which is now applied to certain
petrels. The origin of the name from its destructive
qualities is quite analogous, as has been pointed out,
to the connexion between the words hawk and havoc,
and between raven and ravine. The osprey is a fish-
eater, but it catches its fish as a hawk does, and not as a
kingfisher does, for example ; it strikes the fish in fact
with its talons as if it were a partridge. The older
type of ornithological handbook used invariably to be-
gin with the Accipitres, as if taking to heart Chaucer's
recommendation —

The fowles of ravine
Were highest set and than the fowles smale,

and continued with the Passerine birds. There is no
reason for placing the osprey and its kindred either at
the head or at the base of the avian series, as might be
implied by such a placing. But what their precise
place in the system should be is a matter for inquiry
rather than for ex cathedra statement. That they are
rather perfected birds in their way is shown by the com-
plete closure of the roof of the mouth. All birds seem
to start life with the maxillopalatine bones, as they are
termed, in non-juxtaposition, which leaves a gap in the
bony mouth of the roof. This condition is persisted in
in the Limicoline and many other birds ; but in a great
variety, which are not necessarily nearly akin thereby,
the bones have grown inwards, and met to form what
Prof. Huxley called a desmognathous palate. And the
hawks, as well as such obviously dissimilar birds as
the hornbills and the toucans, are of this number. The
hawk tribe, which embraces a vast number of forms,
such as the vultures of the Old World, the eagles, the
falcons an hawks, the kites, and the caracaras of
America, has not merely this character ; but they all
agree in the powerful talons, with strong legs to match
the strong and hooked bill, the cruel flat head upon which

192

FISHING HAWK

Michelet descants in L'Oiseau, the fact that the gape of
the mouth reaches, but does not pass, the eye, and the
slight webbing between the outer front toes. The osprey
has not the latter character, which, as well as a few
others, produces a certain likeness to the owl tribe,
which are known to be not nearly related to the hawk
tribe. On account of these few facts, Pandion haliaetus,
the osprey, has been given a separate place in the
Accipitrine phalanx, which however it hardly deserves.
A glance at the living bird, which is frequently to be
found at the Zoo, will show this. It is unmistakably
and thoroughly a hawk. The long-legged caracaras,
and still more perhaps the less known Polyboroides of
Africa, have a. suggestion of the secretary bird, which is
unquestionably an " aberrant " hawk. They may remind
the visitor, too, of quite a distinct form, the cariama,
which ornithologists now hold to be not far off from
the cranes, by their habit of throwing back the neck
when uttering their prolonged cry. But the remaining
assemblage can only with difficulty be split up into
" families," and even the carrion-loving ways of the
vulture are successfully imitated by that "noble" bird
the golden eagle, who will stoop readily from sailing
with supreme dominion through the azure deep of air
to settle upon a festering sheep's carcass. The osprey
seems to be free from this ghoulish taste. This fish
hawk, as it is often called, is world wide in range ; it
extends much farther than from China to Peru, viz.
from Japan to Brazil, and from Alaska to New Zealand.
It catches fish in the sea or in lakes ; with us it is a
rarity, though it has been ascertained to breed here,
or rather in Scotland. And very rightly, as evidence of
the proper importance to be attached to the matter, the
Zoological Society awarded some years back a medal
to certain gentlemen who had been instrumental in
cherishing the nests and home of the osprey..
Z.G. 193 o

FEMALE SEX PREDOMINANT

CHAPTER VII

The Painted Snipe

THIS gaily coloured Indian and African bird will
serve as an instance of a not very common phe-
nomenon among birds, that is the predominance of
the female over the male sex. As a rule it is the male
who is gorgeous or gaudy ; he is the ornamental part
of the household, and ruffles it abroad with his fellows,
while the dowdily plumed hen stays at home and attends
to her domestic cares. The painted snipe, however,
belongs to a matriarchal species, where it is the female
who is predominant in size and colouring, the cock bird,
it is said, attending to the duties of incubation. A
curious structural character emphasizes this reversed
relation of the sexes. In many birds belonging to quite
different groups the windpipe, instead of passing straight
down to its entrance into the lungs, deviates into the
substance of the breastbone, or under the skin, and
there becomes variously coiled, the anatomical fact
being followed by a more strident voice. Where the
sexes differ in this it is the rule for the female to have a
straight trachea without convolutions. Now in Rhyn-
chcea capensis, as the painted snipe is known to ornith-
ologists, it is the female who has a slightly coiled trachea,
while that of the male is perfectly uncoiled. The term
snipe is a misnomer when applied to this fowl, although
it undoubtedly does belong to that great group of wading

194

MR. FINN ON RHYNCILEA

birds, the Limicolae, which embraces the true snipes.
The Indian sportsman knows that it neither behaves nor
tastes like a snipe. The anatomist tells precisely the
same tale. It is perhaps rather to the jaganas, those
extraordinary long-toed birds, which walk upon the
leaves of aquatic plants both in the Old World and
the New, that the Rhynchcea approaches most nearly
in structure. It has too, according to Mr. F. Finn, a
skulking and furtive gait like that of a rail. The first,
and so far the only, specimens brought to the Zoo were
sent over by the same gentleman in 1902. The bird is
unmistakably of the Limicoline order. It has the long
bill of the majority of that tribe. Its colours are striking
and yet are held to be " protective " ; the back is olive
green with yellow stripes. The behaviour of this bird
has been carefully studied by Mr. Finn. During
courtship they spread their wings and crouch down,
something after the fashion of the ruff ; they utter co-
inciden tally a sound " like that produced by plunging
a hot iron into water." The same attitudes and actions
are, however, produced by dismay, and are thought to
be alarming to enemies. At any rate, Mr. Finn saw a
golden plover which seemed to be frightened by this
display.

THE GLAUCOUS GULL

In many respects this is one of the finest of the gull
tribe. It is at least one of the largest. As a rule a
specimen may be seen in the enclosure devoted to the
gulls at the Zoo. The glaucous gull is not strictly a
British species ; it is like many forms which inhabit
the northern regions, circumpolar in habitat. Its
occasional inclusion in the fauna of this country is due
to infrequent visitations to these islands. The only
equal of the glaucous gull in size is the great black-
backed gull (Larus marinus), which is also a bird to be

195

GULLS AND SKUAS

frequently seen at the Zoo. The glaucous gull has a
paler plumage. The gulls are a group of birds found
more or less everywhere, and are of a fairly uniform
coloration. The prevalent hues are grey, black and
white, mingled in a way that everybody must have
noted ; a good many varieties of gull, comprising the
more common forms, are always on view in their own
special pond, and also in other enclosures at the Zoo.
An exceptionally coloured gull is the beautiful ivory
gull (Pagophila eburnea), which is brilliant white with
black legs. It is an occasional visitant to our shores,
and, though not willingly, to our Zoo. The greys and
whites of the gulls is believed to assist in rendering the
bird obscure on account of a harmony with frothing
waves, over the tops of which the gull skims, or on the
tops of which it rides. This may be so ; but the young
gull has a different plumage, which lasts for a long time,
and is of a speckled brown. What is sauce for the goose
ought to be sauce for the gosling ; if the old bird needs
this protection of invisibility, it might be thought that
the young needed it more, or at least as much. But
the colour of the young gull is not without significance
if we bear in mind those close allies of the gulls,the skuas.
Of these birds also examples are fairly certain to be
visible in one or other of the enclosures devoted to birds.
The prevailing hue of the skuas is brown. It is from
these birds rather than from the gulls perhaps that the
slang term "gull" is derived. For the skuas, though
powerful enough and agile enough to do their fishing
and food collecting generally for themselves, prefer to
worry and harass some other fishing bird, until they
make it drop its recently captured prey in sheer ner-
vousness or fright. The older ornithologists, unduly
impressed by webbed feet, put the gull near to the ducks
and other aquatic birds. They have, however, nothing
in common structurally except these webbed toes.

196

THE BLACK SWAN

Curious though it may appear, when mere outward
look is considered, the gulls come nearest to the Limi-
colae than to all other existing groups of birds. The
Limicolae is that extensive assemblage of birds which
includes the snipes, plovers, and their manifold kindred.
One rather singular type of Limicoline (not infrequently
to be seen at the Zoo) is an antarctic bird of white
plumage, known as Chionis, or in English as sheath-bill.
It is an almost ideally intermediate form. It has the
aspect and marine habits of a gull ; but in some other par-
ticulars agrees more closely with the land representa-
tives of this group Limicolae. Another bird, British
this time, offers a second bridge to connect the gulls
with the plovers and the rest. The phalaropes are apt
to be quite gull-coloured in their winter plumage ; a
delicate grey upon the back being contrasted with a
white under-surface. But the phalaropes have not
properly webbed feet like the gulls. The feet are in fact
lobate, with expansions of skin at intervals as in the
coot. The noises of gulls are varied and cheerful. The
" countless laughter of the sea " is due to the hilarious
jocularity of many gulls ; one species has been named
Larus cachinnaus, the laughing gull.

THE BLACK SWAN

It seems to be almost impossible to mention the black
swan without quoting Virgil's " rara avis in terris," etc.
At any rate, no writer of natural histories has ever avoided
this obvious opportunity. There is, however, a kind of
appropriateness in finding in Australia a negation of this
kind, a sort of topsy-turvydom in colour which hangs
together with mammals that lay eggs, with kingfishers
that do not fish in streams but upon the dry land, and
for reptiles, with weird-looking creatures that are appar-
ently rabbits and wolves, but are really neither. The

197

OTHER SWANS

black swan, in any case, is a precise contrast to swans in
general. All the European forms, and those of North
America, about seven species in all, are white. On the
other hand, Cygnus atratm of Australia is approached,
through longo intervallo, by the black-necked swan of
South America (Cygnus nigricollis), which is white with
the exception of its black neck. The real black swan is
not altogether black. Animals that are either white or
black are seldom perfectly so. Few are so black as
popular works and general opinion paint them, even
inhabitants of more torrid climes than Australia. About
the wings are a few white feathers ; and the rich crimson
skin about the beak and face is well known. It is note-
worthy that this redness of visage accompanies the
darkening of the general hues. The white swans of the
Old World have for the most part yellow patches of naked
skin about the face. With the blackening of the feathers
is a concomitant darkening of this yellow into red. That
there is nothing really remarkable about the black swan
of Australia except its blackness, is shown by the fact
that its cygnets are exactly of the usual ugly duckling
coloration, a dingy grey. This bird is also in every
other respect a true swan. A swan is a little difficult to
define. The swans, ducks, and geese form a highly
natural assemblage of birds which hardly need charac-
terization, so plainly can they be identified as such by
the veriest tyro. Furthermore, every one knows for all
practical purposes which are swans and which are ducks,
though to tell geese, not from swans, indeed, but from
ducks, is not so easy a task. But when we come to
write down in cold and logical black and white the dis-
tinctions between a swan and a duck, there is really
little besides length of neck which can be used. If it
were not so grave an anachronism, one might suppose
that the poetical remembrance of the song of the dying
swan might have come from this Australian bird, which

198

BREEDING OF SWANS

has, as a matter of fact, a finer and more melodious
voice than many of its kindred in Europe.

The voice of the black swan ought to be more often
heard in the land. It has been acclimatized here for

BLACK SWAN.

years. In the very first list of animals recorded by the
Zoological Society as having been acquired, issued in the
year 1831, this bird figures. Since that date it has
always been in stock, and has bred in most years. Sir
Robert Heron pointed out to the Zoological Society in
1833 that individuals kept by him sometimes even bred
twice a year, and that, if only once, January was their
favourite month, which corresponds of course to mid-
summer in Australia. At present the months of breed-
ing at the Zoo are various. The bird is, moreover, not so

199

POSITION OF FLAMINGO

particular as are some birds. A late President of the
Society, the Earl of Derby, recorded that in 1843 a black
swan bred with a common European swan, and produced
parti-coloured offspring. Finally, its advantages as an
addition to our ornamental water-fowl is not lessened by
its comparative longevity. It has been stated to live in
captivity for no less than fifteen years, plus a consider-
able number of months. There is not the least doubt
that the reader of these lines will find himself able to
examine more than one black swan in the Society's
Gardens at any time.

FLAMINGOES

Although no one would be likely to confuse the
flamingo with any other bird, it may be just as well to
set down definitely the various features by which it is to
be separated from birds in general. Its neck is long and
the legs are long. The bill has lamellated edges as in
ducks, but the lower half of the bill is heavier than the
upper part, and the whole bill is bent in the middle at
right angles. The three front toes are webbed ; the big
toe is quite small and useless as a toe. As to whether
the flamingo is a long-legged duck or a duck-billed stork
opinions differ. Professor Huxley called its group by
the non-compromising name of Amphimorpha, implying
a midway position, in which safe mediocrity we shall
leave it. It seems to be clear that when an animal gets
long legs it has also to have a long neck, or else — like the
elephant — a trunk : for otherwise it cannot reach the
ground. This seems almost an unnecessary pair of
changes, the resultant being merely a doubling, as it
were, of the original condition. It is almost like speak-
ing of one half as two-fourths. The length of neck in
birds, it may be remarked, is not, like that of mammals,
accomplished without increase of the neck vertebrae.
The flamingo has more neck vertebrae than a sparrow.

200

PLUMAGE OF FLAMINGO

As might naturally be supposed, these long legs imply a
marsh haunting existence, and the bill is formed for
dabbling in the mud and fishing out nutritious particles.
In captivity the flamingoes are a very argumentative
race, continually " cawing " at each other, and bestow-
ing mild pecks as the argument waxes warm. The
strange form of the bird has given rise to legend : it has
been asserted that the flamingo straddles over its high
nest of mud ; but in reality it sits down to incubate like
any other bird. The flamingo that is met with in
Europe lacks the almost universal red of the American
Phcenicopterus ruber. It is noteworthy that the spoon-
bill of America is also much redder than its European
ally. All these very red birds fade in captivity. Pos-
sibly the diminution of brilliancy is due to the impossi-
bility of providing them with the exact food to which
they are accustomed in nature. This red colour is, of
course, the source of the name of the bird, which, by the
way, it would be far better to call by the English name
of flammant than by the Portuguese name flamingo.

THE SHOE-BILL (Balaniceps rex)
This great bird, found along the Nile, and lately
shown by Sir Harry Johnston to frequent also the
shores of Victoria Nyanza, will very likely be on view
in the Zoo by the time that these notes reach the reader.
It has been once exhibited ; but that was so long ago as
1860, when a pair were brought over by Mr. Consul
Petherick. Their remains now grace the collection of
animals at the Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons.
The shoe-bill is named on account of the shape of its
great beak, and partly in translation of its Arabic name,
which is Abu-Markhub, or father of a slipper. Others
have called it the whale-headed stork ; but " stork " begs
the question of its likenesses and unlikenesses, of which
we shall have something to say here. The bird stands

201

STORKS AND HERONS

five feet high ; it has " a gaunt grey figure," with curly
tufts of feathers on its head ; it is characterized by " the
scowling expression of its eyes," and by the bill to which
we have referred. Captain Flower observed that it was
like a heron in its motionless attitude, its solitariness,
and in that when flying it suggested very much the large
Goliath heron (Ardea goliath}. Balczniceps frequents
morasses, and spears fishes and water serpents. It does
not seem to possess much in the way of a voice, but
snaps its bill as do storks. It nests either on the ground
or on low bushes near its haunts. Sir Harry Johnston,
after allowing one or two specimens to be procured for
the British Museum, at once put the bird on the Pro-
tected List ; so that this extraordinary creature, doubt-
less a relic of the past, has a future before it. When it
was first described so long ago as 1851, by the late John
Gould, the historian of the Birds of Australia, it was
recorded by him as a variety of the pelican type, prob-
ably on account of its bill. But this bill is really very
like that of the South American Cancroma, or boat-bill
(of which specimens are generally to be seen at the Zoo),
a most undoubted heron. There is, in fact, not the
shadow of a doubt that it is either a heron or a stork ;
but the question is, which ? The same uncertainty of
characters attaches to this bird as to Scopus, dealt with
on another page. The late Mr. A. D. Bartlett, that
excellent observer of birds, and superintendent of the
Society's Gardens, discovered a very significant fact
about the Balceniceps, which seemed at the time to
settle its place in the bird world. He found that it does
not possess those tufts of curious feathers which are
bunched in masses, and from which a powder is con-
tinually given off owing to the constant breaking off of
their tips, the " powder down patches " as they are
termed. These modified feathers occur among many
groups of birds, especially the herons, where it has been

202

POWDER DOWN PATCHES

suggested that they are phosphorescent and lure the
little fishes to their destruction at the beak of the heron.

SHOE-BILL.

In the absence of these characteristic powder downs, the
Bal&niceps clearly approaches the storks. In one rather
decisive point, therefore, Balceniceps is not a heron but a

203

THE AFRICAN SCOPUS

stork. In another decisive point it is distinctly a heron.
Its " syrinx," the voice organ situated at the junction of
the two bronchi, to form the trachea or windpipe, is
heron-like in form, but it lacks the pair of muscles which
those birds have. Nevertheless, the muscle is repre-
sented by a vestige, a small ligamentous band, which
seems to show that in this feature, at any rate, the
Balceniceps is a heron on the down grade. Other points
taken collectively seem to argue that this bird is the
type of a quite separate family, showing likenesses to
both storks and herons. And there we must leave it
until more is known about its anatomy.

THE TUFTED UMBRE

The tufted umbre (Scopus umbrella] belongs to that
group of birds which we may accurately term — plagi-
arising from, and misquoting a trifle, Mr. Rudyard
Kipling — " Storkie & Co." It is in fact one of the
Ciconiiformes, as naturalists sometimes term this group.
The group contains not only our umbrette, but also all
the storks and herons and bitterns, and that slightly
aberrant bird, the great " Whale head," or Balczniceps,
of Africa. Scopus is a bird which is usually to be found
at the Zoo, and, when there, in the Eastern Aviary. It
is about the size of a raven and of a brown colour. It
has the long and strong bill of its allies, and a rather
crested head. Like herons in particular, the tufted
umbre has a melancholy demeanour ; it is addicted to
watching patiently with downcast head and eyes for
fishes, appearing as if brooding with sad reflection, as
Michelet has put it, over the past glories of its family.
This gloomy demeanour is at times relaxed, and Scopus
indulges in a wild and fantastic dance with outspread
wings, reminiscent of that of the cranes, who may be
frequently, especially towards evening, observed to
skip in similar dances at the Zoo. The bird is African

204

DOMESTIC ARCHITECTURE OF SCOPUS

and extends to Madagascar. It has the reputation of
being a bird of evil omen. In Africa it is held to be
sacred and to possess the power of witchcraft. There
is indeed something portentous and solemn about the
behaviour of all these herons and bitterns, which easily
accounts for the origin of such legends. Scopus is
mainly crepuscular in habit, and is known to utter a
croaking cry, which is significant, as will be seen pre-
sently, of its place in the ornithological temple. It
feeds upon fish, frogs, lizards, and insects, and appears
to enjoy an aesthetic sense not possessed by its immedi-
ate allies, but paralleled in other groups of birds — ex-
celled, of course, in the well-known bower birds. It
adorns its nest in fact with buttons, fragments of pot-
tery, bits of glass, and any other bright-looking objects
which happen to come in its way. The nest itself is
eminently worthy of note. It is huge in size, and com-
plicated in design. Instead of being content with one
compartment alone, in which all the offices of nest life
are performed, Scopus requires no less than three sepa-
rate chambers, all included in the vast dome situated
upon the fork of a tree which it inhabits. This is an
unheard-of luxury in the bird world, especially as the
umbre does not take in any lodgers, such as cuckoos.
It is only recently that this bird has been acquired by
the Zoological Society. The first specimen was ex-
hibited in 1880. To most persons the outward appear-
ance of Scopus suggests a stork. And it is a fact that in
a large number of points Scopus is decidedly stork-like.
On the whole its skeleton recalls those birds. But in
other features of its anatomy the bird is as distinctly
inclined to the heron build, and, in short, it is a perfect
instance of a bird which is intermediate between two
distinct families ; and this is one, and that not a bad
reason, for putting together the storks and herons, as is
usually, but not always, done by ornithologists. If

205

THE WINDPIPE IN HERONS

they are not put together, where is poor Scopus to go ?
It is neither one nor the other with sufficient definite-
ness to please the exigeant systematist who wants cut-
and-driedness. Mention has been made of the voice of
the umbre. The voice is not melodious ; but the chief
thing is that it is a voice. Now, the true storks are
voiceless, though they make a most efficient din by
clattering their bills. Yet this is no more a voice than
the chattering and gibbering of a ghost. To produce a
voice, a voice organ must exist ; and Scopus has one as
good as that of any screaming or even some singing
birds. Storks, on the other hand, only show in rare
cases, such as the African Abdimia, an approach to a
proper voice organ. As a rule, the windpipe divides
into its two bronchi without modifying itself to form
that assemblage of rods of cartilage movable by a pair
of muscles which constitutes the organ of song or speech
in birds. Then, again, Scopus does not possess that
curious muscle, so useful in perching, because it flexes
certain tendons of the foot, which is nearly universally
found in storks and more universally absent in herons
and bitterns.

SAND GROUSE

There are a good many species of sand grouse ; but
one, viz. Syrrhaptes arenarius, is the most interesting to
us, inasmuch as it is that bird which at times migrates
in countless hordes from its Asiatic home and invades
Europe even to the confines of the'.West. The name
sand grouse is derived in the first place from its pre-
dilection for sandy spots, and in the second from the
fact that it was originally confused with the grouse
mainly on account of the feathered feet. The colour
betrays the desert-loving ways of the bird ; it is dull
yellow, mottled and speckled with darker shades. The
general look of the bird is^dove-like, but the flight has

206

IRRUPTIONS OF SAND GROUSE

been compared rather with that of the plover. The
anatomy of the bird, according to Professor Huxley, is
almost exactly intermediate between that of pigeons
and that of the gallinaceous birds, such as grouse. The
name sand grouse might therefore, according to that
anatomist, profitably be altered to " pigeon grouse," a
name which would stamp upon the memory the charac-
teristics of the bird. This view, however, like most
other views in ornithology, has undergone some altera-
tion ; and Dr. Mitchell, the Secretary of the Zoological
Society, rather considers the sand grouse to be nearer
to the doves, and both of them to be allied to the plovers.
Be this as it may, the main fact about the bird of uni-
versal interest is the migratory instinct already referred
to. The knowledge of this only dates from the year
1848, when a single example was met with in Russia.
" In 1888," remarks Professor Alfred Newton in his
Dictionary of Birds, " occurred an irruption in quite
incalculable numbers." Even Parliament was moved
to pass an Act for the protection of these immigrating
strangers ; but, characteristically, the Act did not come
into force until 1889, when the colonisers had already
dwindled. In this country the birds breed, though not
freely ; and it was found, as had been noted previously,
that the young were hatched from the egg in down
plumage, and were not little naked " pipers " like the
young of the pigeon tribe. These chicks arise from eggs
which are laid in shallow holes in the ground, and are
coloured. In this the sand grouse evidently shows
characters like those of the plover tribe rather than the
pigeons, which lay white eggs in nests made upon trees.

