TWINS AT THE ZOO

Evening Star, Issue 21748, 16 June 1934, Page 5

TWINS AT THE ZOO

The cock emu at Whipsnade provided the Country Zoo with an interesting Easter chick. Although the weather was far from encouraging, this dutiful father bird, sat patiently on his clutch of eggs for seven weeks, and then, three days before Easter Sunday, he was rewarded by the appearance of a chick. This is the first time an emu has been bred by the Zoo, and once again Whipsnade has scored over the Regent’s Park menagerie; But, although the emu in the London Gardens did not manage to hatch one of his eggs in time for Easter, the menagerie had two important Easter babies. In the Small Cats House there are a pair of small dark-coloured tree animals called biuturongs. These creatures come from Asia, and are related to the civet cats and cat-bears. They are rare animals, and baby biuturongs were quite unknown at the Zoo until this particular pair became the parents of twins at Easter.

The youngsters were not expected, but one morning when the keeper was cleaning a cage near by lie heard strange little squeaks coming from the direction of the binturongs home, and on investigating discovered that the female biuturoug, Lulu, was carrying two babies about in. her mouth like a cat. As she seemed restless, and she is never friendly toward visitors, the keeper felt that she was trying to find a good place in which to hide her twins, and he draped the bars of the cage with canvas so that no one could look inside. Then Lulu settled down and made a nursery in a sleeping box. During some spring-cleaning operations at the London Zoo it was found necessary to redecorate the dens in the Reptile House. The scenery at the back of the cages was fading badly, and an artist was commissioned to paint them. This means that a number of reptiles had to move into temporary quarters, and this they very much resented. Some of the crocodiles and alligators were most obstinate about moving into a new den, though all that was asked of them was to walk through an opening into the next-door den. They were tempted with food; but only one or two responded, the others refusing to move. At last the keepers managed to solve the problem. One evening before they left they shut off the heat in the alligator’s deu and made the next-door cage unusually warm and cosy, lekving the communicating door invitingly open. The next morning they found the old den abandoned.