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

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ssss1.One has since died.

In the last cage of the house, at the eastern end, took place the celebrated fight in November 1879, between a tiger and a tigress, which resulted in the death of the latter. An account of this scene, derived from Sutton the keeper’s description of what took place, is almost the last thing written by Frank Buckland, who himself died in the December of the next year. The description of the fight as it appears in the collection of Notes and Jottings from Animal Life, selected and arranged by Buckland shortly before his death, and edited by Mr. G. C. Bompas in 1882, agrees very closely with the description given verbally by Sutton himself. But the most curious point in Buckland’s account is, that he apparently forgot that the tigress died from her wounds, though he himself paid his last visit to the Lion House in order to see the suffering animal. The tigress began the quarrel by sticking one of her claws through the tiger’s nostril. The male tiger immediately pulled back his head with a jerk, and the claw cut its way through the nose, causing great pain and bleeding. The only people in the house at this time—Sunday morning—were Sutton the keeper and a Frenchman, and the two tigers at once joined battle with very little chance of interference by outsiders. The male used his feet, and throwing the female down, gave her several heavy blows and scratches, and then, having asserted its power, gave up the combat. The tigress got up, followed him, and bit him in the thigh. This made the tiger furious. He rushed at the other, and bit her through and through the neck, while the most fearful growls and screams came from both. This set a lion (Duke) and lioness fighting at the opposite end of the house, while the Frenchman, shouting and gesticulating, rushed up and down, and further excited the animals. Sutton quieted the lions, and then managed to drive the tiger off his victim. The moment he let go his hold the blood spouted from the tigress’s throat up to the roof, and she fell down apparently dying, while the tiger was driven into one of the sleeping compartments. The tigress was also moved into a room at the back. Buckland in his short account says, that “though of course her nerves were considerably shaken, she was soon all right again.” As a matter of fact, she died ten days later, having been unable to swallow food during that time, and being dreadfully exhausted from her wounds. The strangest thing in connection with this encounter and Buckland’s note is, that his visit to see the wounded tigress was his own last day in the Lion House. He was anxious to do what he could for the creature, and volunteered a visit, though so ill himself that he had to be pushed into the passage between the dens and the outdoor runs in a bath-chair. But his nerves were so shaken by illness, that when the iron shutter was about to be opened which led into the tigress’s sick chamber, he begged that it might be kept closed; and though assured that the animal could not move, he would not see it or have the door unclosed. A year later he himself was dead, by no one more regretted than by the keepers of the Zoo.