THE PEACOCK

The peacock, the Miles gloriosus, or swaggering soldier
of the ornithological world, belongs to the pheasant
tribe, and, like them, shows a great difference in the

207

THE BIRD OF JUNO

plumage of the two sexes ; the gorgeously clad male
contrasts with the dowdily hued female ; and with this
difference we regret to have to associate polygamy. A
polygamist has to be a good fighter, so accordingly we
find that the peacock, like his immediate relatives the
pheasant and the barn-door fowl, is armed with trench-
ant spurs upon the legs. The peacock being a swag-
gerer, and a handsome swaggerer, has achieved for him-
self a place in the bird world which is rather above his
deserts. The author of The Thistle and the Rose repre-
sents dame Nature as ordering the eagle, crowned by
her king of fowls, to be —

" Als just to awppis and owlis,
As unto Pacokkis, papingais, or crennis."

This association was evidently considered to be due to
the bird imported by Solomon, and the favourite of
Juno. In modern times the peacock has lost in repute ;
he has even been falsely epitheted in order to convey
greater contempt ; " a turned-up nosed peacock " is
the unornithological remark to which we refer. To
Gilbert White the screech of the peacock was " grating
and shocking to the ear." " The yelling of cats," he
adds, " and the braying of an ass are not more disgust-
ful." To our mind the call of the peacock in the dis-
tance is far from unpleasant. Gilbert White made,
apparently for the first time, an interesting observation
upon the structure of this bird. He noted that the
train of the peacock, which stands stiffly radiating out-
wards from the body in periods of excitement, was not
produced by a lengthening of the true tail feathers —
the rectrices, as their technical name runs — but from
the feathers covering these above, the upper tail coverts
in fact. It is inaccurate, therefore, to speak of the pea-
cock's tail, if, that is to say, a comparison is implied
with the tail of say a jackdaw. In long-tailed birds it

208

FEATHERS OF PEACOCK

is as a rule the rectrices that are elongated. The plu-
mage of " the gaudy Indian bird " is clearly its most
striking peculiarity. It serves as an excellent instance
to illustrate the way in which the colours of birds'
feathers are sometimes produced. It will be noticed if
a peacock's feather be held out and gradually moved
round from one hand to the other that the shades change
in hue. It will be furthermore noticed, that if the
feather be rudely bruised the beautiful iridescent tints
are lost. Finally, an examination of one of the green or
blue feathers under the microscope shows merely a
dingy brownish or black coloration. The gorgeous
colouring disappears like that of " the purple jar." The
explanation of these facts is that the metallic colours of
the peacock's feathers are what have been termed
" optical " colours. They are not, that is to say, due
to the presence in the feather of pigments of a green or
blue hue, but upon a pigment of black the various
sculpturing of the outer part of the feather produces the
greens and blues, just as a slice of mother-of-pearl shows
different hues not present in the shell in the shape of
pigment. There are, of course, many colours found
among birds which are due to the existence in the
feathers of corresponding pigments. Thus the red of
the touracou, of which we speak on another page, is a
definite red pigment. Both the common peacock and a
variety or different species as some think it, viz. Pavo
nigripennis, are to be seen at the Zoo. The interest of
the latter bird is largely that it suddenly appeared as a
distinct form, and since then has " bred true." It
seems to be a genuine example of evolution by leaps and
bounds ! The pheasant tribe, to which the peacock, as
already stated, belongs, is an Asiatic race mainly found
in the tropical parts of that continent. The Argus
pheasant, with its enormous train of eyed feathers, is
perhaps the nearest ally of the peacock among the
Z.G, 209 p

NESTING OF TALEGALLA

Phasianidae. But the differences which distinguish all
the pheasants, Callus bankiv.j, the origin of the domestic
fowl, turkeys, partr'dges, and grouse, are but small.

THE MOUND-BUILDER.

With a perversity which characterized some of the
earlier ornithologists, the Australian mound-builder
(Talegalla lathami) was regarded as a vulture ; and it
was not until Sir Richard Owen explained its anatomy
to the Zoological Society in the " forties " that its true
place among the gallinaceous birds was fully established.
And yet no bird bears upon it the outward marks of a
" scratcher " more plainly than does Talegalla. " Brush
Turkey " is so obviously more suitable, as an appellation
than " New Holland vulture," even to the least expert
of bird observers, that one can have no pity for the
stupidity which confused its relations with other mem-
bers of the bird world. Its strutting and scratching
alone betray it. In appearance the brush turkey or
mound builder is not conspicuous, sooty brown being
the main element in its colouring. It is rather from
what it does than what it is that this bird is worthy of
our attention. As a rule, there are examples at the
Zoo : and also as a rule they construct their huge
mounds of dead leaves and rubbish in which to place
their eggs. Unlike the bird tribe generally, this fowl
lays its eggs in common in such a heap, and leaves them
to be hatched by the heat of the sun, aided no doubt
by heat-producing fermentation within the mass. " Sic
vos non vobis nidificatis aves " might well be said of
this bird. For its nest is merely a nursery and no
dwelling-house for the assiduous parents. It is a
nursery, too, more on the lines of a creche ; for many
families live together in one mound and leave their
common home almost as soon as they are hatched ;
for in accordance with the " reptilian " mode of leaving

210

NESTING OF SOLITAIRE

the eggs to hatch themselves, the young birds can fly
when born, instead of emerging either as fluffy balls
without proper feathers, like the common fowl, or naked
and featherless lumps of fat, like the young hornbill.
This extraordinary habit of nest building in common
seems to us to be the extreme of the gregarious nest
building of some other birds, such as the rook. Place
the nests closer together and they fuse into a common
dwelling. An intermediate state of affairs is offered by
the sociable weaver bird, which builds a great " hive "
with separate compartments for each pair of birds. The
megapode is the last stage in the evolution of com-
pound nest building, and the very mass of vegetable
matter got together to form this common nest solves
the problem of common brooding, for it renders it un-
necessary. It is just possible that a stage still further
on, and on the downward path, speaking in an evolu-
tionary sense, is offered by the extinct solitaire of Rodri-
guez. This bird, according to Leguat, who knew it
living three centuries since, erects a heap of palm leaves
a foot and a half high, and sits thereon and upon a
single egg. Perhaps this huge and inadequately con-
structed nest, implying great labour at the most critical
period of the bird's life, has been its ruin, and it has
really died out in consequence of diminished fertility
and want of co-operation. Leguat speaks of the quarrel-
someness of the birds during the incubation period,
which loss of temper may have led to the separation of
the birds at the nesting season, the only relic of a former
co-operation being the unformed heap which does duty
for a nest, and which plainly recalls the mounds of the
mound builders of Australia and the islands of the East.
It has been intimated that the Megapodidae are Galli-
naceous birds. It would seem from certain points in
their structure, particularly from the fact that the hallux
or great toe springs from the foot on a level with the

211

A REPTILIAN BIRD

other toes, instead of higher up, as in the barn-door fowl,
that the nearest allies of the megapodes are the South
American Cracidae, or curassows. Such at least was the
opinion of Professor Huxley, who described, nearly forty
years ago, their osteology.

THE HOATZIN

To include the hoatzin (Opisthocomus cristatus) among
the list of birds to be seen at the Zoo is only, we are con-
vinced, " an intelligent anticipation of events " ; for it
can only be a question of time before the energy of the
authorities will submit to the public one of the most
singular of living birds. It has been the subject of much
scientific research, and of many highly " descriptive "
paragraphs in newspapers. Its claims to notoriety are
based upon the behaviour of the nestlings ; they possess
in an unusual fashion the capacity for scrambling about
aided by the claws at the ends of two of the three fingers
which constitute the wings of this, as of all other recent
birds in which those appendages are not reduced (as in
the kiwi). It has been termed on this account the " four-
footed bird," a title which is clearly fully deserved in one
sense ; for it has, as have all birds, two pairs of limbs ;
but it is not so well earned in another sense, for all birds
when very young are plainly unable to fly, and use to
some extent their wings to aid in a confused movement,
which may be called " scrambling." The hoatzin has,
however, a legitimate interest, since it is one of those
ornithological nuts which are extremely hard to crack.
No one has as yet demonstrated to the satisfaction of
every one else what is the precise niche to be occupied by
Opisthocomus in the ornithological temple. It has been
pushed about from pillar to post of that temple since De
Buffon directed attention to its resemblance to the South
American curassows. The balance of opinion allies it to
the Gallinaceous birds, with a considerable touch of rail.

212

HABITS OF HOATZIN

That is just what might be expected of an isolated type
like the hoatzin, which seems to be a vestige of a for-
merly existing group. That it has been called " rep-
tilian " by that distinguished authority upon bird
anatomy, the late Professor Parker, F.R.S., is another
way of expressing what are undoubtedly inferences to be
drawn from its structure. An unpleasant but still
accurate name for this South American bird is " stink
Pheasant." It derives its characteristic and formidable
odour from the berries of a certain shrub upon which it
largely feeds. It builds upon these or other shrubs in
suitable localities through the northern part of the
South American continent. These shrubs overlook
water, in which the hoatzin, both young and adult, is an
expert swimmer. This is not so extraordinary as might
appear. The saying of the hen with her foster ducklings
is not by any means so neat a contrast between diver-
gent habits of life as has been imagined. Professor
Lloyd Morgan has found that a newly-hatched chick of
the fowl will swim, and that in a regular and " hand-
over-hand " fashion, not to be compared to a confused
struggle for existence in an unexpected medium. Phea-
sant-like though it is (but here it is perhaps expedient to
bear in mind the " dash " of rail), the hoatzin will swim
and dive as one to the manner born. The hoatzin
possesses at least two unique peculiarities of internal
structure. Most birds — all except the struthious birds
and a very few others — possess a deep " keel " to the
sternum or breast bone, associated with the attachment
of the enormous pectoral muscles, which pull down the
wing in flight. In the hoatzin this keel, instead of fading
away posteriorly as is common among birds, is deficient
anteriorly, and this deficiency of keel is furthermore
associated with, or any at rate combined with, a huge
and baggy and muscular crop which rests upon this part
of the sternum, and the whole upon the branch of the

213

STEGANOPOD CHARACTERS

tree upon which the bird is perching. One cannot but
think with Dr. Gadow, that the undoubted inheritance
of these characters is in favour of the transmission of
acquired characters, that bone of contention among
zoologists. It is as well to be particular even in de-
scribing a disagreeable odour. But statements by
actual observers differ greatly as to the substance most
generally known with which this odour is best to be
compared. Mr. Quelch says : " Musk combined with
wet hides." M. Deville said : " A cow-house." We
incline to the cow-house view.

THE PELICAN

Pelicans are among the birds which do best in cap-
tivity, at any rate in captivity at the Zoo. This is
shown by their extreme longevity in that institution.
One individual, hoary with age, died only a year or two
ago, having been inspected by the public since the year
1868. We do not know, of course, that this is not ex-
ceptional in another way ; the pelican may have been
cut off in the flower of its youth ! The pelican is
distinctly not of the wilderness, but of water courses,
where it can swim and fish. No one can easily confuse
a pelican with any other bird. Its large size, unwieldy
proportions, and huge beak with dependent baglike
throat for the storage of fish, betray it even to the non-
expert eye. The top half of the bill has a little bend
just at the tip to pinch effectively the slippery prey.
The feet are webbed, very thoroughly webbed. All
four toes are connected by webbing ; and this is one,
and indeed the chief, reason for uniting the pelican with
the cormorant, the gannet, the tropic bird, the darter,
and the frigate bird, to form the group Steganopodes ;
Professor Huxley called them Dysporomorphae on
account of the fact that the nostril is almost, or some-
times, as it appears, quite choked up by growths of

214

THE PELICAN IN HERALDRY

both bone and beak. This very odd state of affairs
is unparalleled in any other living bird. There are
certainly half a dozen species of pelican, perhaps more ;
they are white, black and white, or even as in Pelecanus
fuscus, dark brown in colour, and occur in most parts
of the world. The " pelican in its piety " is a well
known heraldic device ; it forms for instance the arms
of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Under these cir-
cumstances the pelican is represented as drawing blood
from its own breast to feed its young. As a matter
of fact the legend may rest upon the yellow to reddish
tinge of the neck developed at the breeding season,
which faintly suggests a stain of blood. This, coupled
with the habit which all birds have of pecking at and
fidgeting with their feathers, just as human beings
bite their nails, may be responsible for that legend.
There are no pelicans in England, though specimens
escaped from captivity have been noted at times. But
there once were pelicans ; for subfossil bones have been
found in the fens of Cambridgeshire.

THE DARTER

Of darters there are four kinds, viz. Plotus anhinga
of South America, P. nova-hollandice of Australia and
adjacent islands, P. lev.iillanti of Africa, and finally P.
melanogaster of India, China and Madagascar. The
bird — any of these species that happens to be on view
at the Gardens — will strike the visitor as a somewhat
exaggerated cormorant. Its neck is longer, its head
is smaller, but its plumage is distinctly cormorant-
like, as is the general aspect and behaviour of the
bird. It would seem to have even a more than cor-
morant-like appetite, for a specimen that died in
the Gardens some few years since was killed by swallow-
ing in rapid succession a dozen small fishes. It is note-

215

FISHING OF PLOTUS

worthy, however, that the darter cannot suffer much
from the pangs of indigestion ; for when the lining of
the stomach gets somewhat defective it is simply shed
en bloc, and a new one provided. This convenient
method of restoring an impaired and dyspeptic stomach
is at least not common in the animal world. The like-
ness of the darter to the cormorant is not deceptive, and
it is more than skin deep. There is no doubt that it
belongs to the same assemblage of birds as are
characterized by their webbed feet, the webbing in-
cluding the " big toe," or hallux to be more technical
in diction. They are all fish eaters, but the darter
seems to be unique among them for the way in which
it pursues what in journalese would be termed its
finny prey. Plotus swims and dives with extreme
facility and rapidity. Its movements under water are
as apt as those upon the surface, and as a consequence
the bird has no difficulty in catching its prey, which
it transfixes with the very sharply pointed beak. Ris-
ing to the surface it then tosses the fish into the air
and neatly catches it as it descends. In order the more
effectively to retain its hold upon the slippery and
newly caught fish, the beak of the darter is furnished
with minute denticulations directed backwards.
Plotus, when on land and at rest, is seen to have an
eagerly bent neck craning forwards as if on the look-
out. This impression is produced by a kink in the
neck, due to a sudden change in the direction of the
several vertebrae after a certain point. The muscular
mechanism attached to the kinked part enables the
beak to be shot out forwards with great velocity, and
is the means whereby the darter spears its prey. When
swimming as opposed to diving beneath the waves,
the darter closely resembles the cormorant ; for its
long neck appears above the water while the body is
nearly completely submerged.

216

SOME STRUTHIOUS BIRDS

THE CASSOWARY AND THE EMU
There is really no such thing as the cassowary at
present, but there was so long ago as the very beginning
of the seventeenth century, when the first live bird of
this genus Casuarius was brought home and exhibited
alive in Amsterdam. We now know of quite eight
" good " species, and systematists would increase, as
is their wont, even this respectable number to twenty in
all, including those dubious creations of the naturalist,
" sub-species." A fine series of cassowaries has been
on view at the Zoo for some years past, the collection
being due to the energy of the Hon. Walter Rothschild,
to whom most of the birds belong. The veriest tyro
would rightly place these birds in the neighbourhood
of the ostrich, the emu, and the rhea — among the
struthious birds in fact ; and that is unquestionably
their place in the system. Their nearest ally
is the emu, and the two genera were at one time con-
founded. Now we regard them as distinct. The
cassowaries differ from the emu by the horny black
casque upon the head, by the enormously lengthened
nail of the innermost of the three toes, and by the
stiff spine-like feathers of the wing, which are ordinary
feathers devoid of barbs, and finally by the very gay
colours, red, yellow, blue, purple, and green, about the
head and neck. Besides, the cassowaries are not
Australian birds exactly — since only one species is
found in that island continent, and then only in the
north ; they inhabit New Guinea and such islands in
the neighbourhood as Ceram, New Britain, etc. Un-
like the ostrich, the cassowary is a forest living fowl,
and it has been said that its casque is of use in this
habitat. Rushing wildly through the bush the head is
held down and the entrapping brambles glide off the
polished surface of the helmet. The black feathers of
the adult bird are preceded by brown feathers in the

217

THE AVIAN SYRINX

immature, and by a striped back in the very young,
bird. The gaudy colours of the neck are sometimes con-
tinued into one median and one or two laterally placed
wattles, which are shaped like the bands of a " clerk,"
and the presence of which have given rise to two specific
names of cassowaries ; these are distinguished, accord-
ing to the presence of one or two of these wattles, as
C. uni-appendiculatus and C. bi-carunculatus. It is
easy enough to say that the brilliant hues of the naked
skinned throat are due to sexual selection ; but there
is no doubt that they now occur. in both sexes, and so
they have been at any rate transferred from one sex
to the other, and can no longer be reckoned as sex
attractions. Cassowaries are quite diurnal birds and
sleep peacefully during the night. Their voice has been
described as " a curious sort of snorting, grunting and
bellowing." They have no proper voice organ com-
parable to the syrinx of other birds. In disposition
the cassowary has the reputation of being " sullen
and treacherous," and there is no doubt that it had
better be approached at the Zoo with due circumspec-
tion. For the bill is strong and so are the toes. Its
food is mostly vegetable, though insects are apparently
not scorned. It is a good swimmer, which may account
for its occurrence on widely separated islands. The
large dark green eggs are known to everybody ; but
everybody may not be aware that they are excellent
eating. The bird itself is not altogether despicable
from the gastronomic point of view. There is one
story related of the cassowary which may be true, but
does not bear the generally recognized hall mark of
truth, repetition. A traveller in Australia observed
one of these birds to enter the water and to squat down
for a few moments. It then deliberately waded to the
bank and shook from out its wings a multitude of small
fishes, which it proceeded to devour. The suggestion

218

CASSOWARY

To face p. 218]

TEMPERATURE OF BIRDS

is that the fishlets mistook the waving feathers of the
bird for water-weed, and nestling there fell a prey to
their deception.

THE KIWI OR APTERYX

The peaceful kiwi gave rise some years ago to a
rather warm controversy between the leaders of zoolo-
gical opinion. To Sir Richard Owen it appeared to
be the long wanted link between the equally warm
blooded mammals and birds, which that anatomist
bracketed together in the series on account chiefly of
the warmth of their blood. The slightly higher tem-
perature of the blood in birds was thought by him, and
so far naturally, to be less of a bar to their association
with mammals, than the pure cold-bloodedness of
the sullen reptile, to an association with the birds.
Professor Huxley, however, insisted upon the close
alliance of birds and reptiles and plainly showed that
certain supposed resemblances between the apteryx
and the mammal in the midriff or diaphragm had no
real existence, and that the apteryx was typically
ornithic. Now a middle position between these two
extremes is held. We do not consider the bird as in any
way near to the mammals ; but we consider them to be
quite remote from the reptiles and not to be placed
with them in one great group. Nevertheless, we admit
a closer position to reptiles than to mammals. The
apteryx is one of those birds which it will be difficult
for the visitor to get a peep at. It is quite nocturnal
in habit, and snuggles down during the day in such
retirement as is provided for it. At night it sallies
forth, and in New Zealand, where it alone occurs,
devotes itself to extracting earthworms from the soil.
With great deliberation does it drag these wriggling
creatures from their holes, as if realizing that earth-
worms like beefsteak thrust into the pocket must " be

219

THE KIWI AND ITS EGGS

humoured not drove." In harmony with its crepuscu-
lar and nocturnal life the kiwi is coloured of sad browns
and greys, a mode of coloration which we meet with
in owls and goatsuckers, equally nocturnal as a rule in
habit. The name apteryx is quite a misnomer. The
kiwi has wings, though they are very minute and hidden
by its long feathers ; these lack the firmness of the
feathers of other birds by reason of the fact that the
branches of the main axis of the feather, the barbs,
lack those secondary branches hooked together called
the barbules. The bones of the wing are, however,
like those of other birds, save for the fact that only one
of the three fingers found in the wings of other birds
is at all well developed. The long bill of the kiwi and
its relationship, as it is thought, to the ostriches, has
led to the apt German vernacular name of " Schnepfe-
strauss," or " snipe ostrich," an appellation which is
clearly more descriptive than apteryx. It is this long
bill which is used in probing for earthworms, and it has,
contrary to what is found in other birds, the two nostrils
situated quite at the end. This allows the bird to
snuff down into the hole it is probing for the earth-
worm, and it appears indeed that the kiwi has a better
sense of smell than most birds. Smell, indeed, is a sense
in which birds generally are apt to be deficient ; they
make up for it by extreme keenness of vision. The
apteryx is one of those birds, and here it agrees with
other ostrich-like birds, in which the female is the
more agressive of the sexes, while the male is more re-
tiring and attends to the duties of incubation. The
nest is a scooped out hole in the ground and in it are
deposited, or rather is deposited, the enormous egg.
It is a fact that proportionately the egg of the apteryx
is the largest known, being not even exceeded by that
of the roc or Aepyornis, or, more paradoxically, by the
smallest egg in actuality in the bird series, i.e. that of

220

To face p. 220]

KIWI

THE AMERICAN OSTRICH

the humming birds. The mysterious nature of the kiwi
is emphasized by its weird silence even when attacked
by beasts or handled by man. For it can cry and does
during the breeding season, the cry being, as it is sup-
posed, a means of communication between the two
sexes. The female has the louder and a husky voice,
the male has a more piping call, the voice difference
being in accord with the reversed relative positions of
the male and female bird. The reserved character
of the kiwi has led to the supposition that it was rarer
than is actually the case, and has given rise to myths.
One of these legends concerns its mode of incubation.
It was held that the apteryx fell in with the general
topsy-turviness of things antipodean, and after building
a nest incubated the young from below. This fable
was disproved by the nesting of a pair at the Zoo a good
many years ago.

