Читать книгу Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens онлайн

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On the last occasion on which the writer waited on the tigers’ levée, it was evident that some disagreement had marked the morning hours. The tigress from Hyderabad came out with a rush, and greeted the world with a most forbidding growl. She then stood erect, like a disturbed cat, switching her tail to and fro, and after examining every corner of the cage, summoned her mate with a discontented roar. The tiger then stalked out, and endeavoured to soothe his partner with some commonplace caress, which apparently soothed her ruffled nerves, for after sharpening her claws upon the floor, she lay down, and, rolling over on her back, with paws folded on her breast, and mouth half-open, went most contentedly to sleep. The pair of tiger-cubs in the next cage were still sleeping the long sleep of youth, one making a pillow of the other’s shoulder. Tigers, it may be observed, do not sleep like cats, but resemble in all their attitudes of repose the luxurious languor of some petted house-dog, constantly rolling over on their backs, and sticking up their paws, with heads upon one side, and eyes half-opened. This pair of cubs was presented by the Maharanee of Odeypore in 1892. Both cubs, when called by the keeper, can be stroked and petted like cats. But no tiger which has yet lived in Regent’s Park has been so completely tamed as the fine northern tiger “Warsaw” from Turkestan, which died last winter, after living in the Zoo since 1886. Taking into account the hardships endured by a wild animal in its transport from the distant steppes of Central Asia, across the Caspian Sea, thence by rail to the Euxine, and finally by ship to England, it is difficult to maintain the belief in the “innate ferocity” of the tiger after making the acquaintance of “Warsaw.”