SYMPATHY WITH ANIMALS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 20 December 1924, Page 16

SYMPATHY WITH ANIMALS.

- A WOMEN AMONG THE SNAKES. Miss Joan ILoetor, who went to tlie London Zoological Gardens lust year as curator, of reptiles, lias the wonderful faculty of sympathy with animals of'all kinds (says the Children’s Newspaper). Although she is young, Miss Proctor is in entire charge of all the snakes, alligators, c.ocodiles, lizards, and tortoises at the Zoo, and the keepers of the reptile house think there is no one like her. Miss Proctor has kept large snakes and little-" corcodiles, as pets at her libme in Loudon ever since she ivas 12. She lia.ndieo them now in a marvellous way. “But, of course,” said Miss Piocior, “no one here handles the poisonous reptiles' or the big boa-constrictors, they are too danger—ons. It is not that any of the snakes aie \ icious, bat it somebody they knew ivas handling them when a straw o'er came into the room 'they might get frightened and bite. When th e venomous snakes have to be removed for any purpose we use a special apparatus, consisting of rods of thick iron wire. Tour pr five feet. long, on which they are picked up like hanks of rope and put into a tin, the- lid of which is slammed down quickly. As for the big python, when we want to clean his cage we shut him off behind sliding doors of steel.”

Miss Proctor has a great deal of work to do in the little hospital and dispensary which she has opened on the upper floor of th e reptile house. Snakes suffer from abscesses anti diseases of the jawbone, lizards have oronchitis. tortoises pneumonia, and they all are inclined when first they ailive m the Zoo to go on hunt/er--strike through fright or sulks. Evhn -•o-day there is an old ground-iguana, tour feet long, which must be fed bv aand with special yams, sent everV ctav from a. West End store. The pythons get chickens, rabbits and «ven goats, but not live ones ’ Live vrass snakes are, however, given as food to the kmg cobra.