THE RHEA

The South American ostrich is coloured of an agreeable
grey with black wings, a plan of colour which is, in
fact, not widely different from that of the hen ostrich
of Arabia and Africa. It is, however, quite a distinct
bird with no more than general points of resemblance
to its Old World relative. As the two birds are as a rule
to be seen side by side in enclosures at the Zoo, 'their
points of difference as well as of likeness can be easily
appreciated. The ostrich has a larger body, but rather
more feeble wings ; its toes are but two, and the difference
between the two sexes is at once apparent ; the male has
the fine black and white plumes so desirable in com-
merce. The rhea has quite good wings for a ratite
bird, so good that it could almost fly if the feathers
were not of the usual limp character of those of the
ratite or struthious birds. It has also a more per-
fectly framed organ of voice than its struthious allies,

221

THE NESTING RHEA

though whether this is of much advantage is doubtful,
considering its silence. In any case these facts seem to
point to a shorter period of Sightlessness in this than
in the other members of the great ostrich-like birds,
which culminated in the huge moas of New Zealand
and the roc or Aepyornis of Madagascar. There are
three different kinds of rhea, and it is interesting to notice
that one of these, called after Darwin, Rhea darwini, has a
rather spotted plumage suggestive on one colour theory
of greater antiquity. It has often been pointed out
that stripes and spots are not only found in the young of
many creatures which are unspotted and without stripes
in the adult condition, but that low forms of animals
are more variegated in this way than higher types.
Like the struthious birds generally, with the exception
of the apteryx, whose claims to be associated with
them are less, the rhea is by no means invariably a
mild- tempered fowl. As is so common with the animate
creation, the excitement of the breeding season finds a
vent in continued hostility to any approaching man or
beast. Mr. Hudson considers that it is positively
dangerous to come within the range of vision of a cock
rhea who is engaged in watching the laying of eggs by
his numerous suite. Though ferocious to strangers,
the cock bird performs himself the severe duties of in-
cubation, a procedure in which he resembles other
ratites. At other times the rheas seek the society
of other beasts, and are reported to occur among herds
of deer with which they are on terms of amity. It has
been pointed out that in this the rhea simulates the
ostrich, which has a similar fondness for frequenting
herds of zebras.

GOLD CRESTED PENGUIN (Eudyptes chrysocome)
This bird, like others of its tribe, is limited to the
Antarctic region. The penguins inhabit the shores of

222

GENERA OF PENGUINS

the various islands of the Antarctic ocean, from the
Falklands in the west to New Zealand in the east, and
as far north only as to the Cape of Good Hope. They
are almost alone in their limitation to this region of
the globe. Within this cold and inhospitable, though
fish-teeming, expanse, the penguins are represented by
a considerable number of forms, which have been
arranged into at any rate five different generic types.
These are Aptenodytes, Spheniscus, Eudyptes, Eudyptula
and Pygosceles. Our particular type and five or six
of the rest have been frequently on view at the Zoo,
where they attract great attention from their grotesque
form and their easy and lithe movements under water.
On shore, and at the brink of their pools at the Zoo,
they waddle or hop awkwardly ; a small penguin which
was some years ago in the renovated Fish House was
clad on occasions by the keeper with a little coat, and
hopped more energetically than, but with something
of the air of, an elderly and obese gentleman. In
fact the first observers of penguins took them, from their
upright position and from being drawn up in lines, to be
soldiers prepared to repel an invasion of their fast-
nesses. Far from being so prepared, the bulk of penguins
are or were, for they may be in places a little more
sophisticated, stupidly unaware of intended harm,
and they could be knocked over by thousands with a
stick. Obese penguins always are, as their very name,
which is supposed to be connected with the Latin
" pinguis," denotes. Some ingenious commentators
have sought in Pen Gwin, i.e. " white head," a deriva-
tion of the pseudo-vernacular name by which every-
body knows them now. The penguin is not a good goer
upon dry land. His legs, rather swaddled up in skin,
do not permit of an easy stride or even an efficient
hop. But as the bird never goes away far from the sea,
its proper home, this unfitness is not a serious matter

223

SWIMMING OF PENGUINS

for the future of the penguin. Furthermore, the barren
shores which they haunt do not breed fierce carnivorous
creatures to assault them when on the nest. In the
water the penguin swims with the greatest elegance
and with a peculiarly buoyant motion that suggests a
positive flight ; this, if the water be clear enough, will
certainly be the delusion of the onlooker. Black to
brown above and with a white belly is the prevailing
hue of the penguin tribe, and the species which we select
here, as well as some of its immediate allies, have a
streak of yellow feathers upon the head, which relieves
this dull coloration. Swimming in the water with the
paddles extended, the black back, with occasional
views of the white underparts, quite suggests, when
the animal is seen from above, one of the dolphin tribe,
to which the long beak and the abbreviated tail adds not
a little in the way of resemblance. Further, the yellow
about the head is repeated in some dolphins, while the
flippers of the bird are by no means widely different
to outward view from the swimming fore limbs of
the dolphin. It has been pointed out, too, that this
penguin will at times spring clean out of the water, and
when a flock, if we can apply the term flock to anything
that does not live in air or on land, rise out of the waves
in rapid succession the appearance of a shoal of por-
poises is distinctly simulated. So aptly constructed
are the penguins for a life on the ocean wave that one
hears with surprise a story to the effect that the shores
of certain parts of New Zealand are sometimes littered
with the corpses of the small penguin, Eudyptula minor,
which have perished in the surf. Besides its paddles,
its short neck, its generally whale-like outline, and its
strong swimming feet, the penguin is eminently fitted
for a submarine life by its unusual fatness, and by the
close coating of feathers which decks its body. In
almost all other birds a careful examination will show

224

To lace p. 224]

OSTRICH

PTERYLOSIS OF BIRDS

that the feathers are disposed in definite tracts, whose
arrangement varies from bird to bird, and often affords
valuable evidence of affinity : between these tracts are
either naked spaces or spaces sparsely covered with scat-
tered small feathers. The penguin, on the other hand,
has a " pterylosis," which is continuous all over the body,
save, as it appears, for a small region on the under
surface, which is pressed upon the eggs when the bird
is sitting on its nest. In this way the eggs get more of
the heat of the body ; for, as is well known, feathers are
bad conductors of heat, and are thus useful for keeping
a bird warm, and us when we use feather muffs, duvets,
etc. It is a remarkable fact that this little bare patch
only occurs in the female, and yet both sexes sit upon
the eggs. Perhaps it argues that the share of the
father in the well being of his offspring is only a recent
occurrence, and that formerly the hen alone performed
this important function. This feathering of the pen-
guin is supposed by some to indicate the retention of
an archaic character. And if the feathers of a bird
may be derived directly from the scales of some reptile
forefather, an uniform feathering would naturally be
the original condition. Speaking of the scales of some
reptilian ancestor, it is a most noteworthy fact that the
difference between a scale and a feather is reduced
to an apparently irreducible minimum in the paddle.
Flat, closely depressed and unbarbed " feathers " cover
that member, and it was discovered by the late Mr.
A. D. Bartlett that the skin of the fore arm is shed
in a piece, like the skin of a snake, instead of being
moulted in bits like the feathering of a fowl. Another
ancient character (at least in the opinion of some),
which the penguin shows is the fact that the three
bones in the foot known as the metatarsals, those
bones which lie between the ankle and the commence-
ment of the bones of the toes, are slightly separated
Z.G. 225 Q

PENGUIN ROOKERIES

from each other instead of being fused into a single
piece, as in other birds. The penguin, when at home
on shore, dwells in " rookeries." These differ from the
rookeries of rooks by being situated on the ground,
though the individual nests are carefully made by each
bird out of plants. These " nurseries " are placed
away from the common dwelling places of the rest.
The rookeries, like those of old London, are a pande-
monium of noise at times, which is described as being
like the barking of myriad dogs in many keys. The
penguin has also the weird habit of rising out of the
water and saying " Whaat " in a sepulchral tone. The
largest penguin is the great Aptenodytes pennanti,
called after Gilbert White's correspondent, known as
a naturalist, but better as an historian of London.
This bird reaches a total length of three feet. But
it was eclipsed by a giant, now extinct, of five feet in
length known as Palceospheniscus, which once in
habited New Zealand. It is useless to tempt the
penguin with buns. Fish is its only food, which it
pursues living and catches with ease and in a somewhat
different way to the darter, who transfixes the prey
when caught and catches it again.

220

PENGUIN

To face p. 226]

CHARACTERS OF REPTILES

CHAPTER VIII

Reptiles

THE reptiles are the only vertebrates which are
cold-blooded and which without exception
breathe by lungs and never at any period of their
lives breathe by gills, as do the fishes always and the
amphibia for a portion of their lives. They have also
invariably a scale-covered skin, in which also there may
be supplementary bony structures, such as the bony
part of the " box " of the tortoise, and the strong
plates in the skin of crocodiles. They possess neither
feathers nor hairs. The skull is fixed on to the suc-
ceeding vertebral column by one rounded joint or con-
dyle as in birds, while the mammals and the amphibia
have two of these, one on each side. It is from the
amphibia that it is most difficult to divide reptiles, a
fact which is embodied in the confusion of the two into
one group, called " reptiles " by some of the older
authors, and " amphibia " by some others. In past
times, as is natural on any theory of evolution, the
reptilia and the amphibia gradated into one another,
and no very hard and fast line can be drawn. The
living representatives of these groups can, however,
be distinguished by the characters already enumerated.
There are other anatomical characters into the con-
sideration of which we shall not enter here. The most
obvious character of the reptile is its complete covering
of scales. Some extinct groups, such as the Ichthyo-

227

HATTERIA AND THE LIZARDS

saurs, seem to have had smooth scaleless skins, but no
living reptile is without this tesselated armature. The
existing reptiles are to be divided into five orders,
but their numbers to-day are much below their numbers
in past times. The reptilia are clearly a waning race as
a whole, though of the existing orders most are more
numerous now than they ever have been so far as the
geological evidence at our disposal enables as to say.
As to their numbers to-day, Dr. Gadow asserts that
there are about 3,500, so that there are more reptiles
than mammals, but considerably fewer than there are
fish and birds ; for of the latter we know some 10,000,
and of fishes some 8,000, while there are something like
2,700 mammals and about 1,000 amphibians. The
enormous majority of living reptiles belong to the
groups of lizards, snakes, and tortoises. There are
but few crocodiles, and Hatteria is the only living
example of its own group.

LIZARDS : THE ORDER LACERTILIA

The only other reptiles with which the lizards could
be possibly confounded are the crocodiles, snakes, and
the New Zealand Hatteria, which is the sole living
representative of an otherwise extinct order, Rhyncho-
cephalia. The turtles and tortoises are so distinct that
there is no danger of confusion for the most ignorant
of Natural History. From the crocodile tribe the
lizards are to be distinguished by a variety of characters,
which are, however, deep seated, and thus not easily
appreciable to one examining the animals in a menagerie.
As to purely external characters, it is most difficult
to draw a line. In the crocodile tribe the nostrils are
very plainly on the upper surface of the snout and
protrude somewhat, which is of course in relation to
the aquatic life of these creatures. The vent is a
longitudinal orifice and not a transverse one as in

228

HEART OF REPTILES

lizards and snakes. The size is greater than that of
any lizard ; but it must be remembered that a large
monitor lizard comes not far behind a smallish croco-
dile. Crocodiles are invariably aquatic, lizards are
very rarely so. We must necessarily mention a few in-
ternal characters to emphasize the separation of lizards
and crocodiles. In the latter the teeth are always
confined to the upper and lower jaws ; in lizards they
stray on to the bones of the palate in many cases ;
furthermore each tooth of a crocodile is implanted in
its own particular socket, while in lizards the teeth
are attached side by side to the bones which bear them
without lying at some distance apart and each like
a peg in a hole in these bones. The heart of the croco-
dile is more completely four- chambered than is that
of the lizard, in some of which, however, there is a
tendency in the same direction. On the whole the
lizard tribe is on a lower level of organization. Lizards
are excessively numerous and occur in almost all parts
of the world, except in very cold regions, such as the
extreme north. They chiefly abound in the tropics.
The general aspect of a lizard is familiar to every one.
But it is not so easy as it seems to differentiate a lizard
from a snake. For among the lacertilia there is a
distinct tendency to lose the limbs, an event which
has occurred in many of the families into which the
order is divisible, and thus produces a likeness to a
snake which is after all superficial. Nevertheless, the
two orders, the Lacertilia and the Ophidia, are very
nearly akin. Some differences between them will be
dealt with later.

THE HELODERM LIZARD

Of lurid coloration is the Arizona heloderm, or " gila
monster " as it is often termed in the United States,
in the southernmost of which it lives. There would

229

SPECIES OF HELODERMA

appear to be two distinct kinds of heloderma, viz.
H. suspectum and H. horridum. One epithet is good,
the other bad. It is truly " horrid " in the applied
as well as in the literal sense of that adjective, for
the skin is roughened with warty scales underlain by
bony nodules. " Suspectum " is too dubious an ad-
jective ; for this lizard is not merely suspected but
known to be poisonous, being in fact the only lizard
which has this qualification. It was thought some
little time ago that the rare Lanthanonotus of Borneo
was also poisonous ; but recent study has proved that,
while related to Heloderma, it lacks the grooved teeth
of the latter. Experiments tried with Heloderma as
the main actor with the subsidiary parts played by
various frogs and guinea pigs has satisfied every one
that this lizard does bite with a poisoned effect ; more-
over the salivary glands, or rather some of them, are
furnished with several ducts which open in close apposi-
tion to the grooved teeth ; along the grooves run the
poison which is thus necessarily injected into the wound
made by the teeth. In fact, the gila monster poisons
precisely in the same fashion as the venomous colubrines,
those non-viperine snakes which are poisonous. On
the other hand, the courageous Dr. Shufeldt allowed
himself to be bitten by one of these lizards, but ex-
perienced no serious inconvenience " beyond the ordi-
nary symptoms that usually follow the bite of an
enraged animal." Like most lizards this animal is
lethargic and melancholy in appearance in captivity.
It seems indeed to have fewer and shorter repetitions of
those periods of briskness which even the most seden-
tary of lizards show at times. It can, however, be
roused, and then its wrath is terrible. Under these
circumstances, observes Dr. Shufeldt, " the animal
quickly rears its body from the ground by straightening
out its limbs, wheels about, opens its mouth widely,

230

WARNING COLOURS

snaps its tongue in and out, and gives vent to a
threatening blowing sound." Further provocation in-
volves bite or bites ; but the lizard is on the whole
of the general opinion with regard to the tempering of
valour by discretion ; for it takes as early an oppor-
tunity as possible of continuing its retreat. The helo-
derm has a nauseous odour, which it as a rule scatters
about at night, being as it is nocturnal for the main
part. Its colour demands some attention. The
sullen and gloomy aspect of the beast is largely due to
the pitchy black of its skin relieved, or rather heightened,
by patches of orange, which orange changes at times
to a salmon pink. This startling contrast of yellow
and black is one of those especial plans of coloration
which have been termed " warning colours." It is
exactly paralleled by the variegated salamander of
Europe, by the wasp and the hornet, and by the cater-
pillar of the " cinnabar " moth. All of these last-
mentioned creatures have some disagreeable habit, such
as stinging or tasting nasty. Many persons, putting
twos and twos together, have arrived at the conclusion
that the vivid and easily recognizable colours are an
advertisement of this ferocity or inedibility, and may
be translated into the phrase " Noli me tangere."
Nor is this due to a kindly altruism on the part of the
yellow and black ones. It is simply this ; a conflict
with an enemy would doubtless result in the defeat of
the enemy, or its poisoning by the nasty taste ; but at
the same time the salamander or the heloderm would
get mauled in the gastronomic attempts of the attacking
bird or reptile. It therefore suggests by its colour
that to be severely let alone is on the whole the best
way of procedure. The heloderm eats all kinds of
things in the animal line, worms, insects, and even eggs.
It doesn't appear to be a cannibal, which is saying a
good deal for a carnivorous reptile.

231

LEGLESS LIZARDS

THE SLOW-WORM AND THE AMPHISBJENA
This homely little creature will serve as a type of
those numerous lizards which have deserted the straight
road of reptilian development, and gone and lost their
legs as if they were mere snakes. It is seldom that the
Reptile House is without the slow- worm or blind-worm as
it is usually called ; it must be remembered that in
terming it a worm nothing contemptuous or even
wormy in the ordinary sense of the word is intended
or implied ; the word worm is good Scandinavian for
snake, and the name thus perpetrates a zoological
error of a lesser kind. Why the worm under debate
is not a snake is a question that many would find it
hard to answer. And why " blind " is a further question
much to the point. The blindness is here with the
observer who first gave it the name and not with the
lizard. It has good, even particularly good, eyes, sharp
in their outlook, and provided, as are the eyes of nearly
all lizards, with movable lids. Here, then, is the first
reason why the Anguis fagilis is not a snake ; for no
snake has eyelids. If the slow- worm be fed it will be
noted that it eats in the usual lacertilian fashion, and
does not divaricate its distensile jaws, getting outside
its food as a snake does ; in fact the two lower jaws
where they meet are firmly united and not merely j oined
by a lax ligament as they are in all except a very few
kinds of snakes. Other and satisfying reasons for
placing the slow-worm among lizards can be seen only
after an anatomical examination. Snake-like lizards
have at least vestiges of limbs, which are completely
wanting among snakes except the merest traces in
some few forms, the boas and their immediate allies.
No snake has a breast bone or sternum. These are
some of the reasons — there are plenty of others — why
the slow-worm is a lizard and not a snake. The slow-
worm is perhaps the commonest of British reptiles. But

232

OVOVIVIPARITY

it is not so frequently seen as the more active common
lizard Lacerta agilis, on account of its retiring habits.
Unfortunately for itself the slow-worm does not dislike,
indeed it seems to prefer, the neighbourhood of human
habitations ; this is unfortunate, for the animal has
succeeded in gaining a most terrific reputation for
poisonous properties, of which it has not the slightest
hint. It has thus suffered much persecution by hob-
nailed boots. It is true that the slow-worm will bite
at times, especially during the breeding season, which
seems to be productive of irascibility in the animal
world generally. But its tiny teeth will not scratch,
let alone bite, the human skin to any purpose. It has
been pointed out, however, that this reptile has some
of its teeth grooved. Now that is a character of the
only known poisonous lizard Heloderma, and of certain
snakes known as venomous colubrines. But there is no
developed salivary gland in association with these
grooved fangs, which are, however, sufficient to retain
a hold of slugs, which the slow- worm particularly affects
as food. Anguis fragilis occurs nearly all over Europe,
avoiding the colder northern regions ; like most other
reptiles it is not to be found in Ireland. It brings forth
its young alive like many lizards, but this process
must not be confounded with the mammalian method
of gestation. For in the snake the eggs are merely
retained in the oviduct until they are hatched ; there
is not any connexion by growth with the parent as
in the mammalian foetus. The family to which Anguis
fragilis belongs, the anguidse, contains a number of
other forms of which some are legless, and others possess
the normal complement of three appendages. The
large grass snake of Russia and Morocco, often to be
seen at the Zoo, grows to three feet or so in length and
is much like an enlarged edition of the slow-worm ;
but it has, which the slow- worm has not, a deep groove

233

HOSPITALITY OF ANTS

along each side, of which the use is problematical. It
has the reputation of being tamable and intelligent.
Lizards generally show a tendency to lose their limbs.
There are many other families in which some members
have reduced themselves to the condition of grovelling
along upon their bellies. Always, however, there is
some trace recognizable by the anatomist of the other-
wise missing appendages. The most thoroughly snake-
like of living lizards are the amphisbaenas, a race
which is chiefly American and African. But even here
there is one genus in which the fore limbs are retained.
There are not uncommonly amphisbaenas to be seen
at the Zoo. The name is at most as ridiculous as that
of blind-worm, and has been given to them on account
of their short tail and blind face, rendering thus a
confusion between anterior and posterior possible,
except to the careful observer. The tropical American
Amphisbcena is especially fond of taking up its quarters
with ants, for choice the sauba ant. The ants, as a
rule a bloodthirsty race, apparently regard these crea-
tures with affection, or at least do not interfere with
them. But then ants have queer hospitable notions
towards various creatures of the animal world, and an
ant-hill generally contains an odd assortment of beetles
living under their protection, and apparently incapable
of living anywhere else. The ants are, like the brigands
of the transpontine melodrama, bloody and fierce as
a rule, but occasionally yielding to the softer emotions.
Their apparently bidden guests, so varied in character
and kind, remind one of the curious assemblage, the
cat, the black servant Frank and blind Miss Williams,
collected beneath his roof by Dr. Johnson. As to the
Amphisbcena, Mr. Bates remarks that it is exceedingly
sluggish and remains within the ant-hill all day, and
only comes forth at night. Naturally the native
thinks the Amphisbcena poisonous ; he also states that

234

A HOUSE LIZARD

if the lizard be forcibly abducted from the ant-hill the
ants will leave in chagrin and found another colony.
In the south of Europe lives Blanus, an ally of Amphis-
bczna which prefers manure heaps, where it finds and
eats earthworms, to ant-hills.

That so many different families of lizards should show
an equal capacity for more or less completely losing
their limbs makes the transition between a snake and
a lizard easy to imagine ; and also shows us that
the snake may be a quite composite group perhaps
derived from different groups of lizards.

