A LUCKLESS MENAGERIE.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXI, Issue 8768, 20 March 1907, Page 4

A LUCKLESS MENAGERIE.

The fate of a floating menagerie carried by the German cargo s' earner Lichtenfols, which put into New York recently, is one of the most tragic chapters in animal history. The crew of the Lichtenfels are animal lovers to a man, and when ,the vessel left Calcutta she carried quite a hundred pets. She arrived in New York (says the Express correspondent) with one-a mangy cat that had seen many vicissitudes. The captain had a collie dog, the first officer a young crocodile, the second officer half a dozen parrots, the chiet engineer a doe, the second engineer a choice pair of hooded cobras, the fifth and sixth engineers divided the ownership of three mongooses, and so on ; while the lascars in the forecastle had thirty monkeys, several hairy-nosed porcupines, j Malayan squirrels, and numerous i birds. The cook was the proud owner of a well-developed young j cheetah. All hoped to sell their pets' profitably in New York. The cheetah begin the trouble, He surrepitiously b'fc a piece out of his owner's leg in the cook's galley, and killed the chief engineer's doe. He was finally driven overboard by a party of angry seamen. Within two days of Suez, a Red Sea sandstorm blinded the monkeys, and almost drove them mad. Finally, all but two jumped overboard. The lascars, depressed by so many suicides, sold the survivors at Suez. A day lator the crocodile hit one of the engineers so violent a blow on the head that ho remained gtunnod for some time. The sailors chastised him so vigorously that they cracked his skull, and ho was heaved overboard. Going through the Canal, the collie barked vigorously at a gesticulating Arab on the bank, lost his balance, and was drowned. The squirrels died. The cat was worsted iu encounters with the porcvraines, hut she survived, while they died from various causes. Two parrots were tilled by the cat, and the rest died of the cold in the North Atlantic. j Thou a gale, which raged seven ! days, killod off others, and there : were only left the cat, one mongoose i and the two cobras—all deadly rival-;, j The mongoose leaned into the cobra's box and killed one with a savago bite in the neck. The other fought him and both died.