338 OUT OF DOORS. 



and this was furnished by the letters with which Mr. 

 Bartlett was inundated, all giving advice as to the best 

 mode of feeding the young calf. One correspondent 

 proposed that milk should be squirted at its mouth 

 from a syringe. Several suggested that the mother 

 should be chloroformed, and the calf removed while she 

 was insensible. Now anyone with the least knowledge 

 of chloroform is aware that to place an animal under 

 its influence is a matter of the greatest difficulty. For 

 example, some little time ago, when it was needful to 

 put a tapir under chloroform, the operation lasted for 

 an hour, and required the combined efforts of Mr. 

 Bartlett and six assistants, acting under the direction 

 of the surgeon, though they had an apparatus which 

 fitted on the animal's head. As to chloroforming an 

 hippopotamus, it would be quite as easy to chloroform 

 a whale. Yet the correspondents — all anonymous — 

 gave their advice as if nothing could be easier. 

 ' Chloroform the dam and take away the cub.' Perhaps 

 the drollest of all the suggestions was a scheme for 

 burning brimstone in the house until the mother should 

 be stupified, and then removing the calf. How the 

 calf was to be rendered sulphur-proof, or how the 

 keepers were to breathe in an atmosphere which stupi- 

 fies an hippopotamus, were points which the writer did 

 not elucidate. 



It is impossible to go behind the scenes, so to speak, 

 of such an establishment as the Zoological Gardens, and 

 to not admire the profound knowledge of beast nature — 