THE TOKAY GECKO

This, the great house gecko of the East, is commonly
on view at the Zoo, where it may be recognized and
distinguished from other geckos by its large size, measur-
ing as it does a foot or more in length, and by its marked
and not unpleasant coloration ; this coloration con-
sists of red spots and marks upon a greyish green
ground. Geckos as a rule are not big lizards, indeed
their capacity for running up vertical walls, and even
crossing ceilings suspended head downwards, would
seem to forbid a great bulk ; even as it is their attitude
seems to show a striking variance from the laws of
gravitation. They stick, however, by a peculiar
mechanism quite analogous to that by which a piece of
glass may be made to adhere to another piece of glass
by simple pressure. The toes of the gecko are covered
with fine folds lying in parallel rows ; these when firmly
pressed down upon a smooth surface drive out the under-
lying air, and as a consequence atmospheric pressure
assists the foothold of the lizard. This mechanism,
so essential to the house-loving ways of the gecko,
is not, however, peculiar to these lizards ; other lizards,
such as species of the genus Anolis, allied to the Iguana,
whose peculiarities have been treated of on another page,

235

VOICE OF GECKO

which habitually walk about on smooth and slippery
leaves and branches, have the same lamellae upon the
toes. This statement by no means exhausts the
peculiarities of the gecko tribe, which includes some of
the most remarkable among lizards. Outwardly they
are quite unmistakable lizards : but of the majority
it will be noticed that they stare with a protracted
gaze unbroken by a wink. This is due to the absence
of eyelids and the covering over of the eye by a trans-
parent membrane, which gives to the look of the reptile
the unwavering and coldly unsympathetic glance of
the snake. Like some other lizards, the geckos fracture
their tails, or rather allow them to be fractured, with
the greatest impunity. This is a great boon to them,
for a waggling tail is clearly that part of the animal
which is most likely to be bitten at by a bird in pursuit.
The easy breakage of the tail and the ease with which
it is subsequently repaired by its former possessor,
enables the gecko to successfully brave many dangers
incidental to an exposed and reptilian life. There
are certain features in the skeleton, which imply an
ancient history for the geckos ; for instance, the noto-
chord, that softish gristly rod which is the forerunner
of the vertebral column, and which persists largely
or entirely in fishes, is also largely persistent in these
geckos. The tokay itself is found in many parts of
the East, and, like other geckos, and unlike lizards in
general, it has a voice which is described by Captain
Flower as consisting of the word " tokay " pro-
nounced several times " after a preliminary cackle." The
native of Siam uses this voice as a means of gambling ;
bets are taken upon the number of times that the word
" tokay " is pronounced by the lizards, which is usually
seven or eight, but sometimes as many as eleven. The
tokay can also puff and hiss, and is so far merely lacer-
tilian and not geckonine. It lives in houses and is

236

NUMBERS OF GECKOS

bold, occurring in the most frequented rooms of those
houses. Geckos, like most lizards, are carnivorous in
habit. This giant form, relatively speaking, eats
insects, small birds, and is even at times a cannibal.
So firmly can it adhere to surfaces that it is used in
the pastime of fishing for hats with felonious intent ; the
gecko is let down on to the hat of some unsuspecting
passer by, and is hauled up together with the hat, just
as the remora or sucking fish is used to fish for turtles.
Geckos are very numerous in species ; nearly three
hundred exist, and they are found all over the world in
its warmer parts. The nearest point to this country
where they occur is the south of France, where lives
Tarentola mauritanica, a smaller species than that which
we have been considering. The visitor to the Zoo
will not have the opportunity of seeing so large a num-
ber of species, for something under twenty is the total
number of different forms which have been on exhibit
in that institution.

THE FRILLED LIZARD

As the frilled lizard, Chlamydosaurus kingi, has up
to the present been only once exhibited at the Zoological
Gardens, it is possible that this chapter may not be of
great use to the visitor ; on the other hand the reptile
seems, according to Mr. Savile Kent, to be not un-
common in Queensland and some other parts of tropical
Australia, and it is always possible, therefore, that
there may be specimens on view in Regent's Park
Gardens. It is in fact frequently the case at the Zoo
that an animal reputed rare has subsequently turned
up in greater numbers, so as to be no longer a rarity
at the menagerie. The frilled lizard belongs to a
family known as Agamidae, concerning which we shall
have something to say by way of an appendix to the
account of the representative of the family which has

237

A LEAPING LIZARD

been selected to exemplify it. This agamoid is a foot
or so in length, exclusive of the long and whip-like
tail. It is of a brownish colour generally but its most
prominent feature, the frill, more than Elizabethan or
Jacobaean in size, which encircles the neck, is splashed
and spotted with vivid red. This fiery and glowing
fringe seems to lead into an equally glowing mouth
armed with teeth and with a lurid yellow tongue, the
sum total of these peculiarities being not unalarming
to the pursuer. This frill or rather mantle opens in
an umbrella-like fashion ; the skin of which it is com-
posed is strengthened by a " rib " derived from the
hyoid or tongue bones. When not in use it depends
elegantly over the shoulders. No special action on the
part of the reptile is needed to expand the frill ; it has
merely to open its mouth and the very act of opening
the mouth divaricates the ribs, and expands the mantle.
This process reminds one of the poison fangs of the
viper, which are brought into position for biting by
the mere action of opening the mouth ; when the mouth
is closed the fangs lie in a harmless longitudinal posi-
tion. As for the frill itself, the most obvious thing to
compare it to is the hood of the cobras, which with
it is indeed precisely analogous as far as we can judge.
It is a " scare organ " intended, so at least it is pre-
sumed, to warn off aggressors by a show of violence,
which might forbid more effective measures of retaliation
These methods of indicating rage and determination
are not uncommon in the animal kindgom ; but at times
they are not much more than bluff. In the present
case the reptile can carry out its threats to some
extent. It not only bites but lashes in a stinging
fashion with its long and lithe tail, a kind of pugnacity
also shown by the iguana. There is more, however, that
is worthy of note in the Chlamydosaurus than this
mantle, which gives to it its scientific name. Lizards

238

THE FAMILY AGAMID^

are, as a rule, eminently quadrupedal ; they progress
as we have already observed, slung between their fore
and hind limbs like an eighteenth- century coach be-
tween its hind and fore wheels. When bounding
over level ground the frilled lizard abandons the use
of its fore limbs, and hops kangaroo-like for yards
together before coming to rest. This odd mode of
progression is normal, remarks Mr. Savile Kent, " when
the animal is traversing level ground for any distance."
and the distance so travelled may be as much as thirty
or forty feet without a stop. It then rests for a bit
on all fours and afterwards resumes its leaping progress.
It has been justly pointed out that in this the Chlamy •
dosaurus reminds us of the extinct Dinosaurians, a race
of reptiles of all sizes from eighty feet or so to a foot or
two, which flourished in long bygone ages, and have
left no living trace of themselves to-day. But the
recollection of the similar mode of progression of some
of these dinosaurs must not lead to the view that the
Chlamy dosaurus is their long lost heir. The modern
group of lizards has not much in common with those
great reptiles of the past, who are much more nearly
related among living animals to the crocodiles and to
birds.

The family of the agamidae, to which this lizard
belongs, represent as it were the iguanas of the New
World in the Old, and they are especially common in
Australia. There are over 200 species of them placed
in many genera of which several are usually on view at
the Zoo. Uromastix, with its spiny tail, is perhaps
the one most commonly to be seen ; but the Australian
Amphibolous, the "Jew lizard," with its "Newgate
fringe " of thick spines, is also at times accommodated
in the Reptile House. The agamidae are, as has been
mentioned, by no means unlike the iguanas, and it
is at least a curious coincidence that in both families

239

A ZOOLOGICAL ERROR

there should be a type which has contracted the most
striking likeness to a chamaeleon. The agamoid
chamaeleon is Lyriocephalus scutatus, the iguanoid
mimic Chamceleolis. The latter has been an inmate of
the Reptile House but not the former.

THE TEGUEXIN.

The scientific name of this South American lizard, viz.
Tupinambis teguexin, is due to a curious error. The
traveller, Marcgrave, speaking of the lizard, remarked
that it is named Teyu-guaco, and, among the Topin-
ambos, Temapara ; after reading this, Seba, the collector
of " curiosities," jumped at the conclusion that what
Marcgrave meant by Topinambos was the name of the
lizard itself. The name got into zoology, and the rule
in zoology is a stern one as to priority ; so we must per-
force give to the lizard the name of the tribe, thus revers-
ing what sometimes happens when an Indian individual
or tribe is called by the name of an animal. The Teguex-
ins or Tupinambis are a group of lizards containing a vast
number of species all confined to America, and most of
them to South America. There are usually to be seen
at the Zoo examples of the two species, Tupinambis
teguexin and Tupinambis nigro-punctatus. They grow
to some size, and are bluish, variegated with yellow
marks. For some reason or other they have been con-
founded with the monitors of the Old World to which
they have not the very faintest structural resemblance.
In fact, no two groups of lizards are further apart than
these two. However, they both love the water, and are
somewhat fierce. In fact, the Tupinambis is said to
emulate the bull-dog in the tenacity with which it will
hold on to any aggressor. The name of " safeguard ' ' has
been applied to these lizards, on the supposition that
like the monitors they will warn of the proximity of a
crocodile. They are strong and swift, and lash out with

240

CHANGES OF CHAMELEON

their tails like many other lizards, and like crocodiles.
At the Zoo, like most other lizards they slumber much,
and do not suggest any great activity either of mind or
body. But they are big and impressive in appearance.

THE CHAMJELEON

The " reptilian vicar of Bray," as the late Mr. Grant
Allen termed this lizard, has got an unjust reputation
for capacity of colour change, mainly due to a well-known
ballad, where these changes lead to misunderstanding
on the part of some who have not been present to witness
the whole series. As a matter of fact the chamaeleon
does change its colour, and incidentally and at the same
time, unlike the leopard, its spots. But these changes are
not precisely what they are in popular imagination,
which will accordingly be disappointed when the Cha-
maeleons at the Zoo can begot to " perform." Popular
imagination in this, as in other matters, has raced well
ahead of the facts, and has assigned to the chamaeleon
the entire chromatic scale. Its actual performance falls
far short of this, and is limited to greens, yellows, browns,
greys, and almost blacks. Some colours are beyond
their powers. Nor can they entirely blanch or blacken.
The faculty of colour change, though characteristic
enough of these singular lizards, is by no means confined
to them ; it is a common attribute of many lizards, some
of which even excel the chamaeleon in their variety and
rapidity of change. The chamaeleon, however, is a
fairly quick change artist. Apparently rage is the most
potent factor in inducing alterations, and a chamaeleon,
when pinched gently, becomes spotty with wrath. Sun-
shine blackens them, and death leaves them black or
pale straw colour. In fact, anger, heat, cold, and death,
would seem to be the main factors in turning their coats.
That chamaeleons are lizards is probably known to most,
but in almost every feature they differ from the more

Z.G. 241 R

MENTAL ATTRIBUTES OE CHAMELEON

typical and nimble, scaled, creatures that are called by
that name. To watch a chamseleon in the Reptile House
side by side with a lacerta for example, will bring out so
long a series of differences, that it seems almost necessary
to establish another order for these divergent creatures.
Their prehensile tail is unique among limbed reptiles,
and its very prehensility is remarkable, for it only works
downwards : the toes are bound together in threes and
twos, three on one side of hand and foot, and two on the
other. This is suggestive of a bird, and especially of
the woodpeckers, where, however, there are but four
toes altogether, grouped in twos. The independently
moving eyes above the grinning mouth are weird in the
extreme and not reptile-like ; they are indeed like no-
thing except a human being with an inordinate squint,
and like the eyes of such a being they move independ-
ently. Then too the tongue, nearly as long as the body
of its possessor when fully extruded, is an extraordin-
ary organ, unparalleled in the reptilian series and only
partially paralleled by the ant-bear, the woodpecker and
the echidna. The chamaeleon when it detects its prey,
an insect for choice, literally " gives tongue " to the
extent of six inches or so. To watch a chamaeleon
shows that profound mental differences accompany these
structural differences from the remaining crowd of
lizards. Its movements are characterized by an almost
judicial deliberation. It is elephantine in its slowness.
The reptile is in fact not by any means unlike in these
particulars to its fellow-dweller upon tree-tops — the
American sloth. Finally, the lean and really emaciated
form of the chamaeleon mark it out as something greatly
different from the ordinary run of lizards, who are plump
in comparison. This leanness, however, has its uses.
The chamaeleon has, somewhat rashly for so small a
creature, an ungovernable temper ; it literally swells
with anger, grunts, bites and flashes changes of colour.

242

CHAMELEON

To face p. 242]

LUNGS AND AIR SACS

If all this fails and the enemy is not to be daunted by
bluff, the chamaeleon relies upon its scragginess in this
way. Its lean sides, like those of a tiger, can by con-
traction of the muscles lying between the ribs become
still more attenuated. This accomplished, the chamae-
leon prudently, but in another sense to the usual one,
turns its back upon its foe, and remains perfectly quiet.
The leanness reduces its dimensions to those of a straight
line, which has no breadth, and seen in profile, the cham-
aeleon escapes unwelcome attention. Viewed internally,
the chamaeleon is quite as different from its Lacertilian
relatives as it is externally. The most prominent fea-
ture revealed by the dissecting knife is the curious tags
or blind outgrowths of the lungs, which spread through
the body and permit the animal to " visibly swell," as
has been already pointed out, when its emotions are
roused. That the lungs should have these connected
sacs, which do not perform a respiratory function at all,
for they have no blood-vessels, is a point of approxima-
tion to the air sacs of birds ; and constantly in consider-
ing the structure of reptiles do we come across points of
resemblance to their really near, but apparently so
widely different, fellow-countrymen the birds. We
have spoken hitherto of the chamaeleon ; but in truth,
there are very many different kinds of chamaeleons,
though the remarks made in the foregoing lines apply,
with the exception of a few points, to all of them. There
are at least sixty species of chamaeleons which exist only
in the Old World, and in that hemisphere live mostly in
Africa and Madagascar.

As they have all the same kind of habits the differences
between the various species are not very striking, except
for a half a dozen or so of species which belong to two
separate genera known as Brookesia and Rhamphokon,
which have the merest stumpy apology for a tail. The
difference is quite analogous to the long and prehensile

243

BROOKESIA AND RHAMPHOLEON

tailed monkeys of the New World and to the tailless or
stumpy tailed forms among the monkeys of the Old
World. But in the case of the chamaeleons all are Old
World. Male and female chamaeleons often show exter-
nal differences, some of which are quaint and exagger-
ated. The common chamaeleon, which is African, and
just extends into Europe and Asia Minor, shows the
slightest difference of this kind ; in the male, the casque,
as we may term the posterior projecting end of the head,
is longer than in the female. Several species, appropri-
ately named " Calcarifer " and " Calcaratus " on this
very account, have a kind of spur on the hind legs just
above the ankle, which spurs are again peculiar to the
males. But the most extraordinary difference of the
kind is to be seen in a few forms, of which a species found
high up at an altitude of 6,000 feet on Mount Ruwenzori,
in tropical Africa, forms an example. This chamaeleon,
which was named after Sir Harry Johnston, presents us
with three long horns upon the forehead, which give to
this reptile a most truculent aspect. Another species
from the same mountain has in front of the nose a for-
wardly directed bony outgrowth. No chamaeleons are
very large. Brookesia and Rhampholeon, just alluded
to, are quite tiny, three inches or so. So, too, is the
",dwarf chamaeleon," a South African species, charac-
terized by its green colour and by a patch on the side of
a beautiful brick red. On the other hand, the giant of
the tribe, Chameleon parsoni, is a couple of feet or so in
length.

THE MONITOR OF THE NILE

Varanus niloticus is the full-dress name of a large
lizard whose habitat is indicated by it s name, but which
also strays into other parts of Africa. It is one of a
genus of lizards entirely confined to the Old World, which
has been variously termed Monitor, Varanus, Regenia,

244

AQUATIC LIZARDS

Hydrosaurus, and some few other appellations, but which
are all of the same genus ; this genus forms a family all
to itself, occupying a very isolated position in the lizard
series. To the casual eye, however, uninstructed in the
technicalities of zoology, the monitor is a very average-
looking lizard, distinguishable chiefly by its greater size,
and by its rather long neck. But there is a good deal
more in the monitor than meets the eye of the mere
observer. Recourse must be had to the scalpel to em-
phasize the divergences of the monitor from other lizards.
It will be readily understood without a comprehensive
knowledge of zoology, that it stands on a higher plane
than most of its relatives by reason of the more compli-
cated structure of the lungs ; for this added complexity
means more efficient breathing and thus better aeration
of the blood, and the effects may be felt in every part of
the body. A long neck, too, is evidence of advance, for
the lower creatures, frogs, fish, and most lizards, are
quite apoplectic as to neck, and as a consequence their
hearts are in their throats. The heart of Varanus is
placed farther back, and it is thus more like the higher
animals, such as birds and mammals. But these details
are mentioned in order to illustrate the fact that it is
rash in zoology to judge entirely by external appear-
ance ; they show that two creatures much alike to out-
ward view, may be profoundly different in reality. There
are about thirty-four or -five different species of
monitors, of which we figure here, V. gouldi ; the largest
is not the lizard of the Nile, but a huger beast — even
seven feet in length — which inhabits certain parts of
tropical Asia, and whose name is Varanus salvator.
Most of these creatures are of a " subfusc " hue, but get
brighter in certain places, an added yellowness being the
chief alteration. There is certainly one form which is
variegated by bright green. Being ground-living crea-
ture » a^so addicted to water, the dusky hues are more

245

NAME OF MONITOR

useful to them than greater brilliancy of colour. They
are all of them fiercely carnivorous, and they do not
despise carrion ; even the remains of mortals who have
undergone tree " burial " in the East are apt to be de-
voured, while small mammals and other creeping things
are readily eaten. The monitor of the Nile is particularly

MONITOR LIZARD.

fond of crocodiles' eggs. The examples at the Zoo are
often given eggs, which they swallow cleverly without
breaking the shell and spilling the contents. For the
name monitor several explanations have been given ;
the one most in favour is perhaps that it is due to a mis-
understanding of the Arabic word for the lizard. Another
is, that it gives notice of the approach of a crocodile. In
connexion with this legend, it is remarkable that the

246

AN AMERICAN LIZARD

same idea has fixed itself to quite another kind of lizard,
inhabiting South America. This lizard, formerly placed
in the near neighbourhood of the monitor, is known as
the Teguexin, and is referred to on another page. Both
ilzards have got the reputation, apparently entirely unde-
served, of being a friend to the human race, by giving
notice of a prowling alligator. It would be interesting
to know whether the idea was conveyed to the natives
of South America by white men acquainted with the
Old World monitor and its reputation, or whether it is
part of an original stock of legends carried from the east
to the west or vice versa by migrating tribes, who colon-
ized the one half of the world from the other.

THE IGUANA LIZARD

The whole family of lizards to which Iguana belongs
are, with a very few exceptions, American in range, and
they are for the far greater part denizens of the central
and southern parts of that continent, and of the adjacent
West Indies, which, zoologically considered, are part of
America. The family is a very large one ; but the genus
Iguana itself, which has given the name to the family, is
a very small one, and, indeed, consists of at most three
different species. The one most familiar to those visit-
ing the Zoo is undoubtedly Iguana tuberculata, which is
green in colour, diversified with brown in part, and has
an extremely long and, at the end, thin tail. Along the
head are a series of tooth-like crests, and under the chin
hangs a dewlap like that of an Indian zebu. The iguana
lives in trees ; and this habit of living at some altitude
seems to beget thoughtfulness, which takes the form in
our specimens at the Zoo of extreme immobility. For
hours — perhaps if we were there to see we should find it
to be days — the iguana sits and does nothing. It is a
lizard that has, for a lizard, the uncommon habit of being
vegetarian. There are others which share this mode

247

IGUANA AND IGUANODON

of life ; but vegetarianism in reptiles is not at all common.
The crests along the back and the general attitude of the
iguana, evidently suggested to the late Mr. Waterhouse
Hawkins the pose for the Iguanodon in the grounds of
the Crystal Palace. That extinct creature — an idea of
which can be better gained by an inspection of a plaster
cast, now on view in the Natural History Museum at
South Kensington, of one of the magnificent Bernissart
iguanodons in the Museum at Brussels — was named
by a certain likeness which its teeth show to that of the
iguana, a likeness very possibly to be accounted for by
the fact that both are, or were, vegetable -feeding reptiles.
However, our iguana has nothing whatever to do with
its semi-namesake. It is a true lizard and not a Dinosaur
as is the Iguanodon. This lizard grows to several feet
in length, of which the tail forms a considerable propor-
tion. Being a plant eater, its flesh is succulent and
sought after, and is said to taste like chicken. It is
hunted with dogs, before whose keen noses the protec-
tive colours of the iguana are useless to it. The common
iguana occasionally varies from the typical appearance,
and some of the scales upon the nose grow out into horny
excrescences. " Rhinolopha " is the appropriate name
given to this variety which is, however, not a variety in
the sense that is it a distinct form unconnected by inter-
mediate grades with the typical Iguana tuber culata.
Every intermediate condition occurs, and thus we see
that there can be no question of two species. The
iguana of Santa Lucia in the West Indies (referred to a
different genus) grows to five or six feet in length, and
appears to be of a brighter green when young than when
full grown, a fact which is in accord with the greater need
for protection of the young against their many foes.
The full grown iguana is by no means an easy prey to
those creatures which attack it, and the late Mr. P. H.
Gosse observed of it that it " directs its eye to the object

248

AN AGGRESSIVE IGUANA

of attack with a peculiar sinister look " ; the sinister
character of this offensive gaze seems to be due to the
fact that the reptile does not move its eyes at all, but
turns its head with decision and deliberation towards

IGUANA LIZARD.

the foe, following his movements with a fiercely prepared
aspect. When it does attack the attack is often made
with the tail, the serrated crest of which causes it to cut
like a saw. Arboreal though the iguana is for the greater
part of its days, it does occasionally leave its tree. This
occurs_especially during the breeding season, when the

249

THE PARIETAL EYE

iguana deposits its eggs in the sand of the seashore in
such localities as enable it to reach the sea. Oddly
enough it is said that though the iguana can swim with
ease, it objects to sea water, which, in view of the locality
chosen by it for egg laying, is curious. An ally of the
iguana, the marine lizard, Oreocephahis of the Galapagos,
does not share this distaste for sea water ; it is an inter-
esting fact that even iguanas can be submerged for a
long time in water without being drowned ; and it will be
remembered that Darwin tried, and in vain, to drown
an Oreocephalus. The dewlap under its chin is not an
inflatable structure, as some have thought or at least
asserted ; but a very near ally of Iguana, known as
Metopoceros cornutus, has a really dilatable throat pouch
with which to express anger and perhaps also convey
terror. This last iguana is black where our iguana is
green ; and yet it is also arboreal.

