Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1890-03-23

"I have visited Central park during the
| days have been ID New York, almost
continually for the past eighteen years.
! Every morning it is my practice to VISIT
the menagerie about $3.50 O'Clock and
spend two hours making sketches. That
is the one way that skill can be attained.
In addition to this constant study have
dissected animals with Professor Thomas
E. Eakins, the famous Philadelphia
comparative anatomist and artist. We
have dissected cats together to study the
formation of the tiger, and we have
studied other phases or natural history
with patient industry. To paint tiger
in all its actions requires as much study
and as much acquaintance with the sub
ject as to paint q woman or q man.
''But how about humorous drawing?h
HTo tell the truth | never have seen
anything humorous about bird or an
animal. 1 have seen a great many things
that have thought were droll or odd,
and possibly almost any boy with an ao-
tive imagination can see through the
same pair of spectacles. For instance,
the adjutant crane has always struck me
as being a very droll bird. have seen
cranes dance in the West, and one of my
first New York sketches was a reproduce
ton of the scene. Then the pelican, with
its expression of absolute WEAKNESS of life
and its awkward poses is a bird that
aTOuses certain queer ideas in the imagi-
native artist. OF animals the long cared,
furry tailed have about as much
humor in him as any other quadruped
know of. -
''What is the most interesting animal
to you?'
1.-THE tiger. by all odds. I regard the
royal Bengal tiger as the most inter-
esting animal, from an artistic stand
point, in the world. Take Kitty, the
tigress that died in the park few years
ago, and was known to the world of
newspaper readers as Kitty the tiger.
l don't think finer specimen could be
found, though there are some remark
ably fine specimens in the park now.
Jack, the lion, is a splendid animal, and
in the elephant house and bear pit some
very interesting animals can be found. -
odd you ever have any adventures
in sketching wild animals?"
Every few, when you consider how
often bave visited menageries. l have
always made it rule to be very cautious.
Once in the park I had narrow escape.
1t was before the new bear pit was made.
The bears were kept in cages outside of
the buildings where the deer paddocks
are now. l got too near to the cage and
one of the inmates made a strike at me.
He tore my coat, and that was all the
damage DONE
"Couldn I you get away in time?' 1 |
asked.
81 did get away in time to save my
person from injury. You evidently share |
the common urban impression that bears |
are clumsy brutes and slow to |
move. You couIdn It be more mistaken. |
One morning last winter l was stand
ing within the iron railing that keeps the |
public away from the bear pit. My |
hands were holding on to the bars, and I
stood on the stone foundation looking |
into the polar BEARS half of the PIT to /
see the pair asleep. While 1 was stand
lug there | saw something like a gray
flash of lightning, rather stout in the
middle and somewhat short, accom- |
panied by a hoarse growl of thunder,
start from the corner of the pit, and |
had barely time to Jump backward when
a great white paw came between the
bars where my face had been, with force
enough to have Drained a whole company
of men.
"Were these your only adventures?
hAlmost. l had one adventure in
elephants had just added another paohy-
derm to the census roll. 1 was sketch
ing the first baby elephant ever born in
this country, and was paying very little
to the Youngsters mother,
when with trumpet of rage she sudden
ly made her presence known. If Herr
who is now managing the
elephant stud of the king of Siam or
some other Oriental potentate, had not
been around with his steel hook, 1 think
[ might have been killed. It taught me
q lesson, and even the other day when
was making a sketch of the little baby
in Central park for Har-
per's Young People 1 took care to keep
safe distance from the cage where the
mother was confined.
BENJAMIN NORTHRUP.