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

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This amiability is very difficult to explain, unless on the ground that the tiger was captured when very young, though many cubs are ferocious when only a few months old. Another northern tiger, from China, which came as a half-grown specimen to the Gardens three years ago, was as tame as “Warsaw,” though it had suffered much in captivity, and died before attaining its full size. It was starved in China, and never recovered this early ill-usage, its brief life being a succession of illnesses; but its temper was never soured, and it was far more demonstratively affectionate than any cat. For some months it was kept in invalid quarters at the back of the house, and its loud “purrs” could be heard at the end of the passage the moment its keepers entered. It ran up and down its cage, rubbing against the bars, with its tail standing stiffly up, and delighted to have its head and ears rubbed and patted. Sutton, and the keepers more especially concerned with the Lion House, took all possible care of it, and after nursing it through an illness in which it lost all its fur, they succeeded in bringing it into condition to be shown. But the tiger soon became sick again, and after a long illness, in which it was kept alive mainly by the care and affection of the keepers, it died, much lamented.