AN ANCIENT LIZARD

For hours together this reptile will sit like Saturn,
" quiet as a stone," with hardly a blink of eyelid to indi-
cate that it is not intended, like the chamois of Mark
Twain, to fulfil obligations towards the visitor. The
quiet atttude is not, however, an attribute of Sphenodon
(or Hatteria) punctata only. It is common to the reptile
tribe who live often two lives in sharp contrast. At
times the eye can hardly follow the brisk movements of
a small lizard ; at other times it is as if carved or stuffed.
The tuatera presents no features which mark it out to
the uninstructed eye as anything unlike the average of
lizards. And, indeed, if all we had to judge by were
external form and habits, Hatteria would be most un-
questionably relegated without doubt to the Lacertilia.
It has blackish olive hues, which are not unknown in the
lizard tribe. The close-set crest along the back is to be
seen in the iguana ; even the " parietal eye," so con-

250

STRUCTURE OF HATTERIA

spicuous in this animal as a clear mark on the top of the
skull, is equally well shown in Iguana. There is nothing
odd about the limbs or the tail. In short it is not sur-
prising that, until its interior arrangements were made
out, the Hatteria was considered to be, what it certainly
is not, a quite typical lizard. The fact is, that if we are
to use the term lizard, that word must be decidedly put
into inverted commas, as a token that its use is a con-
cession to popular language. As a matter of fact there
is no vernacular word which will express just exactly
what the Hatteria is. Zoologists regard it as an early
offshoot from the stem which produced not only lizards
and snakes, but possibly, also, some other now existing
types of reptiles. But we cannot call it either a pro-
Lacertilian or a pro-reptile, though to the mind of the
present writer it is mostly Lacertilian. We must content
ourselves with calling it for the present simply by its
name. The bony characters which distinguish Hatteria
from lizards pervade the whole skeleton, and would
require a little too much technical exposition for their
due setting forth. But everyone can appreciate the
fact that the lungs have not yet undergone the modifica-
tions that they have in the true lizards and snakes. In
the lizards, and much more in the snakes, the end of the
lung farthest away from the entrance of the windpipe
into it has partly or entirely ceased to have a respiratory
function. Its walls are here thin and not so markedly
honeycombed in structure as is the rest of the lung.
Furthermore, in very many lizards the lung is com-
pletely or partially divided into two or more compart-
ments. In Hatteria the lung is an efficient lung through-
out, and is a simple undivided sac. We are acquainted
with a good many extinct relatives of Hatteria which
carry us back to very early geological times. Its allies
then flourished in Europe and in other parts of the world.
Now the sphenodon is confined not only to New Zealand

251

EGG-LAYING HABITS

but to certain small islands off the main islands. They
are particularly common apparently in Stephen's island,
where their breeding habits have been observed. At the
Zoo they have been given every chance to let us into
these mysteries, but without avail. The reptile lays
eggs in a burrow which it inhabits in perfect amity with

HATTERIA LIZARD.

various birds, like several other burrowing animals that
we deal with in this book, such as the American prairie
dog and vizcacha. In these burrows it deposits its eggs,
carrying them in in its mouth after actually " laying "
them outside. Why this elaboration of instinct should
have been evolved does not seem easy of explanation.

252

SHEDDING OF SKIN IN SNAKES

The young when they leave the egg are not coloured like
their parents, a common occurrence among animals ;
they also illustrate another common feature in the col-
oration of young creatures, which is that they are
striped. The young pig and the young tapir are other
examples of this same phenomenon. And it has been
attempted to be proved by these and other causes, that
animals in the course of their development go through a
regular series of colour changes which are necessary
accompaniments of that evolution. The tuatera can
bite, and that effectively, since it possesses what few
lizards do, an additional set of teeth upon the palatine
bones which form part of the roof of the mouth, addi-
tional, that is to say, to those upon the upper and lower
jaws. Its native name of tuatera seems to mean " pos-
sessing spines," and refers to its crest.

SNAKES : THE ORDER OPHIDIA.
Although the limbless lizards, such as the blind-worm
and the European scheltopusik (Ophisaurus apus), dealt
with on a previous page, run the snakes rather close in
outward appearance, it is really not difficult to distinguish
by external appearance and behaviour the Ophidia from
the Lacertilia. The limbless, and so far, snake-like
lizard has a milder look than the true snake, whose re-
lentless and unwinking eyes produce even in the harm-
less kinds that feeling of repulsion which is apt to be felt
for the serpent. The mildness of the lizard is due to the
fact that it has movable eyelids, while the eyes of the
snake have no such eyelids, but are covered with a single
and transparent scale ; this is removed when the snake
sheds its skin and comes off with it in the form of a watch
glass. That the geckos have not for the most part eye-
lids does not lead to any confusion, for the blind-worms
which offer the most difficulties have. The movements
of the legless lizards have not that finished ease which

253

THE EGG-EATING SNAKE

attends the gliding of the snake. The former suggest
forcibly that they want practice in the art of walking
without limbs. When the snake feeds it engulphs its
food in a way totally different to that of the lizard. The
two halves of the lower jaw, instead of being bound to-
gether by solid bony union, as in the lizards, for the most
part, are only connected by softish ligament, and thus
can be stretched and allow their possessor to manage a
very big morsel. The lizards are compelled to exercise
greater moderation in the size of their prey. Were a
python a lizard, it would have to be content with rats
instead of being able to get outside a goat. A flickering
bifid tongue is a character of the snakes, and though it is
found in lizards it is not by any means universal in that
group. For the rest, snakes have, like lizards, the same
alternation between extreme alertness and sluggish
laziness. Snakes are entirely animal feeders and devour
living prey, with the exception of two egg-eating snakes,
of which one, the African Dasypeltis scabra, is often to
be seen at the Zoo. Lizards vary their diet more, and
they not only eat living prey and eggs, but also are in
the case of some species, vegetarians. When we come
to internal characters there are more means of distin-
guishing between the two orders. The principal one, and
it is one that is not usually so much dwelt upon in books
contrasting the anatomy of the two groups, is seen in
the way in which the internal organs are packed in the
body. In all lizards the stomach, intestines, liver, and
so forth, lie in a spacious cavity known to anatomists as
the ccelom. In snakes the ccelom is still there ; but,
instead of forming one large cavity, with plenty of room
for more organs than already lie in it, it is divided up
into a series of more restricted cavities, in each of which
lies some special organ. Thus, the long and narrow
liver is enveloped in two sacs meeting in its middle line
and showing incidentally that the apparently single-

254

SEA SERPENTS

lobed liver is really made up of two lobes, though they
are closely adpressed. In the same way other organs
are contained in other compartments. The lizards'
body cavity and viscera suggest a scantily filled and
loosely packed portmanteau ; that of the lizard a full
and closely packed box.

Snakes are quite as numerous as lizards, and have
much the same range ; they are, like the lizards, parti-
cularly abundant in the tropics. Iceland, as we all
know, has no snakes, and generally speaking, as with
lizards, they wane in numbers towards the north. The
three British snakes, viz. the grass snake (Tropidontus
natrix), the smooth snake (Coronella aiistriaca), and the
viper (Viper a berus), are almost, if not quite, always on
view at the Zoo. As with lizards, there are terrestrial,
arboreal, aquatic, and even marine snakes. But the
marine snakes are much more marine than is the iguan-
oid lizard, Oreocephalus, which lives largely in the sea
off the Galapagos. Such genera as Distira, Hydrus,
Platyurus, are, with a few exceptions, purely marine and
pelagic, living at the surface of the ocean and preying
upon fish. These snakes are hardly likely, from the
nature of the case, to be seen at the Zoo. Besides these
marine snakes a large number of serpents of various kinds
spend a large part of their time in freshwater ponds,
ditches, etc. For example, the North American water
viper (Ancistrodon piscivorus), and even the common
grass snake. At the opposite extreme is the desert-
haunting Cleopatra's asp (Cerastes cornuta), with the
projecting and horn-like scale above each eye. Though
whether the Egyptian queen did not avail herself of the
African cobra (Naia haje) is a moot question. These
desert snakes are, like the desert-loving lizards and
mammals, and even birds, clad in desert colours. Ar-
boreal snakes are exemplified by the boas, and by such
types as the green viper, dealt with later. There are

255

AFFINITIES OF BOAS

also harmless and green snakes, which frequent trees.
Snakes are divisible into a considerable series of families.
The most important of these are the Boidae, the Colu-
bridae and the Viperidae. The Boidae are, as the names
suggests, the Boa constrictor and its allies, the pythons,
anaconda, and the European and Old World genus,
Eryx, besides some less known forms.

The greatest interest attaching to these snakes is that
they stand at the base of the Ophidian series ; they have
not so completely lost the characteristics of the more
lizard-like form from which snakes, as we think, must
have been derived. For they possess what no snakes,
except certain immediate allies of their own, belonging
however to other families, possess, distinct rudiments of
the hind limbs, which are even visible externally, as a
small claw on either side of the vent. They have also
two lungs, whereas in the more modified snakes the lungs
have dwindled down to a single one and, at the most, a
tiny rudiment of the other. This reduction of the lungs
is also seen in the limbless lizards, but it is not so fully
carried out in all of them as it is in the modified vipers
among snakes. Otherwise the pythons and boas are
typical snakes to all outward appearance, and have no
essential peculiarities externally, which mark them off as
something distinct from other snakes, save only the
hooks already mentioned. Allied to the Boidae are
several families of small and burrowing snakes, such as
the Typhlopidae, Ilysiidae, and Uropeltidae, of which
representatives are not, as a rule, to be seen at the Zool-
ogical Gardens.

The Colubridae, or Colubrine snakes embrace the vast
majority of species of the snake tribe, and the family
includes some of the most deadly of their kind. People
used to group together the venomous as opposed to the
non-venomous serpents ; but it is now seen that this
physiological attribute is not sufficient to outweigh real

256

POISONOUS SNAKES

anatomical distinctions between various snakes. So
that the poisonous vipers are not nowadays placed
with poisonous cobras. These Colubridae, which are
poisonous, are usually grouped together into two series,
named in accordance with the fact that the poison fangs
are anterior or posterior. In the " Proteroglypha " it is
some of the anterior teeth in the upper jaw which are
grooved and transmit the deadly venom. In the " Opis-
thoglypha' ' it is on the contrary, the posterior. The fangs
of the viper are dealt with under the description of the
tree viper below. The essential difference between the
venomous colubrine and the venomous viper is the
reduction of the poison fangs, and the maxillary bone
which bears them, in the latter, and the fact that the
teeth are not merely grooved for the transmission of the
ducts of the salivary glands which secrete the poison,
but actually perforated at the base as well as grooved
further up.

THE SUCURUJU OR ANACONDA

The first of the two above names is the best one to use
for this, the largest of the snake tribe. For it is actually
an " Indian " word in use in South America, whereas
anaconda is apparently Ceylonese in origin. Another
vernacular name is Water Camoodie, in contrast to
Camoodie, which refers in British Guiana to the boas,
including the well-known Boa constrictor. Eunectes muri-
nus is the technical name of the best known species of
anaconda, for of these snakes there are more than one
kind. They inhabit only tropical South America, and
would seem to be undoubtedly the largest living serpent.
Thirty-three feet has been registered, and others say
thirty-seven, or even over forty. But skins will stretch
and imaginations also. Still it is big, and its size may
be the cause, taken into conjunction with its habitat,
of part of the sea-serpent legends. There seems to be
Z.G, 257 S

LIMBS OF ANACONDA

every probability that this mythical beast is compounded
of many elements. The sucuruju is both aquatic and
arboreal, so that its chances of being washed out to sea
in an unusual spate are more than those of some other
large snakes. Given an unusually large anaconda and
a mariner cheered by a double allowance of grog, twi-
light and a stormy sea, and we have a good sea-serpent
basis at once. The anaconda (after all, " sucuruju " is
a tiresome word to say and to spell) grows very thick ;
and its head, which is large, is divided from its body by
a slender neck, instead of running into it as in the Euro-
pean allies of the anaconda, the snakes called Eryx.
It may seem absurd to say that this serpent has a parti-
cularly short tail ; for serpents seem to be either all
neck or all tail. But as a matter of fact, on the whole
serpents differ from lizards by the fact that they have a
short tail, while lizards have a long one. The tail is
marked in the anaconda by a pair of short recurved
claws, which, with some adjacent bonelets, are the re-
mains of the hind pair of limbs present also in all the
pythons and other immediate allies of the anaconda,
but absent in other snakes, such as the vipers and colu-
brines. The colour of this serpent is olive brown, with
black marks along the back. Like the great pythons of
Asia and Africa, the anaconda often, especially just
after it has shed its skin, and gotten a new one — shows
beautiful iridescent hues. It brings forth its young
alive, as do the vipers. The anaconda is one of the
" constricting " snakes, that is, it crushes the life out of
its prey by winding round it before proceeding to eat it.
Much has been written about the deadly fascination
exercised by this and other snakes upon their intended
prey, which have been said to approach gradually to
their foe, allured by its brilliant eyes and steady stare.
As a matter of fact these legends of fascination appear
to be based upon two facts. Firstly, the flickering

258

FASCINATION OF SNAKES

tongue of the snake, so constant in its motions, naturally
attracts, as would any moving object, the attention of
small creatures suitable for food. Secondly, a state of
catalepsy, due to nervous shock and terror, is a common
event in the lives of various creatures. It is not the
fascination of the snake, but an overpowering sense of
dread that overcomes the bird or mammal upon which
the anaconda is steadily advancing. Another legend
concerning the snake is, that it lubricates its prey before
swallowing it. This is sheer invention. The actual
swallowing takes place without any such lubrication,
which indeed, with the small salivary glands at the dis-
posal of the snake, would be impossible. But it occa-
sionally happens that after swallowing, the object
swallowed is disgorged by fear or other emotion. Then
it emerges into the daylight, covered of course with the
viscid secretions of the oesophagus or stomach, a circum-
stance which may readily have given rise to the com-
monly held view. The anaconda feeds principally upon
reptiles, fishes, and mammals — in fact, upon anything
that comes handy. A catholic taste in meat is the pre-
vailing fashion among snakes, there being but rare ex-
ceptions, such as the egg-eating snake of Africa, Dasy-
•peltis scabra. Its habit of lurking in or by streams, is
well suited to its tastes ; for all mammals must come and
drink at times. The murky backwaters of South
America do not lend themselves to clear vision ; and it is
therefore not surprising to learn that in the anaconda
the sense of sight does not help it so much in detecting
its prey as the sense of hearing and then touch. It
is said that when rats are introduced into a cage con-
taining this serpent it does not begin to " take notice "
until the rats begin to squeak. Their dolorous notes
arouse the attention of the snake ; it pricks up its ears
so to say, and on the first contact with the exploring
rodents winds its deadly coil round them. Like the

259

DOES THE ANACONDA ATTACK MAN ?

famous snapping- turtle of the Bongaultier ballads, the
anaconda eats alligators. That this is an actual habit
of the snake was discovered, to his cost, by a German
gentleman, who purchased examples of both and left
them together through stress of accommodation. To
tackle an alligator, even for an anaconda, is a serious
matter. Mr. Quelch relates that a fight between the
two reptiles, ending in victory for the snake, took two
days. It all depends, as with wrestlers, upon the way
in which the snake succeeds in laying hold of the alli-
gator. When in an advantageous position from the
snake's point of view, victory is assured. Besides alli-
gators, the anaconda devours teguexin lizards, for
which it appears to have a partiality ; it has been known
to swallow such large beasts as peccaries and wood deer.
Oddly enough, its specific name of " murinus " has been
given to it on account of the fact that its small young
eat mice. It is a moot point whether the anaconda will
attack human beings. There is a general belief that it
will do so, and a consequent dread of the Ophidian in
many parts of South America. And there are cases of
anacondas having seized hold of a human being. A boy
washing rice in a stream was laid hold of by one of these
snakes but liberated by his father. In this case it is
thought that the mere movement of the water led the
snake to the wrong impression that some convenient fish
was in the neighbourhood. So bathing where there
are anacondas is not certainly dangerous, though an
accidental nip would not be a pleasant thing to occur,
and is rather uncanny to contemplate. Naturally, the
anaconda has 'given rise to legend. Anything big al-
ways does. Along the Amazons Mr. Bates relates that
this serpent is the origin of a legend of a huge freshwater
sea-serpent, to speak Hibernically, named Mai d'Agoa,
mother or spirit of the water. There is also the Min-
hocao, an equally fabulous beast who tunnels the mud

260

FEROCITY OF HAMADRYAD

and overthrows trees as they stand in its path. But
this creature has probably grown out of an activating
Lediposiren, or even, as some say, an unusually large
earthworm ! There are always, or nearly always,
anacondas at the Zoo, and those of fair proportions.

THE KING COBRA OR HAMADRYAD
Rather lurid in colour and very ferocious in habit
is this, the largest of all poisonous serpents. It is a
native of the torrid East, and extends pretty well all the
way from India to Sumatra. Considering its con-
spicuous size, it is not a little odd that it should have
been first made known to science so recently as the year
J837, when Dr. Cantor described it. But the visitor
to the Reptile House will soon gather why this long
and venomous snake should have been overlooked.
It is really extremely like a cobra, as indeed its ver-
nacular name or, better, one of its many vernacular
names, suggests. The same smallish head with clear
scaling, brownish to blackish hues, elegant and taper-
ing body, that are seen in the cobra mark the hama-
dryad. There is even a legend that the earliest repre-
sentative of this species to reach the Zoological Gardens
was inadvertently placed in a case with a family of
cobras, and that being hungry after a long voyage it
ate up £50 worth before its full identity was thoroughly
established. Anyhow, the hamadryad bears a great
superficial likeness to the spectacled cobra, so great a
likeness, indeed, that some systematists, influenced
entirely by superficialities, as systematic zoologists
are unfortunately apt to be, have bracketed it with
the cobra in the same genus, Naia. More far-seeing
was Dr. Cantor, who separated it, a conclusion which
recent investigations into its internal arrange-
ments, particularly the structure of the windpipe,
have fully justified. 1837 was the year which wit-

261

LENGTH OF SNAKES

nessed the first disentangling of the hamadryad from
the cobra as a distinct serpent. It was not until 1875
that the first live specimen ever reached Europe. This
individual arrived at the Zoological Gardens in that
year, and survived for no less than twelve years. From
that time to the present there have been many, and
some of them large ones. Length in a serpent is a matter
which is apt to be exaggerated. The one thing which
a serpent has got to be is to be long. But with all the
stretching in the world the hamadryad cannot be
pulled out to more than fifteen feet, and twelve feet
is perhaps a better estimate of its extreme length.
With misleading pedantry the British Museum catalogue
of snakes calls it 3,900 millimetres ! No creature that
is not enclosed in a hard box like a tortoise or an insect
can be measured with such absolute accuracy. The
colour above is brown to black, with a whitish belly,
and in young examples there are yellow bands. It has
been pointed out in the case of the cobra that legend
has it that the blacker specimens are the more ferocious.
Melanism, or a darkening of normal hues, is a not
uncommon phenomenon in the animal world ; but to
associate it .with a correspondingly increased fierceness
is perhaps making the creature out to be blacker than
Nature has painted it. Nevertheless, we learn from
the poet that the dark-coloured South is " fierce and
fickle."

The name hamadryad is plainly to be derived from
the tree-frequenting habits of Ophiophagus bimgarus,
as the full scientific name runs. From this " bad
eminence " the serpent is said to look out for a coolie,
and then to descend upon him in an unexpected shower
of writhing coils. Exaggeration apart, it does seem
to be proved that during the breeding season, that
time of fierce irritability in many beasts and birds, the
hamadryad is more apt to lose its temper, and to

262

VIPERS AND COLUBRINES

attack with little or no provocation. The second of
the better known " popular " names, i.e. King Cobra,
is a name which has possibly been referred to the hama-
dryad from the cobra itself. Legend again — in snake
natural history there is much that is legendary — to use
a non-provocative expression, relates that a large
snake was observed to utter a peculiar note, and that
from neighbouring thickets out came a crowd of
smaller snakes, who prostrated themselves before the
monarch ; he, however, selected a fat one for imme-
diate consumption. But there is this basis of truth
recorded in the scientific name — that the Ophiophagus
is a snake-eater by choice ; specimens at the Zoo are
fed upon common English grass snakes, which they
eat almost after the fashion of an Englishman devour-
ing a stick of asparagus.

The older naturalists put together all the poisonous
snakes, and separated them from the harmless varieties,
and in this way associated the vipers and the cobras.
But we now know that one set of poisonous snakes is
not very nearly related to the other. In the vipers the
poison teeth have the characters that we have already
dealt with, and which we need not therefore recapitu-
late. In this snake the hinder series of teeth are merely
grooved, and the poison pours along all or any of them
with indifference to reach the wound which they have
made,

THE GREEN TREE VIPER

The snake is apt to be as wily nowadays as he was
in the Garden of Eden some time since ; but his guile
takes a different form. The aim of the modern serpent
is the honest and straightforward one of securing as
much food as possible, and of escaping his enemies.
In order to accomplish these two aims resource is had
to varied forms of deception. Sheer strength, and
even the possession of formidable fangs with poison

263

A GREEN SNAKE

bags attached, is not enough to ensure success in life
for any of the punier snakes of to-day. We find
therefore, a variety of ways in which these creatures
confront their foes in the struggle for existence. The
viper in question, Lachesis gramineus, is certainly one
of, if not the most beautiful serpent in existence. Its

GREKN TREE VIPER.

whole body is of an exquisite grassy green ; its pro-
portions are elegant, and the diamond-shaped head,
so characteristic of vipers, only adds to the graceful-
ness of its outline. It has avoided the coarse puffiness
of the rattlesnake and the somewhat scraggy pro-
portions of the British viper. Like all vipers, it is
provided with one or two fangs on each side of the
upper jaw, which are replaced by others when they
are worn out or dropped ; and, as in other vipers, these
teeth are tubes leading from the duct of the poison

264

VIPERS AND PIT VIPERS

gland to the wound which their sharp end has made
in some hostile or edible creature. The reduction of
the poison fangs and their tubular, not merely grooved,
structure is a mark of the viperine dentition. More-
over, this particular viper has a little pit on the side
of the face, as has the rattlesnake, from which char-
acter it is known as a pit viper, a distinction from the
common viper of this country and its allies, which are
perfect as vipers, but have no pit. This snake haunts
the leafy branches of trees, and, as we suppose, in
accordance with that habit, its uniform hue hides it
when motionless. This same shade of green is not
uncommon among reptiles. It is to be seen, for ex-
ample, in the European green lizard, and in a very
beautiful gecko from Madagascar, which has the name
of Phelsuma madagascariensis, in various chamaeleons,
and in other forms. The green is of the same timbre
in all of them. This little viper is therefore doubly
armed to hold its own. It can escape observation by
its harmonious colouring, harmonious, that is to say,
with leafy or grassy surroundings, and it can give a
thoroughly good account of itself if detected.

ORDER CHELONIA

The tortoises and turtles form an assemblage about
the limits of which there can be no possible mistake.
They are encased more or less completely in a bony
box, which is generally overlaid by epidermic scales,
quite comparable with those of lizards. The bony box
is produced by ossifications within the skin, and has,
of course, nothing to do with the skeleton proper,
although its bones are often fused with bones of the
true skeleton. The Chelonia also have toothless jaws,
the want of teeth being to some extent compensated
by the existence of a horny sheath to the jaws, which
is exactly comparable to the bird's beak.

265

LARGE TORTOISES

It is to be noticed, however, that the skin skeleton
of the tortoise tribe is not absolutely sui generis. In
detail, of course, nothing like it is found in any other
reptile at present known. But the dorsal part of the
box or carapace is, of course, to be compared with
the dorsal bony skin shields of crocodiles, while the
same comparison holds good with regard to the ventral
plastron, which is, moreover, comparable to the thin
ossifications found on the ventral surface of Hatteria,
and in that reptile termed abdominal ribs. Toothless-
ness happens not to be an attribute of any living group
of reptiles except the Chelonia ; but there are extinct
families, though not orders, which are in the same
way without teeth. Here, as elsewhere in Nature,
hard and fast lines of demarcation do not exist. The
selection of tortoises at the Zoo is a considerable one
at any time.

