The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-05-22
BILL NYE AT THE zoo.
He Interviews Mr.. O'HO0lihan
on the Burning Issues.
ILLNESS OF THE ELEPHANT.
Thrilling Tale OF . Fight with Flames
and How Four Souls Were Saved
by Preachers Efforts.
Copyright, 1892, by Edgar W. Nye.l

Cincinnati has one of the most attractive
geological gardens in the United States,
the fauna displayed there being of an un-
usually robust and attractive quality.
Fondness for close study of animal life
has ever been a characteristic of mine, and
on arrival in any city of considerable size
l register, send up my luggage and inquire
at once for the geological gardens. Soon
afterward you may see me engaged In
studying the sloping shoulders of the
giraffe or the low, retreating forehead Of
the crocodile.
Professor Louis Agassiz, with whom
have lectured number of times to
standing room only, divides the earth
into three fauna, viz: 1. the arctic. 2.
The temperate. 3. The tropical. The
arctic fauna was homogeneous, and en-
braced the northern extremities of the
several boreal continents down to the
isothermal zero. Possibly do not make
myself quite plain, but little thought
will make this perfectly clear. The
arctic fauna embraced those animals
which, like the polar bear, prefer a
strictly meat diet during the winter, ex-
hibiting strong repugnance to oatmeal
and adhering to their heavy Jaegers the
year round.
The arctic fauna also embraces the
walrus, the penguin, and the pemmican.
The salt horse and Cincinnati quail are
also found as far north as the utmost
limit of exploration and human verte-
brate.
Rodentia and pachyderms do not do
well in the arctic fauna. The season is
too short. ] would never take my pachv-
derms too far north. Insectism does we'll
here, and some gallinaceous birds, notably
the penguin and the toboggan, but pachy-
derms and articulata are very seldom
found here.
Cincinnati has two good specimens of
the polar bear. This animal is found in
the extreme north, subsisting mainly on
kippered herring and young explorers.
The white or polar bear can sit for hours
on a cake of ice without taking cold.
What wise arrangement of nature this
is which enables the polar bear, even
when heated and perspiring after long,
hard chase after all explorer, to seat him.
self on an iceberg with impunity while
eating his explorer. The animal is also
enabled to go for days without food.
Last winter, for instance, is said to have
been a very severe one on arctic fauna.
Toward spring, 1t Is said, thousands Of
arctic animals were driven from their
usual haunts by cold and hunger, many
of them barely eking out a wretched
existence by licking the axlegrease off the
north pole.
The polar bear, however, pulled
through without great suffering and in
very fair condition, while thousands of
other arctic animals died off, owing to
the fact that curiosity regarding the open
polar sea is apparently falling off, and the
carnivorous animals of the polar region
are now often seen to pause and look at
each other as who should say:
Don't it seem to you that it is getting
to be pretty long time between polar ex-
peditions?"
About the only real merit attached to
the arctic regions, it seems to me, is the
fact that there is said to be absolutely no
malaria there and very few mosquitoes.
On the other hand, the tropical fauna must
continually grapple with very malarial
climate. The very sine qui,.ine of a eli
mate, as it were.
The tropical fauna is represented in the
Cincinnati geological collection by num-
Der of good specimens, among others
pair of chimpanzees. called Mr.. and Mrs.
O'Hoolihan. Mr.. O'Hoolihan is some
what below the medium height, and re-
sembles the late Mr.. Crowley, of New
York. Mr.. O'Hooiihan has pale gray
eye and John c. Calhoun whiskers.
In politics he favors Republican form
of government with a Democratic ma
joritv. Socially he is rather liberal, and
would no doubt lead double life if he
had not been placed where his actions are
constantly under the public eye, as it