The Somerset reporter., 1894-03-15
THE KING HAS PETS.
THIS REFERS TO THE LION AND LIT
TIE ANIMALS HE LOVES.

81 bfHNiN'
The way lions treat the tiny creatures
If animal life is a study. 1t may be that
there is some animal language, and that
the legend of the little mouse which saw
ID the lions life by gnawing the net has
become known to the denizens of the
jungle and handed down as animal folk
lore. or it may be that the king of beasts
has a positive contempt for anything ex-
trenely small, but it is nevertheless a
fact that lions will not attack tiny ami
mails when they are put together, Pro-
fessor Edward Darling than whom there
is no more profound student of lions
life and character in tAe country, has
made many curious experiments with
his five big beasts.
Il never saw lion kill rat or a
mouse. said Professor Darling, "and
have had many of them put i'll the cage
with my five lions. Nv attention was
first drawn to this when was on my
way from London to Batavia, in Java,
on the snip Rotundo. had my five lions
with me, and in the quarter If the ship
in which they were housed were many
rats. One day | saw LEO. my fayorite
lion. living down and holding between
his paws very loosely monster ship rat.
| thought perhaps that the cat instinct
in the lion had made him catch it and
that he would probably play with ii
awhile, then eat it, and 50 watched. I'm
agine however, my surprise when | saw
| him loosen the rat, and the rat made no
attempt to get away, but ran up and
over his gigantic paws and played with
him.
We were a long time making 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 tine rat, hop
ing that perhaps | might take it ashore
with me, but | 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 he never did it.
There was another instance subse-
quent to this where Leo had II pet rat,
which makes me believe that the lion has
a real fondness for the rodent. 1t 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 "a pet My five
lions We're all together, but TINS rat would
play only with Leo. There were many
other rats i'll the place. but the other
lions would not look at them. 1t seems
to me to be fact that the lions consider
these little animals too small to be touch
ed. have known Of rats being found
dead in a lion $ cage but | believe that
they We're simply killed by the lion roll,
ing on them or stepping on them through
carelessness, but lions never eat them.
I'm Hamburg once knew a case of u
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 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 be would touch it
| fIe finally killed and ate it.
Now, my theory is this: A lion, or a
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
| it is rabbit, is put in the same cage
with them, they refrain from killing it so
as to have its companionship. We have
heard of many instances of men being
alone. shipwrecked, If you like-making
strange friends. Why not lion? 1t al
ways made me feel rather bad to think
| of this Tiger III Hamburg killing his little
| friend. Still even men at times turn on
| their friends
Now. there Is another peculiar thing
about lions added Professor Darling
land that iss that they will not eat the
| flesh of fowl. You might tempt them
with canvasback duck or the daintiest
SQUAD, but they would refuse it. This is
| scientific fact. have tried it many
| times. remember once having a swan
| which had broken its wing. We killed
| it. dressed it carefully and threw it into
| the cage of the lions but they would not
| touch Il, and it finally had to be taken
out and thrown away. have repeated
ly put pigeons alive into the cage just
| to see what they would do. | have
| thrown grain down among the lions, and
| the pigeons have actually got down and
| hoped around the big brutes. even hop
ping on their backs the lions making no