TESTUDO DAUDINI

This tortoise is actually the largest living repre-
sentative of the giant tortoises of the world. Large
tortoises do not differ from small ones, such as the
Testudo grceca of southern Europe, and of our streets
in London at certain times. That is to say, they are
anatomically not separable, though vastly exceeding
them in size, and also characterized by a varying
number of small external and other features, which
allow us to place the large tortoises in several species.
At present we only find very large tortoises on small
islands. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that the
smaller the island the larger are its tortoises. This is
very unexpected, because, among the mammalia at
any rate, beasts seem to require a spacious environ-
ment to attain to any bulk. Madagascar, for example,
has small mammals, while in the forests of the neigh-

266

TORTOISES OF THE GALAPAGOS

bouring continent of Africa range the elephant and the
rhinoceros. The Indian elephant and the Indian
species of rhinoceros do not flourish in the smaller
islands of the Eastern Archipelago. With the tor-
toises it is otherwise. The Mascarene islands and the
Galapagos Archipelago are the spots haunted by the
biggest existing tortoises, of which the species
T. daudini, from the south island of Aldabra, has fur-
nished us with the largest living tortoise ; that speci-
men was until recently alive at the Zoo. The puzzle
as to how they got upon these islands is like that of the
flies in amber or the apples in the dumpling. We can
only infer, and inference has been of two kinds. It
has been held that the Mascarene islands and the
Galapagos are the last vestiges of submerged conti-
nents, from which other inhabitants have dwindled
away in correspondence with the shrinking of terra
firma ; only the tortoises remained, and finding the
locality congenial and competition scarce, they waxed
fat and grew in bulk. Viewed in this way the presence
of these giants is a clue to formerly existing continents.
On the other hand, it is not so certain that they may
not have reached the islands, when they were islands,
by sea transit. Heavy though the colossal tortoises
of the Galapagos are, they will breast the waves of the
pond in their enclosure with some success, and float
in quite a feathery fashion upon its bosom. If one
tortoise, heavy with eggs, were safely piloted across
the waves, a colony would be formed, and this event
repeated once a century would account for all the facts.
The success when once arrived at is not difficult of
understanding ; it is the mode of arrival which puzzles
us. The great Testudo daudini, once at the Zoo, and
to which reference has been made, measured fifty-five
inches along the shell. To this has to be added some-
thing for length of neck, and some of these big tor-

267

A FOSSIL TORTOISE

toises, like the smaller ones, can crane their necks to
the extent of a good many inches. This particular
beast forms an excellent instance of the longevity of
cold-blooded tortoises. At first sight there seems to
be no particular reason why they should not be posi-
tively immortal. They can reduce breathing, feeding,
and the other necessities of life to their lowest terms,
and thus exist torpidly for months together. Why
should they not husband out life's taper indefinitely ?
It was asserted to be at any rate 150 years old, and
observations have been made upon other species and
specimens, tending to prove the fact that they can
survive for many years. The word Galapagos is good
Castilian for tortoise, and is analogous to Robben
Island, so named on account of its sea lions, and Puffin
Island on our own coasts. It was there that Darwin
rode triumphantly upon a great reptile, though the
task is not so easy as might seem, for, in spite of its
apparent lethargy, the animal can perform the testu-
dinian equivalent of shrugging its shoulders, and one
is apt to be dislodged in the process. All these tor-
toises, however, pale their ineffectual fires before a
great fossil of the Siwalik hills, described to the Zoo-
logical Society in 1844 by Dr. Falconer and Capt.
Cautley. Colossochelys atlas, appropriately so named,
had a carapace of over twelve feet in length, according
to the estimate from its fragmentary remains. This
tortoise, according to Indian cosmogony, sustained
an elephant, and that elephant in its turn the world.
That it could have sustained an elephant upon its
broad back is quite probable. These legends seem to
show that the tortoise, or one like it, lived down to
human times. In any case, the remains of extinct and
giant tortoises are found in many places, but the only
living giants come from the localities which we have
mentioned.

268

FLIPPERS OF TURTLE
THE GREEN TURTLE

The turtle, i.e. that of the Atlantic Ocean and of
aldermen, of green fat and of tortoiseshell, has been
from time to time on view at the Zoo. Indeed, fairly
big specimens have been acquired to show to the public.
It is not, however, from the nature of the case, a beast
which shows great longevity in Regent's Park.
This Chelonian, and its immediate allies, are to be dis-
tinguished from the land and aquatic tortoises by the
fact that the limbs are much more perfect swimming
organs. They have acquired the paddle form of the
fish fin and of the whale's flipper. In accordance with
this they are purely marine, and only go on shore to
lay their eggs. Like the testudinidae, to which they
are anatomically most nearly allied, they are vegetable
feeders. Like other animals that inhabit the sea, the
green turtle is very widely spread. That is a good
thing for the banqueting halls of London, but (to
quote a writer of some sixty years since) " it would be
quite superfluous to descant on the enthusiastic venera-
tion in which turtle soup is held by our wealthy and
discerning fellow-citizens." It may, however, be per-
missible to point out that turtle is a modern luxury.
In the year 1754, on " Saturday, July 13, the Right
Hon. the Lord Anson made a present to the gentlemen
of White's Chocolate House of a turtle which weighed
300 pounds weight." And again, in 1753, there occurs
this paragraph : " Friday, Aug. 31, a turtle weighing
350 pounds was eat at the King's Arms Tavern, Pall
Mall ; the mouth of an oven was taken down to admit
the part to be baked." These journalistic notes in-
dicate that turtle was not a very common article of
diet with our great-great-grandfathers. Turtles are
caught in nets, with harpoons, and by the help of the
sucking fish, Remora. When the reptiles come to

269

CARNIVOROUS CHELONIANS

shore to lay their eggs and are helpless, they are turned
over, and then removed at leisure. It is said that the
jaguar imitates man in this mode of catching turtles,
and that he scoops out the succulent flesh then and
there. The product known as " tortoiseshell " has
been mentioned. This, as a matter of fact, comes
more especially from the near ally of the green turtle,
Chelone midas, Ch. imbricata, the hawk's bill turtle.
Although useless for the purposes of Calipash and
Calipee, the hawk's bill turtle is much hunted for its
tortoiseshell. The pursuit of the turtle for its tortoise-
shell is as old as the Egyptians, who traded with the
Romans. The substance is, of course, made of the
epidermic scales exactly comparable to those of lizards
and snakes, which overlie the bony plates of the
carapace.

A " SNAPPING TURTLE "

Macroclemmys temminckii may be fairly regarded
as the prototype of the celebrated " snapping turtle "
of the Bongaultier ballads, finally put to rout by Rufus
Daws, and at whose approach alligators bounded up
the trees like squirrels. It is, in fact, called the alligator
terrapin, though not from its association with the
ballad referred to. It is so named by reason of fierce
and slightly alligator-like head, by its ridged tail, and
by reason of its carnivorous habits. These water
tortoises, in fact, are not vegetarians like the testu-
dinidae of the land. They attack fish, and feed gene-
rally upon living animals of such kinds as their bulk
and agility will allow them to capture. The difference
between this and other water tortoises and the land
tortoises is, that the limbs and tail, as well as the head,
are too large and stout to be withdrawn into the shelter
of the carapace. They are obliged, therefore, to trust

270

EYES OF MACROCLEMMYS

to themselves, and not to their " shell " for protection
in the hour of need. The Testudo grceca, for instance,
has only to retire into its shell, and wait patiently until
the enemy has rolled by, even if it rolls over the tor-
toise on its way. The fiercer terrapin can resent any
attack by a sharp bite ; it has no more teeth than its
pond relatives, but the beak is more hooked, and with
sharper edges. In spite of its ferocity, and Prof.
Louis Agassiz said that these tortoises " are as
ferocious as the wildest beast of prey," a large speci-
men at the Zoo appeared to remain quiescent for weeks
together. So quiet indeed was it that a copious growth
of green algae had collected upon its shell. It lay at
the bottom, often with its mouth open, in which
flickered little tags of skin, which possibly act as an
allurement to little fishes to wander in and to meet
with their death. Many animals are betrayed by
their eyes ; the puzzle is in this terrapin to find the
eyes at all, for they have an apparently unusual forward
position, and are coloured like the skin. A relentless
and gazing eye might be supposed to warn off prey ;
the glittering eyes of a snake, for instance, might be
held to be of the nature of a " warning coloration,"
to small birds and mammals. When urged to " Gouge
him, gouge him, darn ye, gouge him," the hero of the
snapping turtle incident might have well been unable
to comply. It is dangerous to generalize from single
cases, and the ancient Greeks, or at least the sculptor
Phidias, would not have placed the tortoise at the feet
of Venus as the symbol of gentleness had he been
acquainted with this martial beast.

ORDER CROCODILIA

The principal features of this Order are described
on the following pages.

2JI

ALLIGATORS AND CROCODILES

THE CHINESE ALLIGATOR

Until the year 1870 alligators were believed to be
purely New World Crocodilia, though crocodiles were
known to extend their range from East to West, indeed
from China to Peru. In 1870 this view was partly
proved to be inaccurate, and entirely so in 1879, when
the Chinese alligator, Alligator sinensis, was definitely
described from the Yang-tse-Kiang. To the visitor
to the Reptile House there will appear to be no great
facility for distinguishing Crocodiles from alligators.
And yet there are several points in which these two
divisions of the existing crocodilia can be observed to
differ from each other. The true alligators have the
fourth tooth on each side of the lower jaw fitted into
a pit in the upper jaw when both are closed, while in
the crocodiles this same tooth fits into a notch at the
corresponding spot in the upper jaw. Judged by this
standard the Chinese crocodilian is unquestionably
not a crocodile, but an alligator. The differences
which mark this Flowery Land alligator from others
of America are but slight, and both crocodiles and
alligators are linked so closely together that anatomy
is somewhat hard put to it to separate them by any
than the most trivial characters ; so that the general
features of the crocodile tribe can be as well illustrated
by the type we have selected as by any other. Other-
wise it might have seemed a little perverse to select for
the type of this group a creature which is not certainly
to be seen by vis'tors to the Zoo. It has, however,
been on view, and very possibly will be again.

The crocodile tribe can hardly be mistaken for any
other Saurians. And yet the very name alligator, a
corruption of the Spanish Una Lagarta, testifies to the
confusion which may spring in the non-zoological
mind. That the crocodiles and alligators are con-
fined to water only, leaving their streams and pools

272

CHARACTERS OF CROCODILES

to bask upon the shore, or to make short excursions in
quest of other pools, is not a feature which absolutely
differentiates the group from the lizards, for there are
many aquatic forms to be found there ; but it is a
feature which is characteristic of all crocodilians.
These reptiles do not follow the lacertilian plan of
shedding their skin in conspicuous bits ; the wear and
tear of the outer covering of the body is like that in our-
selves ; it is constant and imperceptible. Underneath
the scales are bony plates, which are mostly to be
found only upon the back, though in the caimans of
South America there are ventral scutes, as these
armoured plates are termed, in addition to those upon
the back. No lizard has so extensive a series of plates
of this kind, though there are corresponding, but only
slightly developed, plates in some forms. Many of
these plates, and the bones of the head also, are irregu-
larly pitted and honeycombed, a characteristic which
can be readily seen in crocodiles. The nostrils, it will
be noticed, are at the top of the snout, and the animal
can lie nearly submerged, with only the nostrils and
eyes projecting. An ingenious apparatus, not found
in lizards, enables crocodiles and alligators to swallow
their prey beneath the surface without running the
risk of choking themselves. The internal nostrils open
into the throat far back, and a soft downhanging pro-
cess shuts them off from the proper mouth cavity,
which can be thus opened and closed without admit-
ting water into the lungs. In internal anatomy the
differences which distinguish this group of reptiles are
numerous and profound.

Although the Chinese alligator was not known to
Europe forty years ago, the Chinese writers were well
acquainted with it, and heaped it round with much
legend and mystery. The N'Go or To, as this animal
is named, is said to attain to an extremely green old
Z.G. 273 T

AGE OF CHINESE ALLIGATOR

age ; indeed, its capacity for longevity has given rise
to a proverbial expression comparable to Methusaleh
or Old Parr among ourselves. The Chinese zoologists,
or curiosity-mongers, to use a more descriptive term,
variously termed the N'Go a fish, a dragon, and a
tortoise. They prized it in medicine, and Marco Polo
himself was gravely of opinion that its merits were
high ; the gall he recommended as a cure for the bite
of a mad dog. But its usefulness is by no means con-
fined to this disease, for, like certain much-advertised
drugs among ourselves, there appears to be no ill that
Chinese flesh is heir to that the carcass of this beast
will not furnish remedies for. As alligators and croco-
diles go, this Chinese representative of the family is
not large ; it is a dwarf beside the twenty-foot long
crocodiles, and still more so when compared with the
huge extinct Siwalik crocodilian, which measured
fifty feet from snout to end of tail. Of other croco-
diles and alligators plenty of examples are certain to
be in the Reptile House.

274

POSITION OF AMPHIBIA

CHAPTER IX

Amphibia and Fishes

THE amphibia, those cold-blooded and reptile-like
creatures, really stand midway between the
reptiles proper and the underlying fishes. A study even
of those characters which can be seen without recourse
to the scalpel help in fixing pretty definitely the place
of the amphibia in the scheme of Nature. It will be
convenient to emphasize the relationships and differ-
ences between the amphibia and the reptiles by taking
two representative types, one of each, and then com-
paring them character by character. Later the results
can be amended by the consideration of exceptions, so
as to apply to the whole group in either case. We may
select for our comparison the North American Meno-
branchus, of which there are practically certain to be
examples in the Reptile House, and any lizard among the
large assortment contained in the same house ; let us
say either of the common British species, Lacerta vivi-
para or agilis. The newt-like amphibian is purely
aquatic, while the lizard is as eminently terrestrial,
selecting indeed especially the driest of sandy localities.
The Menobranchus loves coolness and darkness ; the
lizard rejoices in the day and in warm sunlight. The
skin of the menobranch is soft and slimy ; not only are
there no scales of any kind, but the epidermis is
everywhere developed into slime-producing glands,
which cover the body with their secretions. In the

275

REPTILES AND AMPHIBIANS

lizard the body is dry and hard, the epidermis being
converted into regularly arranged scales, while there
are no glands in the skin except at the beginning of the
thighs, where a row of pores void on to the exterior
the secretion of the femoral glands. The limbs of the
amphibian are short and only four- toed, rot much
used in locomotion. Those of the lizard are five- toed
and longer, and very much used in locomotion. On
the neck of the menobranch will be noticed three
pairs of fringed red outgrowths of the body, which
are the gills ; by means of these the animal at least
partially breathes. It has also lungs. Close to the
gills are, on each side of the neck, two perforations
which lead into the pharynx ; these are the so-called
gill clefts. In the lizards we find not the slightest trace
of these last two structures. The animal has only
lungs, with which alone it breathes. If we dive into
the anatomy of the two animals we shall emerge with
other characters, which completely distinguish them.
The skull of the Menobranchus is fixed on to the vertebral
column by two joints or condyles while there is but
one median condyle in the lizard. The heart is three-
chambered in both ; but in the amphibian the origin of
the aorta from the ventricle is dilated into a thicker
walled tube, in which are several series of valves regulat-
ing the flow of the blood when it leaves the heart to
pass through the arterial system. In the lizard there
is no such dilated " conns arteriosus" and the persist-
ence of this conus in the amphibian is a mark of its rela-
tionship to the lower lying fish, where such a conus always
exists. The menobranch has no sternum or breast-bone
formed by the union of the ribs ventrally ; there is such
a sternum in the Lacerta. The Menobranchus lays eggs
as does the Lacerta ; but the eggs of the former are smaller
than those of the latter, and do not contain nearly so
much yolk. Moreover there is no hard shell such as

276

MENOBRANCHUS AND LACERTA

covers the eggs of the lizard. The young lizard emerges
from the egg a fully formed lizard ; the young meno-
branch is not so identical with its parents, and is there-
fore hatched at an earlier stage and therefore again
sooner. It has a tadpole-like form and is a larva, the
definition of which term will be dealt with presently.

Excepting for a general similarity in form, every point
almost in external structure, not to mention internal
structure, differentiates the Menobranchus from the
Lacerta ; and if all lizards and other reptiles showed the
same differences from all other amphibians there would
obviously be no difficulty in denning the two groups.
But when we go farther afield, we shall find that most
of the points of difference break down. To amend the
diagnoses we will recur to the characters used in exactly
the same order. While most amphibians are mostly
aquatic, there is one group, that of the Ccecilians,
which are worm-like creatures burrowing in the soil,
and the tree-frogs spend at least most of their time,
as their name denotes, upon trees and other plants,
while toads are mostly land dwellers. Per contra the
crocodiles among reptiles are aquatic, as are more en-
tirely so the marine turtles. Certain lizards, such as
the Australian Leseuer's lizard (Physignathus] spend a
large portion of their time in water. Plenty of other
examples might be urged in proof of the impossibility
of separating reptiles and amphibia by their aquatic or
terrestrial habit. Nor can diurnal or nocturnal habits
be utilized. Both reptiles and amphibians furnish us
with examples of nocturnal and diurnal creatures.
The soft body of the amphibian, on the other hand, is a
character which is very widely spread, as is the scaly
body of the reptile. But here again there is not an
absolute line of demarcation. The underground and
burrowing lizard Amphisbczna has a softish body, though
it is true that it does not possess the numerous slime

277

GILLS AND GILL CLEFT

glands of the amphibian. On the other hand, the also
burrowing Ccecilians already referred to have scales.
But though the Coecilians have scales they have also
the mucous glands of other amphibia. It is doubtful,
however, whether some of the heavily armoured am-
phibia of remote antiquity, the Labyrinthodonts and
their allies, could have possessed much in the way of
slime-producing glands.

As to the nature of the limbs, which certainly dis-
tinguish so far as their characters go, the Menobranchus
and the Lacerta, there is no possibility whatever of
drawing by their help a hard and fast line between
amphibia and reptilia generally. In both groups we
have reduction of number of digits and of the limbs
themselves, culminating in both divisions alike in com-
pletely apodous forms. When however we come to
the respiratory apparatus, we find at once a difference
which holds good throughout the whole reptilian and
amphibian series with insignificant exceptions. We
may safely state that no reptile ever breathes by means
of gills, and that in no reptile is there ever any perman-
ence of the gill clefts. On the other hand in amphibia
there may be a sharing of the respiratory functions for
life between gills and lungs, and at some time of its life
the amphibian breathes only by gills. Moreover there
is often a persistence of the gill clefts up to mature life,
a feature which the amphibian clearly shares with the
fish ; in which these clefts, putting the outside world
into communication with the pharynx, always persist.
In the fish these clefts are divided by bars of cartilage
which bear vascular tufts which are the gills. In all the
higher vertebrates the embryo shows traces of these
clefts ; but in the amphibia only do they ever persist
into adult life. This leads us to the consideration of the
development of the amphibia as compared with that
of the reptilia. In the latter the egg is always large

278

YOUNG OF REPTILES

and with abundant yolk. Correlated with the large
size of the egg the young when hatched from it is prac-
tically adult. Beyond a slight tooth developed upon the
snout for the purpose of breaking the eggshell it is like
its parent. There is nothing at all comparable to the
larval forms of the amphibia. In these latter animals
the eggs are not large and have not abundant yolk.
Correlated with this is a condition unlike that of the
reptilia. The young are born in an earlier condition ;
and inasmuch as in that earlier condition of necessary
incompleteness the young would be unable to lead an
independent existence, they have been provided with
certain organs which are of use to them only as young
and which disappear when they reach maturity. To
the young of an animal which leaves the egg in an im-
mature condition, but which has special organs suited to
a free life in that condition which later disappear, the
term " larva " is applied. Many groups of the animal
kingdom go through a larval stage. For instance the
butterfly leaves the egg as a caterpillar, which is a larva.
The caterpillar is not merely an imperfect butterfly.
It has special organs of its own. Its jaws for example
are not imperfect jaws which later develop into the
trunk and so forth of the butterfly. They are complete
as biting jaws and disappear when the adult condition
is assumed. So, too, the tadpole of our common frog,
being hatched at a stage antecedent to the appearance
of the later developed lungs, breathes by means of
external processes of the skin, which are the gills and
peculiar to the larvae, disappearing when it metamor-
phoses into a frog. Below the jaw is a sucker which
allows it to moor itself to water plants. This structure
is not the immature form of any structure which occurs
in the frog. It is an organ only found during the tad-
pole stage ; it is in fact a larval organ and its existence
is one of the reasons for terming the tadpole a larva.

279

LATERAL LINE OF FISHES

So with the gills, however long they may last. It is now
believed that they are not, so to speak, retentions of the
fish gills, but gills peculiar to the larva of the amphibian.
To take a third feature in the anatomy of tadpoles :
they are most of them furnished with an elaborate
series of horny teeth within the mouth ; these " teeth "
are not later developed into the proper teeth of the frog,
nor do they persist when the tadpole leaves the water
and begins to croak. They are purely and simply larval
organs. In a few amphibians this nearly universal dis-
tinction between the two groups under consideration
is not to be met with. But if in a given tree-frog the
young frog is hatched at once from the egg as a frog,
without passing through the preliminary tadpole and
tree living stage, it does not follow that that tree-frog
must be removed from all other tree-frogs almost
exactly like it, and placed with the reptilia. In zoo-
logical classification we constantly come across examples
of animals most clearly affined to other animals and yet
lacking one or more of their important characteristics.
So much then for the difference between amphibia
and reptiles. There is no doubt that the amphibia
stand on a lower level than the reptiles, and that there
are distinct points of likeness to the fishes, some of which
have already been touched upon. In addition to those,
is the rather important fact that among the amphibia,
at least in the larval stages, is a representative of the
so-called " lateral line " of fishes. In any fish it can
be easily noted that a marked line runs along the sides
of the body often dividing the darker colour of the back
from the more silvery hues of the belly. This line is
formed of a series of sense organs of the nature of touch.
In spite of these various points of likeness between the
fishes and amphibians, there are profound differences.
The most profound is of course that all amphibians
agree with the animals lying higher than themselves

280

HANDS AND FINS

in the series in possessing hands and feet, with fingers
and toes not exceeding five in number. In no fish, that
is or that was, is there the faintest trace of this penta-
dactyle limb . the fins are of a totally different nature,
and there is nothing that is in the least degree inter-
mediate between what has been termed the " icthyop-
terygium " or fish's fin and the " cheiropterygium " or
hand of the higher types. In this particular a verte-
brate animal is either a fish or it is not a fish. Further-
more, though some amphibians, the common English
newt for example, may appear to be like a fish in pos-
sessing fins along the back and so forth, there is this
important difference between the amphibian and the
fish fin, that the latter are supported by horny gristly
or bony rays which do not exist in the amphibian
fin.

