A ZOO TREASURE.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXIX, Issue 3243, 13 June 1911, Page 6

A ZOO TREASURE.

They have got a baby iaiit at the London Zoo, the only one of ius kind m England. If it lives it will be larger than a land elephant,, for it is the bulkiest imaimmal in the world, with the one exception of the whale.

Naturally the authorities are anxious to do anything in their power to keep him alive, and as the natural history books say that sea-elephants are exceedingly fond of squids-—-otherwise cuttie fish—a quantity of squids were imported' for him at great expense. Up to now, however, he refuses to touch these costly dainties, preferring ordinary herrings. It was tho same with a litter of polarbear cubs born some years ago. ' Somebody suggested that whale-blubber was a proper diet for them, and a quantity was procured, regardless of cost. But they turned up their baby - noses at it, and died after a while of sheer starvation. -

O course, in cases like these, expense is. no object. English Jiot-houso grown pineapples, peaches and ."rapes are quite frequently procured for the anthropoid apes from Covent Garden in the dead of winter when they are too dear for, the table of everybody but a millionaire. And these dainties are in addition- to the ordinary catering, which, to some people might seem- extravagant. * Last year, ' for instance, the inmates consumer 97,884 bananas, "13,013 oranges, 42191 b of-grapes and apples, dates, biscuits, and nuts in like quantities, while the imeat-eating animals devoured 21 horses and 152 goat-s.