The Portland Daily Press

MODEL MOTHERS AT THE ZOO.

The Babies in Danger of Too Much Care, not Neglect.

(New York Sun.)

At a zoological garden the baby animals are the favorites with the public. A crowd is always found in front of their cages. This is not surprising. Baby animals, like human babies, have many captivating little tricks, and the maternal love displayed behind the bars of the cages often makes a pretty sight.

Take mamma baboon. There is no better mother in the world. She sits at the back of her cage all day long, watching every movement of her offspring with happy pride. She lets him gambol about as much as he likes, so that he may grow strong and agile; but the moment she thinks he is running into danger she springs upon him, cuddles him tightly in her arms and retreats to the back of the cage, chattering furiously.

"As a rule," said her keeper, "she is one of the best tempered monkeys we have, but now that she has this young- ster it's dangerous to go near her. She seems to think the whole world is in a conspiracy to hurt the kid."

A photographer came along and tried to take the baby's picture. The little fellow, insatiably curious, like most babies, was willing enough to come to the front of the cage and examine the little black box. But the mother was suspicious. Again and again she dragged him as far from the evil eye of the camera as possible, until the photographer had eventually to give up in despair.

"Are all monkey mothers as good as this one?" the keeper was asked.

"Yes," he replied: "they are the best mothers in the world. Most animals make good mothers, but the monkey is the best of all. The most pathetic sight I ever saw was a monkey mother mourning over her dead baby."

To the question, "How do you manage to keep the babies alive?" a gray haired, veteran keeper replied:

"It isn't up to us as a rule. We leave it to the mothers when we can. They know more about it than we do, and nine times out of ten they wouldn't let us interfere, anyway. If they could help it. You try to teach a lioness or a female chimpanzee how to mind her baby, and she will soon let you know her views on the subject.

"Now and then, however, the mother dies, and we have to do our stunt as dry nurses. It isn't easy.

"First of all, we have to win the confidence and love of the baby, which has been taught by its mother to regard mankind with suspicion. Often the aggravating little creature won't eat or drink, and food has to be forced down its throat.

"I know a keeper who brought up a baby grizzly on the bottle. He used to nurse it in his arms just like a child, give it its milk and sing lullabies to hush it to sleep. It grew quite fond of him, and as soon as it could walk it used to follow him about the place like a dog.

The question of the milk is always a serious one. It is extremely difficult to get a fluid resembling the mother's milk. Mistakes are often made, and we have to learn by experience.

"We use condensed milk mixed in boiled water for baby monkeys. Into a quart of this we squeeze the juice of two bananas through a cheesecloth and also some orange juice.

"Small monkeys, such as ringtails and marmosets, are fed from the bottle, just like human babies; but the larger monkeys are taught to drink out of a cup from infancy. They are stronger than human babies, and can lift the cup when they are very young.

"Sometimes baby monkeys cannot be induced to take any nourishment from the keeper's hand. In that case the skin of an animal or some hairy cloth is laid upon the floor of the cage with several bottles of milk under it.

"Holes are cut in the cloth, through which the nipples of the bottles protrude. The monkey is then left alone, and, sooner or later, he will take all the milk he needs.

"Mountain sheep are raised on ordinary cow's milk in which grass has been steeped. Bear cubs are fed upon milk and zwieback. A great many of these cubs are caught in Germany, when their eyes are hardly open, by shooting their parents; and zwieback is regarded as the best food for them.

"Wolf cubs are also fed on it sometimes, but they get beef tea as well as milk. Juvenile snakes are easily provided for. All you have to do is to crush up grasshoppers small enough for them to swallow. Lion cubs are raised by the bottle on milk and beef tea."

Baby antelopes, wolves, foxes and many other animals have been successfully raised on the bottle by keepers. Some time ago a baby hippopotamus had to be dry nursed at the Central Park Zoo in New York. It was found that cow's milk mixed with the juice of crushed grass was the nearest approach to the milk of the mother.

The Central Park Zoo is famous the world over for its success in raising baby hippos. The hippopotamus very rarely breeds in captivity, and practically all those which have been produced in recent years have come from Central Park. They are traded off to zoos in various parts of the world in exchange for other animals.

"You talk as if you had often had to dry nurse these babies. Do the mothers die so frequently?" the keeper who had given all this information was asked.

"No, but we often have to take the babies away from their mothers," he replied. "As I have said, we always leave them when we can; but sometimes the mothers do their best to kill their babies through over kindness, and sometimes, though much more rarely, through neglect.

"Last winter a grizzly bear cub died through exposure to the cold. Its mother went to her den and slept leaving the poor little thing outside. It had only just been born, and didn't know enough to get out of the cold. We found it badly frostbitten and applied all kinds of restoratives, but it died.

"That was an unusual case. Over-fondness is more common. A lioness will be so proud of her cubs that she will carry them about by the nape of the neck until they choke, or she will fondly play about with them until she knocks them against the bars of the cage and beats their brains out.

"We have to watch for signs of this dangerous mother love, and when we see any it's up to us to separate mother and child. Say, that's a tough contract. The lioness robbed of her whelps is no mere figure of speech in our business. She's an awful reality.

"How do we separate them? Well, sometimes we keep her off with a pitchfork while we pass the cubs to a man at the door of the cage; and sometimes we entice her into an adjoining cage and then shut the door on her.

"Of course, she raises a rough house when she realizes what has happened. You would wonder that any cage could hold her. For a month afterward it is dangerous to go near her.

"But ordinarily a lioness is not fierce when she has cubs. She will allow you to go into the cage and play with them as much as you like, while she watches them proudly from a little distance, and seems quite pleased because you are interested in them.

"Take care, however, that you don't accidentally hurt one of the little beasts and make it yelp. If you do, the mother is up in arms in a moment to see what is the matter.

"There's only one thing to do then. Throw the cub to her at once. She will stop and examine it, and if you find she is still cross you have plenty of time to escape.

"Very likely, seeing that nothing is wrong, she will spank the cub with her paw to teach it not to whine needlessly, and will then let you go on playing with it.

"It's curious how animal mothers differ from women," the keeper said reflectively. "If you hurt a woman's child, she immediately starts to abuse or attack you, leaving the kid to howl. If you hurt a lioness's cub, her first thought is to look after the cub. Revenge comes second with her, and so the offender has a chance to escape."