Then there was the kangaroo with its young
ones peeping out of it--a most astonishing animal. The keeper said that
it brought forth two young ones at a birth, and then took them into its
stomach again, until they arrived at years of discretion. Then there was
the pelican of the wilderness, (I shall not forget him), with a large
bag under his throat, which the man put on his head as a night-cap: this
bird feeds its young with its own blood--when fish are scarce. And there
was the laughing hyaena, who cries in the wood like a human being in
distress, and devours those who come to his assistance--a sad instance
of the depravity of human nature, as the keeper observed. There was a
beautiful creature, the royal Bengal tiger, only three years old, what
growed ten inches every year, and never arrived at its full growth. The
one we saw, measured, as the keeper told us, sixteen feet from the snout
to the tail, and seventeen from the tail to the snout: but there must
have been some mistake there. There was a young elephant and three
lions, and several other animals which I forget now, so I shall go on to
describe the tragical scene which occurred. The keeper had poked up all
the animals, and had commenced feeding them. The great lion was growling
and snarling over the shin-bone of an ox, cracking it like a nut, when,
by some mismanagement, one end of the pole upon which the chandelier was
suspended fell down, striking the door of the cage in which the lioness
was at supper, and bursting it open.
Pages:
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113