Waterbury evening Democrat., 1903-07-13
CLING TO THEIR CAGES.
Keeper of Wild Animals Tells Some Interesting Things About
 His Charges.


 eff the people who write so much about animals" said Mir. Blackburn, the head keeper of the national zoo, to Washington Post reporter, re- gently, ~could spend a month or two in charge of large ZOO such as this, or the one in London, they would no doubt change many of the opinions which they have expressed with con- fdence in the books and stories which many of them have written"
 EFor instance he continued, s'I take notice that Ernest Thompson-Se- ton says that animals ought to be con- tinuany, charged and shifted about from one paddock, cage and pasture to another, to keep them from being discontented and nervous. The rhi- noceros, he says, comes in time to know every bolt and bar in his cage, so that, according to the author, the animal ought to be shifted into new quarters when this happens, to pre-" vent his dying of ennui and lonesome ness. This sounds very we'll and hu- mane, especially when it appears in 8 magazine with nice illustrations, but when it comes down to practice, am afraid that Mir. Thompson-Seton wouldt find that it would not pan out. Animals are as peculiar, cranky and uncertain as people, and it is impossi- ble to tell in advance how any experi- ment in the way of new quarters or changing about is likely to result. Let me give you pointer or two from my own experience.
 stAIong about 1876 was with Bar num's circus. At that time they had an old polar bear that had been with the show for eight years. He lived in a little cage about large enough for one to turn round in, yet, for all that, he was as fat and contented as one could we'll desire. We'll, along about the eighth year of the creature's existence in Barnum's show, the management de- cided that, as he was getting old, it would be good plan to trade him off for three young bears to the Hagen back people in Hamburg, and they did. The young bears arrived in as good condition as you could well de- sire, yet in four weeks time all three had died. As for the old bear, which had lived with the show for eight years, he went to Hamburg, where he was turned into 8 large, roomy pit, but in less than month he, too, had given up the ghost. The old fellow missed his old quarters, and the shak- ing up of loading and unloading of the circus, so that he simply pined away and died of homesickness and wishing for his old cage.
 ic !, TUbi1s an animal is like human being, and does, to be sure, require change now and then, it is more than humanlike in it's love of routine, in it's grooviness, one might say. Animals become attached to certain quarters, just as 8 country man gets used to the farm on which he was born and has lived all his life, so that when they are removed from the cage in which they feel perfectly at home it frightens, annoys, worries and umerves them to such an extent that, frequently, they pine away and die as result.
 tWe have an object lesson in the con- servatism of animals nearly every month here at the zoo. The average person would imagine that all that y and happiness to zoo animals would be simply to open the doors to their cages and "wstch them spring,out into i nice, roomy yard, to spend the+day eayorting around and enjoying their new-found freedom. But this is not what usually occurs. Some yearsago when I first came with the national ZOO, workmen had just completed the very fine series of large outdoor cages for the big carnivores, which ran the length of the main buildings. The in- ner cages of the lions, tigers, leopards, etc, all have doors leading out into these yards, and few days after had been here, opened the door of the cage in which we kept our biggest @ion> expecting he would go out and have good time.
 "But he did nothing of the sort. He kept away from the door as though 1t were trap, until at last one of the men took a seraper and prodded him out. Then, after he was once out he was afraid to return.
 ~He stayed out in the yard three days, until on the fourth, when a heavy rainstorn set in, we were obliged to drive him in again. Even then we had time of it getting him in- We would get him as far as the door, and sometimes he wouldpoke his head in, but just as sure as we un- dertook to hurry him along, he would bolt back again, as though frightened and afraid to venture further.