TRAINING WILD ANIMALS 139 
lessons in the very same place. There they have learnt to 
distinguish the peculiarities and characters of different animals. 
They have learnt also the great lessons of tact and patience, 
which are perhaps the most essential of all the traits which go 
to make up the animal trainer. I myself have advanced 
greatly in knowledge and skill since my début at Chicago. 
I make a rule of almost always going into the animals’ cages 
to make myself acquainted with their peculiarities. 
I well remember the astonishment on one occasion of a 
party of officers and ladies who had come one Sunday after- 
noon to visit my Zoological Garden. I took them to look 
at a dozen young lions which were shortly to be sent to the 
Chicago Exhibition, but which had not yet completed their 
training. As I stroked them through the bars, one of the 
officers laughingly remarked that that was all very well with 
bars in between, but would be a very different matter if I 
were inside the cage. I thereupon walked into the cage, to 
his great surprise, and was soon surrounded by them. As 
they were moulting at the time I got so covered with their 
hairs that I very soon looked like a lion myself. Without 
any whip or other protection I put them through the element- 
ary tricks which they had already learnt. By the time I had 
come out, the incredulity of the party had vanished and 
I was bombarded with hundreds of questions as to how 
I taught them to be so tame. 
My first experience as an animal trainer was in the 
seventies. About this time I had sold to the negro Del- 
monico three lion cubs and three tiger cubs, which he pro- 
ceeded to train for three months in my establishment in a 
sort of waggon-cage. Just before he left he dared me to 
go into this cage and say good-bye to my animals. Although 
at that time I had nothing like the experience which I now 
have, I took him at his word. Going into the cage I suc- 
ceeded in taking the animals through all the tricks which 
Delmonico taught them, to the very considerable discom- 
fiture of that individual. 
