HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
are well fed, well housed, generally well looked 
after, where their lives are made happy, such is 
certainly not the case. 
Animals' dispositions, be it remembered, vary 
as much as our own, and knowing the "individual" 
animal's character, minimises considerably any 
risk one may run, from their wild pet, whether 
large or small. 
But to real animal lovers, this is not great ! 
Animals are good judges. 
There are men and women whom they in- 
stinctively trust; there are others from whom they 
would flee ! The man who controls wild animals', 
or indeed any animals, by "their fear of him," is 
not the successful man, but the man who controls 
them, where he and they are "friends," where 
the animal has learnt he will always be fairly 
treated vet is fullv aware he must not do this or 
that— is^ 
Animals have a great idea of fairness. 
For anyone thoroughly conversant with ani- 
mals and their ways, it is easy to form an opinion 
as to the conditions existing between a keeper and 
his charges, with a little observation, and no 
amount of talking can alter what is quite apparent, 
should it not be to the credit of the attendant. 
Animals love being talked to> 
The silent man, be he ever so thorough in his 
work, is not the man to be with them; he never 
gains their confidence as he who talks to them 
will do, or are the animals as happy in his charge. 
The same, of course, 
animals. 
applies to domestic 
"Johnnie" came to live in the house when he 
was ten weeks old; he was delicate, and the other 
members of his family pushed him away from the 
milk bowl. 
"That one is a Johnnie !" my lion keeper said 
one evening, nodding to a male cub. "As fast as 
I gets him to the bowl he lets them others push 
him away." So he was "Johnnie" ! and a few 
days after his christening I took him out of the 
dens and brought him in to live in my study, where 
there were no rollicking brothers and sisters to 
come and push him away, and where he could sit 
by his milk bowl and lap in peace. 
Thinking it was best he should have a com- 
panion, I fetched a tortoiseshell kitten from the 
Home Farm for him. 
There were — as usual — kittens in the house 
at the time, but I wanted a stranger to the geo- 
graphy indoors, knowing it would be more prob- 
able to> make a home in my study, than one from 
the kitchen who would wish to return to its 
family circle there, opportunity permitting. 
"The Tortoiseshell Lady" — for it was a lady 
— and "Johnnie" were soon huge chums, and lay 
by the fire nearly all day, and slept cuddled up 
together in a basket at night, sharing the milk 
pan and meat plate. 
In the meantime, "Johnnie's" sojourn in the 
house was working wonders ! and after a few 
weeks visit he was no "Johnnie!" in my lion 
keeper's parlance. 
Sitting with a paw either side of his meat 
pan, he would growl, looking this way and that, 
twisting his tail — daring the world to come near, 
now ! 
At first, "The Tortoiseshell Lady" was scared 
to death at the new turn of affairs, and scuttled 
to hide under a cheffoneer, but in a day or two she 
discovered, while he was busy with his growlings, 
she could come and eat. 
(To be continued). 
WAR AFFECTS THE ZOO. 
War has had an effect on the Zoo. The num- 
ber of visitors from January 1 to> July 31 showed 
a decrease of 125,605 on the figures of the previous 
year, and the receipts at the gates showed a 
decrease of £4,580. 
RACCOONS AT THE SCOTTISH 
ZOOLOGICAL PARK. 
A new enclosure for the North American rac- 
coons and their kindred has just been completed 
at the Scottish Zoological Park, and in it the ideal 
of providing an entirely natural surrounding for 
the animals in the Park has been almost perfectly 
realised. In this respect the raccoon is a some- 
what simple little fellow to cater for. He does 
not burrow to any extent, and possesses small 
power of leaping, and though he is partly a tree 
dweller his climbing powers are not sufficient 
to enable him to make much headway en a smooth 
surface. In forming the enclosure a site was 
chosen in which there was a small grassy know 
and a growing tree of some size, and all that was 
necessary was to surround this space with a wall 
from three to four feet high. The raccoon appre- 
ciates a shallow pool, and so the water from the 
otter pool above was led into the raccoon enclo- 
sure, where it forms a pool of some few square 
yards in extent, and a little stream bordering one 
