ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, MANCHESTER 209 



tenants of the Belle Yue cages find a resting-place — 

 among others, the great elephant Maharajah, the 

 chhnpanzees, and the great orang, with his arms 7 feet 

 6 inches in stretch, which was exhibited in the 

 Gardens in the summer of 1899. Housed in the same 

 building are the live snakes and saurians, the finest 

 specimen a reticulated python 27 feet in length. The 

 accommodation is, however, judged insufficient, and a 

 reptile house is in contemplation. 



Amongst exciting and amusing incidents the follow- 

 ing have occurred in the Gardens : 



One summer midnight, about twenty-five years ago, 

 a cage-door was left open, and a lioness escaped into 

 the grounds. The keeper was informed, and saw her 

 lying by the back door of the house. He immediately 

 went to her den, where she had two cubs lying, and, 

 taking one under each arm, walked up to her, and so 

 persuaded her to follow him back to the den. This 

 keeper (Thomas Day by name) had been a tamer, and 

 in his early days at Wombwell's had performed before 

 the Royal Family at Balmoral. 



Earlier still, probably in the fifties, a leopard escaped 

 from its cage. Mrs. Jennison, senior, wife of the 

 founder, happened to be passing, and courageously 

 went into the house, and with her apron ' shooed ' the 

 animal, as though it had been a hen and chickens, 

 straight back into its cage, where she fastened 

 it up. 



In the very early days, when Belle Yue was in the 

 country and our enclosures were less perfect, it was a 

 common thing for the countryside to turn out for a 

 red-deer chase after an escape from the Gardens. 



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