The Birmingham age-herald., 1903-04-26
What the Animals Eat.


 The elephants eat 1,500 pounds of hay in day, and for desert feast on bran. l If they had all they wanted to eat they would dispose of twice this amount, but the keepers believe 1t not wise to let the beasts make gluttons of themselves. The elephants show their dispositions when feeding. Meal time discloses the fact that they are crafty and tricky Each ele- phant tries to steal hay from his neghbor when he is not looking, and a battle with trunks follows. Queen, the jumbo of the show, Is the heartiest eater She steals hay from the elephant on the left and the one on the right of her, and piles it be- fore her in d big heap. When she has pil- fered all the hay in sight she eats leis- urely. Once Queen, while taking part in the parade around the hippodrome, reach ed out her trunk and stole a basket Of peanuts and candy from one of the fakers. When he recovered the basket the contents were gone. Only one ele- phant of the male species is with the show, the rest being females. Five hun dred and fifty pounds of meat day is consumed by the meat-eatlng animals. The horned horses and the antelopes are among those who feast on hay.
 Epicure of the Show.
 The cassowarysis the epieure of the show. Coming from South America. he demands tropical fruit, and a bunch of bananas constitutes a fair meal
 A collection of snakes will arrive this morning They will appear in the side show. Most snakes are owned by men who r1eke them perform" said Rafferty. They are hard to handle.''
 The performing seals are in charge of W. p. Winston, California man, who makes them play baseball. which they do with the tips of their noses. He owns ten in all, but only four are performing in Louisville. They are fed on fish and eat. a pailful of it. Winston losses the fish to the seals and they catch the food with as unerring accuracy as Herman Long scoops in liners at shortstop. In the sum- mer time Winston makes life comfortable for the team by putting ice in the water.
 Man Who Loops the Loop.
 In real life the man who loops the loop with an automobile is Harace Mohn of Lancaster, Pa. He has been in the cir GUS business a decade, and Is the origin ator of the aerial wheel. Like all the loop the loop men he has a demonic nom-de- plume. billing himself as "Mephisto." His loop the loop is 13S feet long, and the loop itself Is 4S feet in circumference The auto is three feet long and twenty inches wide. At the end the machine is caught Dy ropes anu SdndDaB. The loop is looped by 'Mephisto' in just three sec- onds 'I have not had an accident yet" he said yesterday, as If expecting one. The only accident in the rehearsals so far was the tipping over of a chariot being ridden by John Robinson, son of the pro- prietor. Saturday night. At first 1t was thought that he was hurt, but he picked himself up uninjured.
 The horses are trained for ring work by Frank B. Miller who has been a cir GUS man for fifteen years, in that time having been connected with all of the shows excepting Barnums. Kindness is the best method to use in training horses he said. '"The whip is not much used. The horse that has "a kind disposi- ton can be made to do anything. but few horses have genial temperaments. We prefer to pick up green horses and break them in. We buy them from s20O to s350 apiece. After they are trained they sell for as much as s12O0 sometimes. The high school horses are the most thoroughly trained. These are the horses that obey verbal commands as inteIligently as if they were human beings" MT. Miller