194 CHILDHOOD OF ANIMALS 



A young orang, which had refused all food, was tempted to eat and 

 brought back to normal food and health on several occasions by 

 flavouring its milk with stewed rhubarb. A caracal kitten in 

 my possession liked the flavour of plum-tart excessively and 

 would take milk with this when it would touch nothing else. 

 A very young tree-hyrax was brought to me by a young engineer 

 who had obtained it in Nigeria and was unaware of its natural food. 

 Deciding that it might as well die from improper food as from starva- 

 tion, and that, in any event, he would give it a chance, he succeeded 

 by persuasion and force in getting it to take food which kept it alive, 

 but was certainly unnatural. When I took it over, I could not induce 

 it for some time to eat what I thought proper, but it took a fancy to 

 sponge-fingers dipped in hot coffee and milk, from that passed to 

 strips of toast sopped in hot milk, which it would take only from the 

 hand, and then gradually learned to eat green leaves. But I had to 

 try many different kinds, until I found what it would always take ; 

 its favourite was hawthorn and next a very succulent grass. It 

 was given on one occasion bread sopped in claret and liked that 

 immensely, but could not be induced to touch bread if dipped into 

 moselle, or port, or champagne. It was extremely fond of ice 

 wafers, but took no special interest in them unless they were those 

 of a particular maker. The young elephant-seal in the London 

 Zoological Gardens, which ought to be purely a fish-eater, acquired 

 so voracious an appetite for buns that the public had to be warned 

 against feeding it. Once in the absence of the proper official I 

 had to try to give a young bear a dose of castor oil. After half an 

 hour's struggle, in which the keeper and I both got scratched and 

 bitten and had our coats torn, we succeeded in forcing perhaps half 

 a teaspoonful down its throat. We gave it up, and as a last chance 

 I poured some out in a dish and left it in front of the bear, which at 

 once rushed at it, and greedily drank it all up. Patience and 

 experiment are the most successful methods with all animals. 

 j I have already spoken of the care given by birds to the feeding of 

 the young. In the brush turkeys, probably alone among birds, it 

 idoes not occur, but the full-fledged chicks look after themselves 

 as soon as they are hatched. In the birds that are hatched in 

 'a downy and active condition, the parents may actually bring 

 food, or may only call the attention of the young to food they 

 'scratch up. 



In ducks and geese the young are taken to food rather than 

 actually fed. In the vast army of birds which are hatched in a 



