Queer Cases of Attachments Formed in Large Zoological Gardens.
    Among the strange features of life in a large zoo are the unexpected and at times amusing friendships that spring up between animals of altogether dissimilar habits and natures, says London Tit-Bits. Out at the National zoo two rhesus monkeys have formed a warm friendship for a large Belgian hare, but this is not so surprising as some of the platonic loves that have been noted elsewhere. Some years ago the botanical gardens at Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil, kept a large manatee in a pond on the grounds. It was an immense creature and in time became so tame that it would come to the water’s edge and eat grass out of the hands of the visitors. This leviathan formed an attachment for a European swan kept on the lake and followed it about as though the swan were its guardian, so that wherever the swan happened to be one had only to look in the clear water by its side to see the lazy manatee floating about and feeding on the water plants on the bottom. Visitors soon found this out and by coaxing the swan to the edge of the lake they were always sure of the manatee’s following. When the swan left the water the manatee was discontented and restless until it returned. As for the swan, it grew so accustomed to the big animal that it had no fear when the manatee rose by its side to take air, and so the two got along famously.
    Mr. Afialo, in his description of the private manageries of England, says that such attachments come about often in the big animal parks of Great Britain. At one of them, Leonardslee, he saw a Sambur deer and a Welsh pony that were great chums. At present one of the pair of hippopotami in the London zoo has grown very fond of an ordinary black house cat that enters and leaves the quarters of the big brute at will. In another private managerie in England Mr. Afialo saw two grey wolves that were “hand in glove” with a European bear. Sometimes the bear would get tired of the incessant, boisterous play of the wolves, in which event he would climb a tree and lie down to sleep in the forks of some branches, leaving his companions to howl over his absence below.
    Sir Harry Johnston, the discoverer of the Okapi, in his recent work on Uganda, describes how, for a time, he undertook the taming and domestication of a number of wild animals of that country, an experiment in which he was partly successful. Among the animals which he had at his zoological experiment station were a baby elephant and a young zebra that became cronies. The little elephant had a way of twining its trunk in loving embrace around the neck of the zebra, and, although the latter was usually very affectionate toward the little elephant, at other times it became bored and tired of the constant attentions and demonstrations of love, and nipped the little elephant with its sharp teeth, right spitefully, causing the little fellow to squeal under the pinch.
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