OF WILD ANIMALS 209 



The trainer who has been selected to create a specified 

 group spends practically his entire time with his pupils. He 

 feeds them, and mixes with them daily and hourly. From the 

 beginning he teaches them that they must obey him, and not 

 fight. The work of training begins with simple things, and goes 

 on to the complex; and each day the same routine is carried 

 out. To each animal is assigned a certain place in the circle, 

 with a certain tub or platform on which to sit at ease when 

 not acting in the ring. It is exceedingly droll to see a dozen 

 cub lions, tigers, bears and cheetahs sitting decorously on their 

 respective tubs and gravely watching the thirteenth cub who 

 is being labored with by the keeper to bring its ideas and acts 

 into line. 



The stage properties are many; and they all assist in helping 

 the actors to remember the sequence of their acts, as well as 

 the things to be done. The key that controls the mind of 

 a good animal is the reward idea. Many a really bad animal 

 goes through its share of the performance solely to secure the 

 bit of meat, the lump of sugar or the prized biscuit that 

 never fails to show up at the proper moment. 



The acts to be performed are gone over in the training 

 quarters, innumerable times; and this continues so long that 

 by the time the "group" is ready for the stage, behold! the 

 cubs with which the patient and tireless trainer began have 

 grown so large that to the audience they now seem like adult 

 and savage animals. Those who scoff at the wild animal 

 mind, and say that all this displays nothing but "machines 

 in fur" need to be reminded that this very same line of effort in 

 training and rehearsal is absolutely necessary in the production 

 of every military company, every ballet, and every mass 

 performance on the stage. There is no successful performance 

 without training. Boys and girls require the very same sort 

 of handling that the wild animals receive, but the humans do 

 with a little less of it. 



The man who flouts a good stage performance by wild 



