FOR THE ZOO

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 71, 20 September 1930, Page 14

FOR THE ZOO

A PAIR QF GLUTTONS

After an interval of nearly, twenty years the Zoological Society is once more able to boast' of being able to exhibit specimens of that most voracious of all animals—the glutton, says the "Daily Telegraph."

A pair of adult gluttons have arrived from Norway at the Regent's Park'menagerie,, and are , enjoying a period of retirement in the sanatorium before being introduced to the public. The glutton is a carnivorous animal allied to the weasel, and in iSurope occurs in • the northernmost forest districts of Norway, Sweden, and Russia.- A ■fullgrown specimen may measure' over 3ft in

length, and in appearance may be compared to a bear -with super-added bushy tail.

Its popular name of glutton is well earned, since it will gorge itself with any animal that it can catch and overpower, and ig by no means averse from carrion. Although heavily built, it is extremely agile, and has no difficulty in capturing such active prey as hares and foxes.

A specimen that lived at the Zoo in pre-war days consumed a 41b joint v. day, and heralded the approach of his official meal'by loud and uncouth cries not those emitted by an infuriated bear.

Aniongst the collection of snakes received recently from Singapore is a specimen "of the so-called "two-headed" snake,, a burrowing'species with a short, rounded tail which exactly resembles the bead in shape.

The Bnake would appear to be Tvell "aware of this extraordinary resemblance, since when worried it digs its head into the earth and; adopting "tails up" as its raottb,. raises its tail several inches from the ground in. such a manner that any casual .observer would imagine that the tail was the head, and would think the reptile' to be threatening to strike. The natives declare that it has a head at each end of the body, and that the one end sleeps while the other watches.