ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
43 
Africa,” “South African Mammals,” and many 
scientific papers. On his visit to the United 
States, two years ago, Dr. Haagner brought 
three fine living specimens of his recently de¬ 
scribed new species of South African baboon as 
gifts to the zoological parks of New York, 
Philadelphia and Washington. 
ZOOLOGICAL PARK NOTES 
By Raymond L. Ditmars 
The Season. —Despite some predictions to 
the contrary, the present winter is turning out 
to be one of the “old fashioned” variety. The 
ponds and streams have been solidly frozen over 
since late December. There has been almost 
continuous skating, and the few thaws have 
been short and immediately followed by cold 
waves. The health of the outside animals is 
good, as always is during a dry, cold winter. 
Recalling observations that we made in the 
autumn, we remember that the beavers stored 
a generous quantity of food-wood, the squirrels 
and chipmunks were very busy storing nuts and 
acorns, and the priarie “dogs” built unusually 
high mounds about their burrows. These ap¬ 
pear to be fairly accurate signs of a cold season, 
yet we distinctly remember assertions that this 
was to be an “open” winter. 
The Hibernating Instinct in Our Bears .— 
The steady cold has resulted in a decided ten¬ 
dency among the bears to hibernate. There 
have been winter seasons when the bears played 
about their dens every day, and consumed about 
the same quantity of food as during the warm 
months. But not so this winter. Only about 
one-half our bears are to be seen outside, and 
they are out but part of the time, and feed 
sparingly. Several have retired altogether. 
Among these is the black bear from Anticosti 
Island, at the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. 
Although his home territory experiences de¬ 
grees of cold that we have never recorded here, 
“John Anticosti” has decided to go to sleep. 
He has not fed nor been in view for about 
three weeks, and the keepers daily hear him 
snoring in the depths of his den, whereunto 
lie gathered masses of leaves last autumn. 
Monlcey Finger Prints. —In adding to our 
collection of monkey handprints and finger¬ 
prints, which has been of much interest to a 
number of scientific observers. Curator Dit¬ 
mars visited the Department of Criminal Rec¬ 
ords at New York Police Headquarters, to 
investigate the most up-to-date methods. 
Through the courtesy of Detective-Sergeant 
Hammersley, a well-known expert, several ac¬ 
cessories were obtained and used at the Park. 
Preparing a thumb-print of our orang-utan 
Gabong, then placing a human print beside it, 
Mr. Ditmars again visited Police Headquarters 
with the idea of obtaining expert opinions re¬ 
garding the difference between the two, the 
similarity in lines, spacings and concentric rings 
being striking. It was startling to discover 
that among the staff of experts it was the 
unanimous opinion that the thumb-print of the 
orang-utan could not be distinguished from 
that of a human, and that the particular ar¬ 
rangement of lines in the anthropoid print 
fitted within a classification of human thumb¬ 
prints filed in the department. 
A Long-Haired Orang. —Gabong has fur¬ 
nished us witli other interesting experiences the 
past few months. When he arrived at the park 
the past summer from Singapore, via San Fran¬ 
cisco, he possessed the longest hair of any orang 
we have ever exhibited. A fierv mop of hair 
tumbled forward over his head and his shoulders 
were clad in a veritable cape. Extremely 
happy in his generous quarters, he developed 
the hilarious habit of standing on his head and 
turning somersaults. This worked a trans¬ 
formation with Gabong. Every vestige of hair 
has been worn from his head and shoulders, and 
from the long-faced, solemn and rather surly 
specimen of a few months ago has emerged 
the round headed, clownish ape, which in late 
weeks has caused crowds of children to shout 
witli glee at his antics. 
The King Cobra. —Head-Keeper Toomev has 
been keeping notes of the number of snakes 
consumed by the king cobra, a strictly canni¬ 
balistic species. This formidable and wonderful 
specimen, nearly thirteen feet long, arrived last 
October. He feeds upon black snakes, water 
snakes and other kinds that are sent every other 
month from Texas, where the feat of capturing 
a hundred pounds of serpents consumes but a 
few hours. Mr. Toomey has noted that the 
big cobra is very emphatic in indicating an 
appetite. It restlessly prowls about the cage, 
and frequently comes to the observation port 
at the rear and peers down the service passage¬ 
way. Making a note of the length of each 
snake consumed by the king cobra, the Head- 
Keeper states that it has eaten over eighty-five 
feet of serpents at the time that the Bulletin 
goes to press. 
Notable Visitors View Reptiles. —Among our 
visitors the past month we had the pleasure of 
entertaining Mrs. Kermit Roosevelt and Sir 
Charles Radcliff'e. Going through the Reptile 
