The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1894-03-23
THE KING HAS PETS.
THIS REFERS TO THE LION AND LIT
TIE ANIMALS re LOVES.

A Professional Trainer or Wild Animals
Teils some Interesting incidents - The
Esprlessness Of Pigeons Among enc Kings
uT Beasts.
The way lions treat the tiny creatures
Of animal life ID q study. 1t may be that
there is some animal language. and that
the legend of the little mouse which saw
cd the lion's life by gnaWing the net has
become known to the denizens Of the
jungle and handed down as animal folk
lore, OF It may be that the king Of beasts
has q positive contempt for anything ex-
tremely small, but 1t ID nevertheless q
fact that lions viii not attack tiny and
mails when they are put together. Pro
lessor Edward Darling. than whom there
Is no more profound student Of q lions
life and character in the country, has
made many curious experiments with
his Eve big beasts.
81 never saw d lion kilt q rat or a
mouse, said Professor Darling. land ]
have had many Of them put in the cage
with my ive lions. My attention was
first drawn TO this when ! was on my
way from London to Batavia, in Java,
ON the ship Rotundo fhad my Ave lions
with me, and In the quarter of the ship
in which they were housed were many
rats. One day ! saw Leo. my favorite
lion, lying down and holding between
his paws very loosely q monster ship rat.
/ thought perhaps that the cat instinct
in the lion had made him catch 1t and
that he would probably play with IL
awhile, then eat it, and sol watched. Inn
agine, however, my surprise when I saw
attempt to get away, but a up and
over his gigantic paws and played with
him.
I'VE were q long time making a trip,
and every day this ships rat went into
Leo's cage, and the two played together
as gently as two little children. / made
several attempts to capture the rat, hop
ing that perhaps I might take it ashore
with me. bat / could not succeed. and ]
promise you that old Leo did not like at
all my attempting to interfere with his
pet. When we got to Java, we had TO
take the lion out, and Leo had to lose his
pet. He could have killed that rat a
thousand times, but ne never did it.
ssThere was another instance subse-
quent to tbs where Leo had o pet rat,
which makes me believe that the lion has
O real fondness for the rodent. It was
in 1881 in Calcutta. We were playing at
the Madam, one of those gigantic places
in far India, and when / went In to see
my pets one morning / saw that Leo had
found another rat for q pet. My fiye
lions were all together, but this rat would
play only with Leo. There were many
other rats in the place, but the other
lions would not look at them, Il seems
to me to be a fact that the lions consider
these little animals too small 10 be touch
ed. / have known OF rats being found
dead in q lions cage, bat / believe that
they were simply killed by the lion roll
ing on them o r steppingon them through
carslessness, but lions never eat them.
I'm Hamburg once I knew D case OF q
sick tiger to whom it was deemed, neces-
sary to give some fresh, warm blood TO
tone up his system, and TO further this
end q live rabbit was put in the cage
with the tiger. One would naturally
suppose that the tiger would have killed
it instantly, but such, however, was not
the case. The tiger played with the rab-
bit for days before he would touch Il.
He finally killed and ate II.
Now, my theory In this: "A lion, or q
tiger, or in fact any wild animal kept
alone. grows very lonesome. In their
natural state wild beasts always run in
pairs. They love companionship, and
when put alone they become so lonesome
that when another animal, even though
IL IL q rabbit, is put in the same cage
with them, they refrain from killing t 80
az 10 have lis companionship. We have
heard of many instances Of men being
alone-shipwrecked. If You h~ke-making
strange friends. Why not q Iions IL al
ways made me feel rather bad to think
or this tiger In Hamburg killing his little
friend. Still even men at times turn ON
| their friends.
NOW, there Ia another peculiar thing
about lions" added Professor Darling,
land that 10 that they win not eat the
u6SA Va q AOWAs 40U ulASub tcAApt kltAh
with o canvasback duck or the daintiest
SQUAD. but they would refuse 1t. This 10
q scientific fact. have tried IL many
times. I remember once having . swan
which had broken It's wing. We killed
it, dressed 1t carefully and threw 1t into
the cage Of the lions, but they would not
touch it, and ii finally had TO be taken
ont and thrown away. have repeated
" pnt pigeons alive into the cage, Just
to see what they would do. I have
thrown grain down among the lions, and
the pigeons have actually got down and
hoped around the big brntes, D hop
ping on their backs, the lions making no
attempt to disturb them, rel seeming
to enjoy their companionship.
Now, there Is something strange
about this which II rather 4 nicult toex-
plain. To my mind it argues that . lion
ia not brutal in his instincts. Savage he
undoubtedly II. Fierce at AL times, but
fierce with justice. believe every one
OF my lions has d conscience. know
every one of them knows the differences
between right and wrong. They know
49, 49, MAE @Z9