Evening Republican, Volume 14, Number 179, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 29 July 1910 — INTERESTING DISCUSSION OF CIRCUS ANIMALS. [ARTICLE]

INTERESTING DISCUSSION OF CIRCUS ANIMALS.

How They are Fed, What They Know And Something About Animal One of the most annoying things to the animal keeper in charge of a menagerie is the surprising ignorance and indifference of a majority of people toward beasts and birds of the forests. There are but few zoological collections in the country, and about the only way that a majority o f the people have to study natural history from real life is upon the occasional visit of some big circus. Although the wild beasts are vanishing before the advance of civilization and the increase of the earth’s population, and it is only a question of time until they become extinct, the public generally fails to inspect the animals which are brought to their doors. Mr. B. E. Wallace, manager of the Hagenbeck-Wallace shows, which will exhibit here Saturday, July 30th, paid $7,500 for <a giant hippopotamus four years ago. It is a magnificent specimen of the river horse and a most Interesting study for the student of nature. Very few people can teil •whether a hippopotamus is webfooted, or whether it has teeth. The average person does not know that it is an animal allied to the elephant; that it has a short, thick, heavy body and short legs terminated by four toes; has a short tail, and that it feeds on herbage exclusively. “Big George,” the hip, knows his value and he knows that the pi’ublic is -not as well acquainted with him as it pretends to be. When he first joined the circus he seemed annoyed because the pesky, cheap, sick, treacherous monkey attracted more attention than he did. Although he is not shown the attention and homage that are his due, “Big George” has ceased to show his disappointment, but lies contentedly in the mammoth tank of water in his cage, and ln parade he will make googoo eyes at the crowd or open his mouth because some one told him to do it. The little fellows with the human faces are generally sickly. Especially early in the season or in the fall they are subject to consumption or to attacks of pneumonia. Mr. Wallace discovered a peculiar method of protecting the lives of his happy family. Ho uses a common porker for a life saver. When ever the weather changes to rainy or chilly and sudden changes become the rule, just before the monkey cage is loaded on the train, a healthy pig weighing about two hundred pounds is placed in the cage to keep the monkeys company during the night. When the cage is opened the next morning, if the weather is damp or cold, the pig will be found to be entirely covered with the bodies of the ■ little fellows. The animal heat of the pig has saved the lives of scores of monkeys for Mr. Wallace. From the time the show arrives in cthe city next Saturday morning, until it departs at night, there will" be hiih- • dreds of exhibitions of sbiqtal sehse • not down on the bills, and which ton be seen free. What a circus hotoe knows is astonishing. It seems to be hutfian. It knows’ the wagons it must help pull; it knows its pl&be ~ln the team; it can find its place 1 In -the big horse stables and cab go *to the right car and the right stall in the • car when it Is time to be loaded'%t might. If it is a ting horse, tt kno#s by the music the band is playing when fit is time to go into the ring. The elephants do more wonderful • things in helping the show into about the work than they 'do’in the perfofth-r-ance. "They know is wanted of them and cheerfully do it, and ilthough it is heavy work they *eem l to do-it with ai much ease as if it were isport. The Wild animals in the cages also display at least some sense when’Mt <*>mes to placing the cages. The ends *of-the w&goas tare, cJosediSo that the

inmates cannot see each other, but they can smell. This fact Is the reason that cages and dens are placed carefully in the menagerie tent. It is absolutely necessary for the peace an’ happiness of both beasts and man concerned that the cagea be placed in the same order day after day. If by chance there is a change there is certainly liable to be trouble. If the tigers are placed next to the seals instead of next to the bears there is sure to be a commotion and an emphatic protest in at least three cages. This may be instinct rather than sense, but it serves to keep the menagerie tent in the same order day after day. During the winter months animals of the cat tribe are fed exclusively with horse meat. It is not always tender, since the horses butchered at the Wallace slaughter house are the old skates which the farmers of the surrounding country have worked for about twenty years and are ready co die of old age. On the read the show uses about fifty dollars worth of meat daily to feed the animal 3, scarcely a v\ eek passes that some of the show horses are not killed or crippled so that they have to be killed and they are always fed the beasts with great relish. They prefer it to beef.