The existing amphibia may be readily divided into
three groups. Of these practically only two concern us
here, so that the third group may be summarily dealt
with. That group is the Apoda, and it consists of worm-
like amphibians which bear not a little resemblance
to the amphisbaenians among the lizards, and to the
typhlopidae among snakes, in that they burrow under-
ground and live upon worms and such like small game.
They are not suited for a life in menagerie, and have
never been on view at the Zoo. The two remaining
groups are known technically as the Urodela and the
Anura, and more popularly as frogs and newts — the
tailless frogs being on that very account termed Anura.

The Urodela are always well represented at the Zoo,
and we later draw attention to a number of different
types. We are here concerned merely with certain
generalities about the group. The most remarkable
fact about them perhaps is the tendency which
so many of them have to retain throughout life certain
of the characters of the larva. But as this matter is

281

THE PROTEUS OF ADELSBERG

treated of under Axolotl it need not be further referred
to for the moment. They are, as their name denotes,
provided with tails ; and they are also almost entirely
aquatic. There are a few exceptions, such as one of our
British newts, which is found on occasion without
visible means of subsistence in cellars and areas, and
such like remote spots, and is as a rule denominated
a " reptile " by the finders thereof. The Urodeles are
furthermore, with very rare exceptions, impatient of
great heat, and are almost limited to the north tem-
perate region. A few stray into Mexico and even South
America. There are plenty in Europe, and the most
notorious of these is perhaps the white and blind dweller
in the caves of Adelsberg, known as Proteus. That animal
may be often seen at the Zoo. So, too, a variety of
newts in the strictest sense of that term. With some
other forms we deal immediately. As to the Anura or
frogs and toads, there is an immense variety ; infinitely
more than there are of Urdeles. With this astounding
variety of different genera and species the frogs retain
the typical frog form, and no one can doubt for an
instant as to whether an amphibian is an Anuran or
is not. The Anura are as a rule not so purely aquatic
as are the Urodeles ; but there are exceptions, such as
the Cape clawed frog, with which we deal later. There
is not so much variation in the habits of this group as
might perhaps be expected from their large numbers.
The supposed flying frog of the East is, as it appears,
a bit of a fraud. In successive illustrations of that
amphibian the webbing between the toes, which is
believed to act as a parachute and allow of flying leaps,
seems to have grown in amount. It is merely a tree
frog which can leap above the average. Or to put it
more accurately, a tree-living frog, not a member of the
real tree-frogs or Hylidae, but of the terrestrial frogs or
Ranidae. The chief variation in habit is really the

282

FROGS AND TOADS

more or less completely aquatic life. The frogs are more
aquatic than many toads. In external appearance
these amphibians differ mainly in colour, and in the
degree of wartiness or smoothness which they show.
It is plain that the most salient mark of difference from
the Urodela is the restricted tail and the fact that they
never possess in the adult condition either gills or gill
slits. Their fingers and toes, moreover, are never reduced
in number, and never, of course, vanish altogether as
they do in some of the snake-like Urodeles.

THE SURINAM TOAD

One of the very oddest productions in the frog line
is the Pipa americana. It is so flat that it seems almost
to consist of matter arranged in two dimensions only. The
head is small and the front edge of it garnished with
many little papillae. The toes end in star-shaped pro-
cesses, and the hind feet are webbed with unusual con-
spicuousness. The toad has got no teeth at all ; but
it makes up for this incapacity for offence by a consider-
able capacity for defence. Its body is covered with many
little poison glands, with which are sometimes associated
little spikes. Most persons have seen a young dog
rashly take into its mouth a common toad, and then
rapidly drop it ; this sudden change of intent is due
to the secretion by the toad of a poisonous liquid. The
Surinam toad possesses the same properties in a higher
degree. The flatness of this amphibian shows that it
is intended for a purely aquatic life ; and as a matter
of fact it does not leave the water. It is harboured in
pools in Guiana and perhaps in other parts of South
America. It has a method of attending to its young
that in all its details is unequalled in the frog tribe.
The common frog of this country, when it goes a- wooing,
leaves its offspring in the form of those masses of eggs
embedded in jelly which are familiar to everybody.

283

MADAME MERIAN'S STATEMENTS

The Surinam toad has not this light-hearted habit of
deserting its offspring, and leaving them to the chances
of wind and weather. The eggs when produced are
piously spread over the body of the female frog by the
male, and they are there received into pits which gradu-
ally deepen, and are even furnished with a lid, the origin
of which is rather uncertain. In these cradles the eggs
become tadpoles, and the tadpoles in due course frogs,
and after a time they desert the maternal back for a
roving life in the surrounding waters of their pool.
This paternal and maternal care of the young is known
to exist in other frogs ; and such domesticity is not what
might be expected from the cold-blooded and small-
brained amphibian. But the formation of separate
pits in the skin is a feature peculiar to Pipa. In other
frogs there are pouches of various kinds developed.
Since the young frogs are so carefully looked after
during their youth, it is perhaps rather remarkable
that they go through a tadpole stage outside the egg at
all. For in analogous cases the eggs become frogs at
once. Whether these tadpoles ever go for a swim on
their own account is uncertain, as are many details
concerning the domestic economy of Pipa. These sin-
gular habits were originally and partly related by
Madame Merian, whose statements upon South
American natural history were received with an in-
credulity which subsequent investigations show them
not to have deserved. It was this same lady who told
of vast bird-eating spiders and of many " curiosities of
natural history," which actually occur or exist. This
Pipa displayed its breeding habits at the Zoo some few
years back. But whether it was that the mother was
disquieted by the crowds that vulgarly stared in upon
her domestic privacy, or that the water was deeper than
was suitable to the proper aeration of the tadpoles in their
nursery, they all failed to develop except a single tad-

284

TONGUELESS FROGS

pole ; the life of this tadpole was cut short by alcohol,
and it now reposes as a " specimen " in a glass bottle
of spirits of wine. It ought to be added that the Pipa
is tongueless as well as toothless, and that on this
account it is referred to a group of frogs which are
scientifically termed the Aglossa. It is probably not
unrelated to the Plaathande or Cape clawed frog,
Xenopus, with whose peculiarities we deal on another
page.

THE ADORNED CERATOPHRYS

Had the New World been discovered when ^Esop
wrote his fables, and anything known of its inhabitants,
there is no doubt that that fabulist would have selected
this toad to illustrate his fable of the Frog that would
be an Ox. For it is not only of considerable size,
quite as big as a blacksmith's fist, but it puffs itself
out under certain circumstances productive of annoyance
until it is perfectly rotund, and still further increased
in size. Ceratophrys is a genus of amphibians with
several species, all of which inhabit South America.
There are always examples at the Zoo, so that their
characters can be studied at any time. Externally
they present the appearance of toad, that is they have
a peculiarly evil aspect, and are lethargic in gait, sitting
for the most motionless esconced in a " form " which
they excavate or rather push into. The term toad as
opposed to frog is somewhat difficult of definition, and
indeed cannot be used. The more edentulous members
of the group may perhaps be called toads ; for the
common toad as compared with the common frog
of this country, is edentulous, having no teeth on the
upper or lower jaws. Or a squat form with a warty
skin may be selected as the test. But in this case some
of the family Bufonidae, the toads par excellence, will
have to be excluded. On the whole the term toad had

285

A BARKING TOAD

better be kept for the common toad and its immediate
allies, and the rest of the Anurous Amphibians, or
Batrachia, as their technical name goes, be called frogs.
The Ceratophrys derives its name from the horn which
in most of them surmounts the upper eyelid and adds
to the fierceness of their aspect. The size of its mouth
is exaggeratedly amphibian ; and well it may be, for
the beast is extremely partial to its own kind and even
to its own species. It will gulp down quite a large frog
without winking, or rather, to be more accurate, with
that slow closure of the eye which is a necessary con-
sequence of the structure of its throat and head. As
the Ceratophrys is, as a rule and when undisturbed, toad-
like in its equanimity, it is well for it that its hues assim-
ilate so conveniently to the hues of a marshy environ-
ment. Squatting down at rest in a shallow depression
which conceals its " inglorious belly," the mottled green
and brown of the back suggests a lump of earth partly
overgrown with Confervae. Thus the frog has only to
sit tight and the revolving hours must bring within its
unerring grasp some wandering insect or reptile. These
are seized and bitten with a very sharp and strong
dental apparatus at the front of the mouth, which
can also inflict a painful bite upon the human subject.
The Ceratophrys is at times a peculiarly irritable
amphibian. If handled disrespectfully it puffs itself
out vastly, then gives vent to a sound not by any means
unlike a sharp bark. That bark is not worse than its
bite by any means ; it is indeed the prelude to a forward
jump combined with a snap. To outward appearance
this frog is not widely different from other frogs. It is
perhaps a little more apoplectic in its contours. Head
merges into trunk with even less suggestion of a neck
than in others of its race. Internally some of the species,
including Ceratophrys ornata, present us with an inter-
esting survival from past times, as we perhaps assume

286

TREE FROGS

it to be. Under the skin of the back is a bony plate,
which is to be looked upon, as far as our present know-
ledge goes, as a relic of the largely developed skin
armature of some extinct forms of amphibians belonging
to the well-known Labyrinthodonts. The green colour
is quite an amphibian green ; it might be termed perhaps,
— according to a classification of greens that we have
seen recently, neither light nor dark, but " pleasing."
Specimens have been on view at the Zoo at any rate
since the year 1859.

A GREEN TREE FROG

It is a common belief that all tree-frogs are green.
This is not the case ; some are mottled brown and of the
general Batrachian colour. But a good many are green ;
and, as is the case with green tree-snakes and green tree-
lizards, it is probable that they suck some profit there-
out. The invisibility, however, is due to colour and
not to form. Flat and adpressed to the leaf or stem
though the frog sits, it is said that a photograph at once
betrays its presence. Nature or a water-colour drawing
may be deceptive ; not so the camera. With the excep-
tion of three species, of which one, that concerning
which we shall have something to say here, is European
and Asiatic, the tree-frogs are confined to America and
to Australia. Since they are not always green, it be-
comes important to be able to say what a tree-frog is
by some other method than a mere inspection of colour.
The Hylidae, called after the youth beloved of the Naiads,
but who declined to dwell with them in fountains,
differ from most other frogs in the adhesive pads de-
veloped upon their fingers and toes which allow them
to sit tight upon smooth surfaces, and the existence of
teeth in the upper jaw. The former character alone
is not enough. The common tree-frog, Hyla arbor ea,

287

SHOWERS OF FROGS

ranges from the south of France to Japan by way of
southern Europe and Asia Minor. Its northernmost
haunt is the south of Sweden. The little frog is not more
than two inches long, and indeed tree frogs as a rule
are small. This particular species, though it lives in
trees, descends to ponds to lay its eggs, from which
emerge in due course tadpoles. One Hohenheim, who
modestly styled himself Aureolus Theophrastus Bom-

AUSTRALIAN GREEN TREE FROG.

bastes Paracelsus, and is better known by the last of his
four invented names, thought or more probably only said,
that frogs exist in the firmament from which others
arise, and are thrown down by the impact of tempest ;
that they also produce seed in May which falls upon the
ground and from which tree-frogs are produced. This
is one of the oldest versions of the old " shower " theory
of the birth, or at least migration, of frogs ; it is of course
to be explained by the simultaneous hatching of in-
numerable frogs which " wander at will o'er the
meadows " in search of suitable trees. So Rose! von
Rosenhof, a historian of the frogs of Germany in 1750,

288

TREE-NESTING FROGS

tells us. Tree-frogs gulp down their prey, stuffing it
into their mouths with their hands. They do not flash
out a tongue causing the fly to instantaneously dis-
appear like other frogs and toads. And for the good
reason, that their tongue is but slightly protrusible.
Hyla arborea can, like most frogs, change its colour.
There are more tree-frogs of this group than there are
members of any other group of amphibians. The Zoo
constantly harbours examples of a large Australian
form, Hyla ccerulea, (which is represented in the accom-
panying figure), a badly applied name since it is
green with bright white flecks. These white flecks have
been held to suggest to the pursuing snake spots of
mildew or spots of sunlight, and thus to ctissuade
him from attempting to devour something so obviously
inanimate. Inese frogs, like the European tree-frog,
lay their eggs in water. As a matter of fact the breeding
habits of tree-frogs are most varied ; some carry the
eggs about attached to their bodies in various ways.
Others make nests of greater or less elaboration even upon
trees. A species in Japan, apparently of this group,
constructs something that looks like a hornet's nest,
which is full of eggs, and, later, tadpoles, which would
after a time seem to drop into water lying beneath.

But this bird-like fashion of making nests in trees
and then laying eggs in them is not confined to the
Hylidae. Nor, of course, is the mode adopted by some
of carrying the eggs about the person, even as in Noto-
trema, where a sac developed for that purpose exists in
the skin of the back. We have already considered the
strange case of Pipa, which does the same thing.

It is odd that the tree-frog, like the Irishman, keeps
dry during a storm of rain by getting into a pond. Of
course one explanation is that/the leaves get rather too
slippery for the frog conveniently to adhere to them.
It is frightfully noisy, and is possibly the frog which

Z.G. 289 u

THE SMOOTH-CLAWED FROG

has gone down to posterity as having kept Horace awake
during his journey to Brundusium.

THE PLAATHANDE

The examples of Pipa in the Zoological Gardens were
separated from some frogs in another and neighbouring
case by a tank, in which a few tortoises disport them-
selves. The two frogs are also separated in nature by a
more considerable tank, also full of turtles, the Atlantic
ocean. On the American side lives the Surinam toad,
and on the African the plaathande of the Dutch colo-
nists, known to science as Xenopus or Dactylethra Icevis,
the " smooth-clawed frog." The two frogs and a third
and less known genus are commonly associated together
into a group called Aglossa, on account of the absence of
a tongue, and by virtue of other peculiarities which give
them an isolated place among frogs and toads. Like
Pipa, Xenopus rarely leaves the water, and our illustra-
tion shows its characteristic pose when doing nothing in
particular, a form of action in which it is a proficient.
It has a flat back when it can be induced to sprawl awk-
wardly about upon dry land, and does not sit up in the
perky fashion of Rana, or even of the lugubrious Bufo.
The latter present an appearance of a breakage in the
back, which is really due to the projection forwards of
the bones of the hip girdle. While most frogs are noisy,
Xenopus does not by any means make the welkin ring.
No sleep would be averted by these marshy frogs. The
very ghost of a croak, described as " Tick-tick," and not
the virile " Brek:ek-ek-ek coax coax " of Southern
Europe, of to-day as well as in Aristophanes' time, is all
that they produce. And even this requires the tender
passion for its excitement. It is only in the breeding
season that the frogs make vocal the neighbouring
glades. Another characteristic of the lower amphibia
shown by the Plaathande is its habit of laying eggs not

290

EGGS OF XENOPUS

in the stalwart balls familiar to us here, but in a nig-
gardly way, by twos and threes. Being so purely

CAPED CLAWED FROG.

aquatic, it is not surprising to find that many parts of
the structure of this frog are eminently suitable for a

291

TADPOLES OF XENOPUS

life in the pond wave. Their hind feet are most obtru-
sively webbed, and along the sides of the body are a
row of what look like rather careless stitches ; the baggy
and ill-fitting appearance of the frog suggests an amateur
attempt at repair. These stitches are in reality the
organs of the lateral line, a structure found in the lower
amphibia and in fishes, a sense organ probably of
the nature of touch. The absent tongue is also ap-
parently to be looked upon as the result of an aquatic
life, where food slips into the mouth and is not
manoeuvred thereto by the prehensile organ of the
buccal cavity. The lungs are assisted in their contrac-
tions by a very complicated system of muscles, as are
those of Pipa. This is exactly analogous to the in-
creased diaphragm in whales and in other aquatic
mammals, and is a very remarkable instance of how
Nature attains to the same result without the manu-
facture of a special organ. A new one is simply made
use of, and, if need be, increased and altered. An im-
perfect representative of the Xenopine and Pipine
" diaphragm " exists in Rana. There is nothing pecu-
liar in the breeding habits of Xenopus, such as occurs in
its ally Pipa. It lays eggs in the ordinary amphibian
way, and therefrom emerge tadpoles. These tadpoles
are quite as interesting in their way as are their parents.
Some few years back there were swarms of them at the
Zoo, a pair of the frogs recently brought back from
Zanzibar having laid eggs. They have not bred since,
but there is always the chance of their doing so. The
home-bred tadpole is familiar enough to everyone by
its imp-like aspect and alluring wrigglings. The tadpole
of Xenopus is about as different as it can be and yet
remain a tadpole. It is clear and glassy in colour, with
only a faint amount of pigment here and there ; and it
has a fascinating way of standing upon its head at the
bottom of the tank and wriggling its tail violently.

292

CANNIBAL TADPOLES

These tadpoles are very carnivorous, and feed upon
minute water crustaceans. The black tadpoles of the
British puddle eats decaying vegetation, though on
occasions it will become a pure cannibal. At the sides
of the mouth of the Plaathande tadpole are a pair of
very long feelers, which must be tactile, and when first
described led the describer to place the animal as an
adult creature in the neighbourhood of some of the
Siluroid fishes, whose heads are beset with such ten-
tacles. In the Xenopus tadpole the tentacle gets less
and less important with advancing days, and finally
remains in the adult as a small process under the eye,
which can be recognised in the illustration.

THE FRESH-WATER SIREN.

Since the year 1876, when the first example was
received, there have been always, or at any rate gene-
rally, specimens of this newt-like and American creature
in the Zoological Gardens. The siren (Siren lacertina),
eel-like though it appears, belongs to the great group of
the amphibia ; like the Japanese newt (Megalobatrachus),
like the little English newt, and the axolotl it belongs
to that division of the amphibia known as the Urodela,
from the fact that they have tails, which the frogs and
toads have not. All these tailed Batrachia are inhabi-
tants of the temperate regions, only just getting into
South America, not reaching tropical Africa, and totally
absent from Australia and its adjacent and heated
islands. It is not indeed too much to say that they
represent in cooler waters the tropical mud-fishes, Cera-
todus, Lepidosiren, and Protopterus. Where there are
Dipnoi there are no tailed amphibians and vice-versa.
As it is not unreasonable to trace the origin of the tailed
amphibians, which are clearly the most primitive of
existing amphibians, from some dipnoid form, these

293

DISAPPEARANCE OF LIMBS

facts are not without interest. Why this black and
slimy newt should be called Siren is not clear. They do
not chirp or sing, and indeed are voiceless, like other
newts. They are not enchantresses and do not play on
cords. On the contrary, they are black and evil-looking,
not alluring except indeed to the naturalists, to whom
they present many points of interest. This animal
grows to about two feet in length, and lives exclusively
or at least very nearly entirely, in muddy ditches, where
it finds its animal prey. The accurate John Hunter
was the first to detect the real nature of the siren, and
placed it between amphibians and fishes. A retrograde
step was taken by Camper the Dutchman, who called it
a mursena, or eel, an error which is perpetuated to-day
by its vernacular name of " Mud-eel," The siren has
external fringed gills like the axolotl. But there is no
reason to suppose that it is, like the axolotl, a larval
form ready to blossom out into a more fully formed and
gill-less newt when forced to leave its streams. For in
the first place its degradation is shown by the missing
hind limbs, and in the second place it has a set of larval
gills which give place to the therefore permanent gills
of the adult. It has had its chance as a larva, and has
failed to take advantage of it. As with other aquatic
creatures, it is .the hind limbs which have gone. Thus
the whales have not a trace of these : and in the seal
and sea-lions they are more or less bound up with the
tail, and clearly on the wane. In terrestrial animals
which have undergone degeneration, it is rather the
fore limbs that go first, as witness the snakes and many
tail-less lizards.

THE AXOLOTL

There is nothing more interesting at the Zoo than the
swarthy American newts, called axolotls, unless it be

294

ALBINISM

the white axolotls, often to be seen in adjoining tanks.
As in the case of many other creatures, albinism occurs
not infrequently ; and the milk- while albinos, with their
red gills, are of striking appearance. In many years a
series of experiments, conducted, though without a
licence, upon living animals, are undertaken upon the
corpora vilia of these axolotls. The experiments con-
sist in gradually reducing the depth of the water at one
end of the tank by means of a shelving board. Up this
board it is hoped with unrewarded persistence that these
axolotls will creep, and having arrived at dry land will
cease to be axolotls at all and become amblystomas.
The axolotl, in fact, is a creature that has discovered
the secret of perpetual youth. But this desirable dis-
covery is tempered by the pains and cares of maternity.
For the axolotl is simply an unwieldy and overgrown
tadpole ; but a tadpole which has abandoned some of
the frivolity of youth and assumed family responsibili-
ties by the laying of eggs, which duly hatch out into
fresh series of axolotls. It was discovered a good many
years ago that the gills of the axolotl are directly com-
parable to the gills of tadpoles, and that the growth of
the newt was usually, and for a long period sometimes,
indefinitely arrested at the tadpole stage ; but that
under certain circumstances, especially the drying up of
the surrounding water, the gills withered away and
other changes took place ; these changes convert the
water-living axolotl into a land-living newt of, as was
once thought, quite a different genus, viz. Amblystoma.
It is a fact that the progress and growth of the axolotl
must be encouraged, not forced. The newts must be
induced to take to a land life by cutting short their
supply of water. It is no use trying the violent method
of snipping away their gills ; for the only result of that
is that they grow again, and a more obstinate axolotl
is produced. But it has been shown that an artificial

295

BRITISH FROGS

restriction of watery environment will often make
AmUystomas out of axolotls. The case of the axolotl
is not so unique as was once thought. " Neoteny," as
this extension of childhood is scientifically called, both
occurs normally, and can be produced in various am-
phibia. Even in frogs, the tadpoles can in the case of
some species be compelled to remain tadpoles for a long
if not indefinite period of time, behaving, however, pre-
cisely as tadpoles, though swollen in bulk ; the two
frogs of this country, viz. Rana temporaria and R. escu-
lenta, are instances to the point. But these tadpoles, if
they do not ultimately become frogs, die as tadpoles
without begetting fresh tadpoles. The axolotl and the
common newt of this country, as well as other newts in
the strict sense, that is to say, of the genus Triton, not
only retain their larval characters, but are able, as we
have seen, to breed as such. These facts lead us to
some highly interesting conclusions. It used to be a
common idea, which had the advantage of seeming
quite philosophical, that the existence of external
arborescent breathing organs in such amphibians as
the axolotl and the Japanese salamander, were proofs
of the antiquity of these forms. The retention of the
fish-like mode of breathing by gills seemed to argue a
basal position in the amphibian world. Not so, how-
ever, do we now think. For it is clear that some at
least of the gilled forms are merely precociously de-
veloped young, which, taking time by the forelock,
commence breeding before structural maturity, and
that others, like the Japanese salamander, may be
(here we can only guess for the present) entirely similar
in origin. Hence it is clearly a recent modification
which we are dealing with ; and therefore the types
which, like the frog, have not given rise to a persistent
and sexual larval form are the older.

