She is Very Fond of Her Keeper and Knows Him From All Others.
The Central park menagerie at New York has a great African lioness that is totally blind. One would scarcely guess it from her appearance, however. She walks up and down her cage just the same as the other members of the cat family and she knows just as well as the animals that have their sight when one of the keepers comes near, says an exchange of that city.
Alice is more fond of Keeper Shannon than any of the others; he feeds her. When Shannon approaches she puts her nose close to the bars and oscillates her whiskers knowingly, as much to say: “I know you, Mike Shannon, just as well as if I could see you. Where is my meat?
Shannon says that Alice is about 25 years old and has been blind for five years. Since she lost her sight her senses of hearing and smell have become keener than ever. When Billy Snyder comes from the elephant house to the lion house direct Alice becomes restless and ugly. She growls and snarls and lifts her nose in the air as if she scented danger. Snyder says that the lioness can smell the elephant, and it reminds her of the days when she was a roving youngster in the jungles. He believes that Alice must have had a fight of some kind with an elephant.
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