Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 113, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 May 1913 — Prince, Big Barbary Lion, Mourns Mate’s Death [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Prince, Big Barbary Lion, Mourns Mate’s Death

CHICAGO. —Prince, the great Barbary lion at the Lincoln park zoo, Is mourning the death of Nellie, who long was his mate. Dismally he paces his cage with a faraway look. The gentle strokes of the keeper on his nose pass unnoticed as are the juicy steaks lying on the floor of his cage. “He mourns as I knew he would,” said Cy De Vry in a shaky voice. “But Nellie is buried in a high and dry place Where no one can disturb her. She shall have a monument —a small one —but still a* monument.” Nellie for years was the best known animal in the Lincoln park zoo. She was the mother of 126 cubs. For several years she had been blind and gradually getting feebler with old age. She was twenty-four years old. Cy De Vry, who has had charge of the animals for twenty-five years, raised Nellie from a cub. Prince was purchased from a circus in Wisconsin on April 6, 1903, for |l,« 400, and placed in the same cage with Nellie. They lived in harmony and happiness, the best of "pals” for ten long years. Visitors used to smile as they gazed into cage 4 at Nellie and Prince stretched out on the floor side by side, , both curiously watching the

crowds, as they slowly passed along. * Once Cy De Vry almost met his death at the jaws and paws of Nellie when he entered her cage and looked at her four new cubs. This was in 1901. “Nellie is a good mother,” said Cy De Vry after the rescue, “but cross to men when she has cubs. There is nothing like a good scrap to put yon on right terms with a lion, that la, unless the lion wins. “Prince has eaten nothing since Nellie’s death,” he said, turning away sadly. Ope of the caretakers threw a large, juicy steak into the cage. Prince looked at it, pawed it and then resumed his mournful pacing of his cell. The other lions ate the food ravenously.