ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY BULLETIN 
87 
A Frisky Elephant. —The joy of his first 
spring promenade resulted in automatically pun¬ 
ishing our big African elephant, Kartoum, 
bringing to an immediate close for the time 
being his outdoor holidays. During the warm 
days of April Keeper Richards turned the 
Indian elephant, Alice, outside into her big yard 
for the first time since last autumn. Alice ran 
in great shuffling circles, waving her trunk and 
trumpeting in high glee. Kartoum, at the other 
end of the building, responded in a thunderous 
voice and pounded on the door to attract Keeper 
Thuman’s attention. Thuman swung open the 
massive doors and the great beast was immedi¬ 
ately on the run, flapping his huge ears, tearing 
up great clods of turf and tossing them high 
over his neck, and otherwise greeting the out¬ 
side air of a wonderful day. All would have 
gone well if Kartoum had been satisfied with 
these manifestations, which brought a crowd of 
visitors to enjoy the sport, but he decided to 
speed up the fun by butting the fences. There 
had been a bad bend in one of the massive top 
rails, which we had in mind as a job for the 
blacksmith. This was produced by the ele¬ 
phant’s antics directed from the adjoining yard 
during the spring of 1921. Kartoum headed 
for this bulge in the fence and with one well- 
directed blow of his ponderous head he straight¬ 
ened it as thoroughly as if the iron-workers had 
been at work for a day. 
But this failed to close the performance. Not¬ 
ing his success at short range, he backed well 
up and charged the partition gate, which is re¬ 
inforced with heavy railroad iron, and the gate 
was bent over more than three feet at the top, 
heavy bolts were stripped of threads and the 
structure reduced to a state of ruin. As Kar¬ 
toum gleefully swung around to aim a drive at 
the other gates, he was hurriedly escorted in¬ 
doors by Keeper Thuman and there he remained 
until his exuberance materially calmed down. 
A Queer Nursery.— -Now is the time to ob¬ 
serve the kangaroo babies at their best. During 
the early spring a number of mothers, including 
the swamp wallaby, ring-tailed wallaby and the 
Woodward kangaroo, have been steadily carry¬ 
ing their long-legged infants in the pouch. The 
babies have grown to such a size that they are 
able to leave tbe pouch and hop about the 
mother, but are still a bit timid and jump back 
into the pouch at frequent intervals. Several of 
them are too big for a comfortable fit, but the 
patient mothers do all they can in assisting their 
progeny to stow away their long legs and tails. 
It is only for about a month that these kangaroo 
youngsters are so frequently in and cut of their 
mother’s pouch, and during that time they are 
of great interest. 
Peafowl Idiosyncrasy. —There is at present a 
peacock, with decidedly straggling tail, that has 
selected a very beautiful spot near the service 
building, to spread its plumes and proudly strut 
in circles. Whether from fighting or not we do 
not know, but this peacock has several very dis¬ 
tinct gaps in its semi-circle of tail feathers. It 
displays before a background of rhododendrons, 
an ideal setting. Quite in contrast to this per¬ 
formance are the antics of an albino peacock, 
with perfect tail, which ranges near by. This 
latter bird would be in magnificent contrast with 
the rhododendron background, but the wavs of 
animals are often eccentric from the human 
point of view. The pure white peacock has 
elected to strut and spread its filmy fan in front 
of a large pile of pipes and old lumber near the 
tool shops, and not long ago, when the writer 
sought this bird to record a moving picture of its 
plumes, he found that it had selected as a back¬ 
ground a number of old and rusty stoves that 
had been discarded from the deer barns. 
Wild Animal Friendships. —It is well worth 
while to visit the Small Mammal House and note 
a strange phase of friendship among animals of 
utterly different types. This is exhibited by a 
South American wild dog and a Ring-tailed 
monkey, that have been reared together since 
infancy. Ordinarily these wild canines are sav¬ 
age and resent all attempts at familiarity. We 
have never seen one that was “tame,” nor does 
the present specimen permit Keeper Landsberg 
to get anywhere near him. The monkey, how¬ 
ever, sleeps affectionately by the side of his 
carnivorous friend, takes immediate possession 
of all the food that goes into the cage, enjoys 
several bites of the fresh meat provided for the 
dog, then calmly relinquishes it to his cagemate, 
who submits to all this without so much as a 
growl. 
A Lusty King Cobra. —Our cannibal King 
Cobra continues to keep us busy obtaining large 
serpents from Texas to form his meals. Head 
Keeper Toomey is keeping account of the foot¬ 
age in serpents consumed by this spectacular 
specimen and advises the writer that it is ap¬ 
proaching the two hundred mark. Visitors from 
India, who are familiar with the zoological col¬ 
lections at Calcutta and Singapore, tell us that 
this is the largest King Cobra they have ever 
seen. 