Cortez, when he descended from his " peak in Darien,"
296

A " MONSTROUS EFT "

saw the axolotl in the lake of Mexico, and very probably
ate it upon toast. Anyhow, the descendants of his
followers do at this day.

THE GIANT SALAMANDER

" A monstrous eft," wrote Tennyson, was lord of all
in past aeons. At the present moment a distinctly
monstrous eft is lord of a smaller portion of the earth's
surface, of certain streams, that is to say, in Japan.
This animal, known as Megalobatrachus japonicus, or
Sieboldia maxima, has been frequently exhibited at the
Zoo, since the year 1860, when the first example was
obtained. The specimens at the Gardens do not, as a
rule, indicate the colossal size to which this, the largest
of existing amphibians, attains. But recently, at any
rate, an individual of very fair proportions was alive ;
this newt measured about four feet. The " outside "
length appears to be as much as five feet. The illus-
trious German naturalist, von Siebold, brought back
from Japan the very first specimen ever exhibited in
Europe, so long ago as 1829 ; and the animal — there
were originally two, but the larger devoured his mate
— lived until the year 1881. To anyone familiar with
the aspect and general demeanour of this great newt,
its longevity will not come as a surprise. It passes its
days, and, so far as one knows, nights, in a state of
almost lethal repose. So little agitation is there of the
body and mind that the difficulty is to understand why
it should die at all ; and it is plain that if a specimen
of unknown age lived in captivity and therefore pre-
sumably under disadvantageous conditions for fifty
years, its normal life might be indefinitely stretched
out.

In its native Japan the eft is termed " Hansaki,"
" Hazekoi," or " Anko." It inhabits mountain streams

297

BREEDING OF MEGALOBATRACHUS

in the mountains of Iga and Hiruze ; as a rule the larger
the streams which the eft inhabits, the larger the eft
itself, precisely as in the case of other freshwater crea-
tures. « It will be noticed that the animal has not, what
some others of the Urodele amphibians have, any
vestige of external breathing organs, the gills or branchiae.
Nor is there the least trace of a cleft which is associated
in other amphibians with such gills. In this it differs
from the very closely allied, though smaller, North
American Menopoma, or " Hellbender," as its singular
vernacular name runs. Both animals are often together
at the Zoo, and in adjacent tanks, so that they can be
easily compared. Our salamander has a great flat head,
a warty body of a brownish olive to almost black in hue.
The limbs are fully developed, which is not always the
case in its allies, and terminate in the usual five but
stumpy fingers and toes. It nourishes itself in its native
haunts upon little fishes and other aquatic creatures,
which it hardly pursues with effort, but simply snaps
up when they are so imprudent as to venture within
reach of its jaws. The only time when this lethargic
inhabitant of the waters shows any activity is the breed-
ing season in August and September ; it then moves
about with more frequency and rapidity, and, like our
crested newt, assumes a slightly brighter coloration.
These amphibians have never bred at the Zoo ; but
lately they have at Amsterdam ; and Dr. Kerbert, of
the Zoological Society of that city, has been able to
watch them and report upon their behaviour. It is
quite possible that such a happy occurrence may occur
at our Zoo ; for no particular help in the way of run-
ning water or larger accommodation seems to be neces-
sary. This newt, like others, and even after the fashion
of some frogs and toads, deposits its eggs not in a mass,
such as we are all familiar with in pools in this country
in the early spring, the work, of course, of the common

298

CERATODUS FORSTERI

frog, but in festooned ropes, consisting of a single row of
eggs, which are connected by glutinous matter, and
moored by it to handy rocks and stones. This provi-
sion of nature is very intelligible in view of the localities
in which Megalobatrachus dwells. For in rapidly-
moving streams the eggs, if laid singly and without
this viscous protection, would be liable to be carried off
and destroyed in the sea. As it is they remain anchored
safely until the appearance of the young. The lady
salamander, having done her duty in producing the eggs,
leaves the equally important task of watching over them
to her mate, who is so assiduous that he will not even
allow the mother to visit her progeny, but at once drives
her away. The little salamanders when they leave the
egg are about an inch long, and they have, like the
larvae of other amphibians, external branching out-
growths, which are the gills.

THE MUD FISH

The mud fish of Australia, Ceratodus forsteri, is one
of the latest additions of importance to zoological litera-
ture. Before the year 1870 it had inhabited unremarked
its native rivers ; in that year it was for the first time
described, and to the Zoological Society. It is pecu-
liarly appropriate therefore that the first living speci-
mens to reach Europe were those acquired by the
Zoological Society and deposited in the Gardens a year
or two back. The pair now in the Reptile House are
believed to be a pair, that is, a male and female ; but
they have shown no anxiety to prove this view by lay-
ing eggs ; this, however, is a matter for less regret at
the present moment, since the breeding habits of the
fish and the nature of its hatched-out larvae have been
made known to us by Dr. Semon, who voyaged to the
remote spots, selected by Ceratodus as a dwelling-place,

299

HABITS OF CERATODUS

in order to ascertain the facts. It is only in Queens-
land that Ceratodus is met with. In the Mary and
Burnett rivers it occurs in deep quiet pools, which are
full of water in wet and dry seasons alike. Some per-
sons, impressed doubtless with the real likeness which
this " fish " bears to the amphibia, have asserted that
it basks in a crocodile-like fashion upon logs. The
Ceratodus, however, cannot leave its native streams ;
and instead of showing the least trace of an amphibious
way of life, it dies with peculiar ease when removed
from the water. It is probable, thinks Professor Bald-
win Spencer, that a large water lizard, common in and
along the banks of the same rivers, is responsible for
the stories of the Ceratodus basking upon tree trunks.

With the laudable view of preserving so far as possible
this interesting survival from a bygone age, steps have
been taken in Australia to transfer this fish to other
rivers, where it apparently does well. Our descendants
may find that if these experiments continue to be suc-
cessful, the Ceratodus may lose some of its peculiarities.
At present the rivers in which it swims are not quite
ideal as fish reservoirs. During the hot weather ill
weeds grow apace, and also decay : there results a foul-
ing of the water and a concomitant lack of pure air,
and an increased difficulty for the Barramundi to
breathe. Nature, however, though a strict economist,
invariably permits, or rather insists upon, the wind
being tempered to the shorn lamb. The dyspnoeic
Ceratodus has, in consequence of these difficulties,
acquired a swim bladder which performs the offices
of a lung, instead of being merely, as in other fish, a
hydrostatic apparatus The lung has its own special
artery and vein exactly as in other creatures with lungs,
and the fish comes to the top of the water to inhale air,
just as any land-frequenting but occasionally aquatic
and diving animal does. In addition to this, it has the

300

301

OTHER DIPNOI

gills of the fish, which are adequate enough in favourable
conditions. It is in fact exactly in the condition of a
rather elderly tadpole. The very young tadpole has
merely gills like a fish ; later on, the lungs appear,
while the gills persist ; later still, the gills vanish and
the lungs alone remain : it is, however, now a frog.
Ceratodus remains for its whole life in the tadpole con-
dition. It would not be a gross exaggeration to describe
it as a huge scaly tadpole.

The Australian mud fish is one of those " friendless "
creatures, a survival from past times, when creatures
were apt to be a little less decided as to their relation-
ships than at present. It is a link between fishes and
amphibians. Ceratodus itself has not a tadpole ; but
its near allies, the African mud fish, Protopterus, and
the South American Lepidosiren, have newly-hatched
larvae which are immensely like young tadpoles. Every-
body must have noticed the way in which the tadpoles
of our common frog hang on to the leaves of aquatic
plants by their chin, which they press firmly thereto
as the Red Queen pressed her chin upon the shoulder
of Alice. A sucker achieves this anchorage, and the
same sucker is present in the young mud fishes of
America and Africa. The Paraguayan mud fish, once
so scarce that it was represented in European museums
by about three specimens, has long furnished a succu-
lent meal in certain regions of South America. It has
been brought home in abundance and carefully studied
by Professor Graham Kerr ; it is therefore not by any
means unlikely that the visitor to the Zoo will have the
opportunity of seeing side by side this creature and its
Australian relative. In any case he will be practically
certain to have the chance of seeing Protopterus of
Africa.

302

INDEX

Aard vark, 137
Aard wolf, 106

Abdimia, 206

Aeluroidea, 92

Aepyornis, 220

Agamidae, 239

Agouti, 1 20

Alligators, 260 ; Chinese, 272

Alligator Terrapin, 270

Alouatta, 41

Alpaca, 78

Amblystoma, 295

Amphibia, 275

Amphibolurus, 239

Amphisbaena, 232, 277

Anaconda, 257

Anguis fragilis, 232

Angwantibo, 44

Anolis, 235

Anomalurus, 146

Ant bear, 129

Anteater, American, 129 ; Aus-
tralian, 17, 148

Antelopes, 50

Anthropoidea, 21

Anthropopithecus, species of,
27

Anura, 281

Apes, 21

Aptenodytes pennanti, 226
Apteryx, 151, 219
Archaeofteryx, 186
Arctoidea, 93
Ardea goliath, 202
Argus pheasant, 209
Armadillo, 133
Artiodactyla, 14, 52
Ass, wild, 60
A teles, 40
Aurochs, 78
Axolotl, 299
Aye-aye, 21

Baboon, 31
Babyroussa, 64
Badger, 93
Balaeniceps rex, 20 1
Balearica, species of, 180
Barbary ape, 33
Barbet, 161
Batrachia, 286
Bats, 1 8
Bear, polar, no
Beaver, 120
Behemoth, 66
Belideus breviceps, 145
Bezoar stones, 79
Binturong, 92

303

INDEX

Birds, general characters of,

157 ; groups of, 155
Bison, 78
Black swan, 197
Blanus, 235
Boa constrictor, 257
Boar, wild, 65
Boatbill, 202
Bonnet monkey, 34
Bos, species of, 76, 78
Bower birds, 159
Brady pus, 132
Brush turkey, 210
Bubo virginianus, 170
Bucorax, 164
Bucorvus, 164
Bunodont, 53

Caenolestes, 140

Camel, 14, 78

Camelopard, 81

Cancroma, 202

Canis lagopus, 109

Cape clawed frog, 290

Cape crowned crane, 180

Capra aegagrus, So

Capuchin monkey, 39

Capybara, 125

Caracal, 96

Cariama, 184, 193

Caribou, 73

Carnivora, 89

Carpincho, 125

Cassowaries, 216

Casuarius, species of, 218

Cat, domestic, 101 ; wild, 100

Catarrhines, 23

Cavy, Patagonian, 126

Cebus albifrons, 40

Centetes, 122, 127

Centropus, 176 ; C. phasianus,

177

Ceratodus, 293 ; C. forsteri, 299
Ceratophrys, 285
Cercocebus, 35

Cercopithecus, 35 ; C. diana, 35
Cetacea, 19
Chacma baboon, 31
Chamaeleolis, 240
Chamaeleon, 241 ; species of

and genera, 243
Chauna, species of, 183
Chelonia, 265
Chelone, species of, 270
.Cheetah, 91
Chevrotain, 70
Chillingham cattle, 77
Chimpanzee, 24
Chinchilla, 120
Chionis, 197

Chirogaleus coquereli, 44
Chiromys, 21,4.3, 44» 1 19
Chlamydophorus, 134
Chlamydosaurus kingi, 237
Choloepus, 132
Civets, 92, 103
Coati, 93
Coaita, 41
Cobra, 261
Coecilians, 278
Coendou, 123
Colobus, 38
Condor, 186
Coney, 86
" Consul," 25, 113
Cormorant, 216
Corvus splendens, 175
Cowpen bird, 156
Creodonta, 48, 104
Cranes, 179
Crocodiles, 229, 273

304

INDEX

Cryptoprocta ferox, 103
Cuckoo, 174
Cuculus canorus, 174
Curassow, 212
Cyclothurus, 130
Cygnus, species of, 198
Cynopithecus niger, 33

Dactylethra laevis, 290
Darter, 215
Dasje, 86

Dasypeltis scdbra, 259
Dasyure, 15
Deer, 53
Deerlet, 70
Dendrohyrax, 87
Dendrolagus, 142
Diana monkey, 35
Dinomys, 125
Dinosaur, 152, 185
Diprotodonts, 145
Dogs, 109 ; hunting, 107
Ducks, 198
Dugong, 88

Eagles, 192

Echidna, 148 ; E. aculeata, 149

Edentata, 128

Egg-eating snake, 259

Elephant, 83

Elk, 74 ; Irish, 75

Emu, 216

Enhydris, 92

Equus, species of, 59, 60

Eryx, 258

Eudyptes chrysocome, 222

Eudyptula minor, 224

Eudynamis, 176

Eunectes murinus, 257

Felis, species of , 93, 96, 97, IOO,

IO2

Fishes, 275
Fissipedia, 91
Flamingo, 200
Flying frog, 282
Flying squirrel, 120
Fossa daubentoni, 103
Fossane, 103
Fox, arctic, 108
Frilled lizard, 237
Frogs, 281
Frigate bird, 214
Fur seals, 118

Galago, 44 ; G. garnetti, 47
Gallinaceous birds, 207
Callus bankiva, 210
Galeopithecus, 127
Gannet, 214
Gecinus viridis, 160
Geckos, 235, 253
Geese, 183, 198
Geococcyx, 174
Gibbon, 29
Gibraltar ape, 33
Gila monster, 229
Giraffe, 81
Glass snake, 233
Glaucous gull, 195
Glutton, in
Glyptodon, 134
Goat, wild, 80
Goatsuckers, 165
Gorilla, 24
Grouse, 207, 210
Guacharo, 167, 182
Guenon, 35
Guereza, 37
Guinea pig, 126

Z.G.

305

INDEX

Gulls, 195
Gulo, 112

Hamadryad, 261

Hanuman, 36

Hapalemur, species of, 46

Hare, Cape jumping, 120, 140
polar, 109

H atteria, 228, 250, 266

Hawks, 192

Hedgehog, 123

Heliodilus, 169

Heliornis, 182

Heloderm lizard, 229

Herons, 201

Herpestes ichneumon, 105

Heterocephalus, 137
Hierococcyx, 177
Hippopotamus, 66
Hoatzin, 154, 182, 212
Holy ape, 36
Hoolock gibbon, 29
Hornbill, 162
Horse, Prjevalsy's, 62 ; Shire,

54

Howler, 41
Humming birds, 156
Hyaena, 92, 106
Hydrochoerus capybara, 125
Hyla, species of, 287, 289
Hylobates, 29
Hyomoschus, 72
Hyrax, 86, 119

Ichneumon, 105
Iguana, 235, 247
Iguanidae, genera of, 250
Insectivora, 127

Jerboa, 140
Jew lizard, 239
" Jumbo," 84

Kaka, 173

Kamichi, 193

Kanchil, 49, 71

Kangaroo, 140 ; Red, 67

Kea, 170

Kiang, 60

Kinkajou, 93

Kites, 192

Kiwi, 219

Koala, 139

Koel, 174

Lacerta, 276 ; L. agilis, 233 ;
L. vivipara, 275

Lacertilia, 228

Lachesis gramineus, 264

Lagostomus trichodactylus, 120

Lama, 14, 78

Langur, 36

Lanthanonotus, 230

Larus, species of, 195, 197

Lemming, 124

Lemurs, 43

Lemur, species of, 43, 44
Leopard, 98 ; Snow, 99
Lepidosiren, 293, 302
Leseuer's lizard, 277
Lion, 93
Lithocranius, 83
Lizards, 228, 273
Loris, 44
Lutra, 92
Lycaon pictus, 107
Lyriocephalus scutatus, 240

Jackal, 92
Jaguar, 98, 270

Macacus inuus, 33
Macaques, species of, 34

306

INDEX

Macroclemmys temmincki, 270
Macropus rufus, 67
Mammals, characters of, 7
Mammoth, 66
Man, 19
Manatee, 88
Manatus inunguis, 89
Mandrill, 33
Mangabey, 35
Manis, 135
Marmoset, 23
Marmot, prairie, 121
Marsupials, 139
Marten, 93
Megamys, 125
Megalobatrachus japonicus,2g^,

297

Megapodidae, 211
Mellivora, 112
Meminna, 71
Menobranchus, 276
Menopoma, 298
Mermaids, 89
Merpigs, 89

Metopoceros cornutus, 250
Microcebus smithii, 43
Molothrus, species of, 157, 158
Monitors, 244
Monkeys, 21
Monotremata, 148
Moose, 75
More- pork, 165
Moschus, 71
Mouse, Pharaoh's, 105
Mound builder, 210
Mudfish, 298
Mungoose, 104
Musk deer, 71
Musophagidae, 179
Mustelidae, 93
Mycetes, 41

Myrmecophaga jubata, 129

Nestor, species of , 170, 173, 174
Newts, 281, 293, 296
Notornis mantelli, 174
Notary ctes, 139
Nyctea nivea, 168

Ocapi, 82
Ophidia, 253
Ophisaurus apus, 253
Opisthocomus cristatus, 182,

212

Ophiophagus bungarus, 262
Opossum, 139
Orang Utan, 28
Oreocephalus, 250, 255
Ornithorhynchus, 148
Orycteropus, 64, 106, 137
Osprey, 191
Ostrich, 83, 221
Otaria, species of, 116, 118
Otter, 93
Ounce, 99
Owls, 1 68
Oxen, 50, 76

Paca, 15

Pachydermata, 50, 66
Pagophila eburnea, 196
Painted snipe, 194
Palaeospheniscus, 226
Palamedea cornuta, 182
Pandion haliaetus, 193
Pangolin, 135
Panther, 98
Papio porcarius, 31
Parrots, 70
Pavo nigripennis, 209
Peacock, 207
Pecora, 53

307

INDEX

Pedetes caffer, 120, 141
Pelican, 214

Penguin, 222 ; genera of, 223
Perissodactyla, 14, 52
Perodicticus, 44
Petaurus breviceps, 145
Phacochoerus, species of, 63
Phalanger, 144 ; flying, 145
Phalangista vulpina, 144
Phalarope, 197
Phascolomys, 143
Pheasants, 209
Phelsuma madagascariensis,

265

Phoenix, 180
Phoenicopterus ruber, 201
Photodilus, 169
Physignathus, 277
Pig, 53,63
Pigeons, 207
Pinnipedia, 91, 116
Pipa, 284

Pithecanthropus erectus, 27
Plaathande, 290
Platypus, 17
Platyrrhines, 23
Plotus, species of, 215
Plovers, 197
Podargus, 165
Podoa, 182
Polecat, 93
Polyboroides, 193
Polyprotodonts, 145, 146
Porcupine, 121
Porpoise, 19
Potamogale, 90, 127
Potto, 44
Prairie dog, 1 2 1
Primates, 19
Procamelus, 14
Procavia, 86

Procyon, species of, 114
Proteles cristata, 106
Proteus, 282
Protopterus, 293, 302
Pterodactyles, 152
Ptilonorhynchus violaceus, 1 59
Puma, 96

Quagga, 6 1

Raccoon, 114

Rana, 292 ; species of, 296

Rangifer tarandus, 72

Ratel, 112

Raven, 156

Red deer, 75

Reindeer, 72

Reptiles, characters of, 227

Rhea, 221

Rhesus monkey, 34

Rhinoceros, 56

Rhinoceros bird, 162

Rhinopithecus , 36

Rhytina, 88

Rhynchaea capensis, 194

Road runner, 1 74

Roc, 220

Rodentia, 119

Rook, 21 1

Ruminants, 53

Sable, 93
Salamander, 297
Saiga antelope, 76
" Sally," 24, 27
Sandgrouse, 206
Sarcorhamphus, 187
Sciuropterus, 146
Scopus umbretta, 204

308

INDEX

Screamer, 182

Sea bear, 118

Seals, 117

Sea lions, 116

Sea serpent, 258

Secretary bird, 190

Semnopithecus entellus, 36

Selenodent, 53

Serpenlarius reptilivorus, 190

Siamang, 30

Shoe bill, 201

Simla satyr us, 28

Siren lacertina, 293

Sirenia, 88

Skunk, 93

Sloth, 130

Slow Loris, 44

Slowworm, 232

Snakes, 253 ; genera and

species of, 255
Snapping turtle, 270
Snipe, 195, 197
Solitaire, 2 1 1
Speke's antelope, 73
Sphenodon (see Hatteria)
Spider monkey, 40
Spiny anteater, 149
Squirrel, 120
Steller's sea bear, 1 18
Stoat, 93
Storks, 201
Suricate, 92
Surinam toad, 283
Swans, 198
Sy nether es, 123
Syrrhaptes arenarius, 206

Tadpoles, 280, 293
Talegalla lathami, 210
Tamandua, 130
Tapir, 53

Tarentola mauritanica, 237

Tarsius, 44

Tasmanian devil, 1 5 ; wolf,

146

Tayra, 93
Teguexin, 240
Tenrec, 128
Testudo daudini, 266 ; T.

graeca, 266
Thylacine, 146
Tiger, 95
Toad, 283, 285
Tolypeutes tricinctus, 1 34
Tortoises, 265 ; fossil, 268
Toucan, 161, 162
Touracou, 177
Tragulus, species of, 70, 72
Tree frog, 287
Tree kangaroo, 141
Tree porcupine, 123
Tree viper, 263
Trichosurus vulpecula, 144
Tricky s lipura, 124
Triton, 296
Tufted umbre, 204
Tupaia, 128

Tupinambis, species of, 240
Turkey, 210
Turkey buzzard, 186
Turtles, 265

Ungulata, characters of, 14, 48

Unicorn, 57

Urodela, characters of, 281

Uromastix, 239

Urson, 123

Urus, 76

Varanus, species of, 45
Vertebrates, characters of, 2
Vicuna, 78

309

INDEX

Vipers, 255, 263 Whales, 19

Viverridae, 104 Wild ass, 60

Vizcacha, 120, 143 Wild boar, 65

Vole, 124 Wild cat, 100

Vulpine Phalanger, 144 Wild oxen, 70

Vulture, 1 86 Wisent, 78

Wolf, 96, 109

Wallaby, 141 Wolverene, in

Walrus, 117 . Wombat, 143

Wait hog, 63 Woodpecker, 160
Water Chevrotain, 72

Water rat, 124 Xenopus laevis, 290
Weasel, 93

Weaver bird, 211 Zebras, 59

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