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Dr. John Kerr Butter



that genial kindly soul to which the surest passport was a love of

animals. Dr. Butter served with distinction in the South African War,

where he was attached to Lord Roberts’ Staff.


At Cannock, whither he removed from his native Forfar in 1887,

he had a roomy old-fashioned house, a field, and a large practice,

which enabled him to indulge in his favourite hobby. Even before he

left Scotland he had made acquaintance with Mr. E. Bostock, with

whom he spent almost all his annual holiday in the living wagon

of the Show (varied by occasional trips of zoological inspection on

the Continent), and with whom he was contemplating an early and

more adventurous trip embracing Africa from Cairo to the Cape.

Among the caravans his annual visits marked an epoch ; his sympathy

was always on the side of the wanderers in their continual

struggles for their prescriptive rights so often challenged—he used

to tell with great gusto the tale of two horses impounded by a local

authority, and their woeful apologies to the circus-owner when they

found that their law lore was shorter than his. “ And it cost them a 2 d.

rate to get out of it,” he concluded with a smile.


He was humorous and kind-hearted ; his great professional skill

was free to every living thing in and about the menagerie—a sore

finger or an operation on the big Elephant—a case of croup or

tincture of iodine for the Ostrich’s throat. In the last letter I received

from him was a lament on the death of a young Elephant that had been

sent too late to Cannock.


On his three-acre field he had a fine collection of birds and beasts,

which was free to the neighbourhood except when some local hospital

needed funds. At one time or another there were all things from

Zebras to Squirrels. The dwarf Zebu would put its muzzle into

one’s hand—the Ostrich run up with outspread wings—and there was

the sitting Rhea that it was well to avoid. In the aviaries were many

kinds of Parrakeets, Macaws, and Cockatoos—Herons, too, and Owls

and the smaller Cranes. Civets, Jackals, and Llamas bred regularly

at Cannock, and the Monkeys (chiefly Drills and Mandrills) were fine

specimens. Dr. Butter kept the rare and delicate Fossa for years ;

he had an Ocelot as cage mate for the Chimpanzee ; everything was

done without regard to zoological convention, and none of the houses



