IT'S EIGHTY IN THE SHADE

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 189, 5 February 1943, Page 12

IT'S EIGHTY IN THE SHADE

AT THE ZOO [1]

6¢ UNTIE, please take me to the zoo to-day!" But the Auckland Zoo — on a hot day is far from Auntie’s idea of a quiet week-end; true, there are six lions, you can count them; but 60,000 flies or 600,000? You can’t count them. You think the bison has tufts of the black hair of his mane on his flanks, on his rump, on his ribs; but he slowly moves to the rubbing post in the middle of his yard-a thick post round which barbed wire is twisted-and luxuriously scratches himself against it, and the black tufts of hair rise in a cloud and settle again, a hundred thousand flies riding on the back, living on the blood of the . American bison, known to science reduntantly as Bison bison. It. is the same with the little fallow deer, as smooth as seals and as delicately built as Chinese needle-carvings; they stamp their. small hooves and flick their ears and twitch their skin in a continual and _ vain effort to be rid of the flies, flies, flies, flies and flies. * %* %* FLIES, says the zoo on a hot day. And next it says smells. Look at Hippo, wallowing in his stream: phloosh! and he is submerged. And "pugh!" you say. "What a smell!" But, oh, dear, you ain’t smelled nothin’ yet. Wait till Hippo comes up for air, wait till Hippo sees

all those boys and girls standing there behind the netting and into his deep head there comes the idea FOOD. Then Hippo opens up his mouth, and to open up his mouth is quite some opening, believe me, and he lifts up that huge pink hole, and he holds it open with an alarming and most stinking patience until someone in the audience (hum! but these people aren’t standing there to hear: I wonder what one should term a smelling audience), throws into it a hunk of bread. And whoever is near enough to throw---believe me, because I did it out of Photographer's Enthusiasm, but never again--then most rapidjy beats a hasty retreat and knows for ever afterwards where Spencer got his idea for his stinking dragon, the noisome beast. Only the ducks seem to be able to shut their eyes to Hippo’s smell. While that huge mouth gapes trustingly for. bread, the spry brown Donalds are in and out of the scrum like brown shadows, grabbing the bread that five times out of six misses that huge bull’s-eye. At first the boys fear for them: Look out! he'll get you! he'll get you! But don’t worry. Old Hippo is too slow to catch even a cold. All he ever catches is an occasional toothache-except, of course, for the time when some inhuman human (Continued on next page)

(Continued from ptevious page) threw a tennis ball down that dirty pink hole, and the Hippo got the bellyache and died of that tennis ball. * * x ‘THE only cool place in the zoo is the stream, in this hot day full of flies and smells. And here you can see the flamingoes standing, just as we’ve always been told but never quite believed, on one leg. I’m still not positive that it isn’t a huge joke, a canvas rigged up by the keepers to make people think they have live flamingoes at the zoo. Well, it was a very hot day. Perhaps on a cool day they change legs or even bat an eyelid occasionally. Some people really enjoy it. Who? Look there, out on the lawn. No, silly,

those..aren’t. stones.or boulders. Granpappy tortoise. Ole Man Terrapin himself. And another one; and over there, playing put-your-head-in-the-corner, a small grey and yellow one. Yes, says the keeper, he’s always got his head in the corner somewhere. M’m. Doesn’t like publicity. But the Ole Man himself doesn’t mind a bit. Waddle, waddle, waddle, (but much slower than that), taking the children for a ride, But you'll notice that it’s mever the same children having the ride at the end of the journey; they get tired about three yards from the start and prefer to walk. But Ole Man Terrapin just plugs along, and I really haven’t the ghost of a notion what he’s thinking about behind that monstrosity of a head. Possibly of next winter’s sleep. Well, it’s going to be cold to-night, boys, a good 60 in the shade. Be nice getting into that electric-ally-heated den of ours, It’s quite true, you see; the tortoises come out on a hot day only; the rest of the time they’re in heated dens. So there’s one unsuitable companion for Commander Byrd. a se Bg LIES, says the zoo on a hot day, flies, smells and snooze. No leopards? No tigers, No jaguars? Oh, yes; there they are, back in their dens, half-asleep, limp muscles waiting for the cool to become rippling and taut under marvellous skins. And the lions lying in the shade, legs mingled, the round pink pads pressing against each other’s sides. Well, the zoo is asleep; the beasts are quiet and the birds make a steady twittering music down in the hollow. We'll come again when it’s cooler.

J.