692 SOME PRIVATE ZOOS. 



Haggerston lies, as I have said, on the bleak coast of Northumber- 

 land, and the visitor must alight at the little station of Beal, changing 

 out of the express, which ignores it, into a slower local train that runs 

 from Newcastle to Berwick. The lodge gates adjoin the station, and 

 on either side of the winding track that leads to the castle are inquisi- 

 tive wapiti, bison (both pure and half-breed), gnus, and other strange 

 creatures. The crowning success of acclimatization is fully attested 

 by the numbers of young animals intermingled with their sires and 

 dams (for the Nilghai antelopes often produce twins); and there are the 

 calves of the zebu and, one had almost added, of the gnu, but that, in 

 spite of its ox-like exterior, the gnu is an antelope and its young are 

 in consequence styled fawns. 



Although we see before us miles of wire fence and inclosed buildings, 

 there is liberty, too, for the Haggerston animals; and at one turn of 

 the road Mr. Tait, who has charge of them all, points out a rock- 

 wallaby reclining lazily in the branches of a low tree, leafless this 

 January afternoon. These rock-wallabies are also very fond of the 

 cedars, which they ascend to a great height. Bennett's wallabies and 

 great kangaroos gaze stolidly at the emus and black swans, maybe 

 with memories of a distant home that they have no cause to regret. 

 Right through the grounds goes the sluggish Low, its waters holding- 

 numbers of small trout, and the moaning of the North Sea can be 

 heard whenever the wind blows from the east. The emus and rheas 

 (their South American cousins) have bred less satisfactorily these past 

 three years, a falling off which Mr. Leyland attributes to excessive 

 rains, and more particularly to late frosts, during incubation. This 

 year, however, there are again some young emus. Japanese apes run 

 free in a large inclosure, but no families have so far blessed their cap- 

 tivity. Mr. Leyland tells me that he started this wonderful collection 

 some twenty years ago in Wales, with emus, kangaroos, pheasants. 

 waterfowl, and various small birds. Some ten years ago their owner 

 moved north and took with him his herds of wapiti and bison. It is 

 with the last named that animal lovers must always associate his work. 

 Thanks to American railroad enterprise and Indian greed, the bison 

 has long been a vanishing t}^pe. Indeed, the absolutely wild condi- 

 tion knows it no longer, which sad fact makes it the more gratifying 

 that the Haggerston herd is slowly but surely on the increase. Mr. 

 Leyland has crosses between bison bull and Highland cow, and the 

 heifers have for two generations been bred back to pure bison bull. 

 The larger birds kept in the paddocks include no fewer than five kinds 

 of cranes; but only one, the Demoiselles, have ever mated, and even 

 they did not hatch. 



Having visited Tring in December, Haggerston in January, and 

 both Leonardslee and Vavnol in the loveliest time of spring, I otter 

 comparisons with all reserve. Tring, however, if it does not perhaps 



