Menagerie Manor

by Gerald Durrell

  Up till now, the chimps had only been allowed in the house on very special occasions, and Lulu was, therefore, charmed with. the idea that she was getting an extra treat without Chumley’s knowledge. She sat on the sofa, her mouth full of banana, giving a regal handshake and a muffled hoot of greeting to whoever came into the room, rather as though she owned the place and you were attending one of her ‘At Homes’. Presently, when everything was ready, I sat down beside her on the sofa and gently cut away the long hairs behind the ear that was affected. When it was fully exposed, the swelling looked even worse than before, a rich plum colour, and the skin had a leathery appearance. I carefully swabbed the whole area with disinfected warm water, searching to see if I could find a head or an opening to the swelling, for I was now convinced that it was a boil or ulcer that had become infected, but I could find no opening at all. Meanwhile, Lulu, having carefully and thoroughly scrutinised all the medical paraphernalia, had devoted her time to consuming another banana. I took a hypodermic needle and gently pricked the discoloured skin all over the swelling without causing her to deviate from the paths of gluttony, so it was obvious that the whole of the discoloured area was dead skin.

  I was faced with something of a problem. Although I was fairly sure that I could make an incision across the dead skin, and thus let out the pus, without Lulu suffering any pain, I was not absolutely certain about it. She was, as I have remarked, of a lovable and charming disposition, but she was also a large, well-built ape, with a fine set of teeth, and I had no desire to enter into a trial of strength with her. The thing to do was to keep her mind occupied elsewhere while I tackled the job, for, like most chimps, Lulu was incapable of thinking of more than one thing at a time. I enlisted the aid of my mother and Jacquie, to whom I handed a large tin of chocolate biscuits, with instructions that they were to feed them to Lulu at intervals throughout the ensuing operation. I had no fears for their safety, as I knew that if Lulu was provoked into biting anyone it would be me. Uttering up a brief prayer, I sterilised a scalpel, prepared cotton wool swabs, disinfected my hands and went to work. I drew the scalpel blade across the swelling, but, to my dismay, I found that the skin was as tough as shoe-leather, and the blade merely skidded off. I tried a second time, using greater pressure, but with the same result. Mother and Jacquie kept up a nervous barrage of chocolate biscuits, each of which was greeted with delighted and slightly sticky grunts from Lulu.

  ‘Can’t you hurry up?’ inquired Jacquie, ‘these biscuits won’t last for ever.’

  ‘I’m doing the best I can,’ I said irascibly, ‘and a nurse doesn’t tell a doctor to hurry up in the middle of an operation.’

  ‘I think I’ve got some chocolates in my room, dear,’ said my mother helpfully, ‘shall I fetch them?’

  ‘Yes, I should, just in case.’

  While Mother went off to fetch the chocolates, I decided that the only way to break into the swelling was to jab the point of the scalpel in and then drag it downwards, and this I did. It was successful: a stream of thick putrid matter gushed out from the incision, covering both me and the sofa. The smell from it was ghastly, and Jacquie and Mother retreated across the room hastily. Lulu sat there, quite unperturbed, eating chocolate biscuits. Endeavouring not to breathe more often than was necessary, I put pressure on the swelling, and eventually, when it was empty, I must have relieved it of about half a cupful of putrefying blood and pus. With a pair of scissors I carefully clipped away the dead skin and disinfected the raw area that was left. It was useless trying to put a dressing on, for I knew that Lulu would remove it as soon as she was put back in her cage. When I had cleaned it up to my satisfaction, I picked Lulu up in my arms and carried her back to her cage. Here she greeted Chumley with true wifely devotion, but Chumley was deeply suspicious. He examined her ear carefully, but decided that it was of no interest. Then, during one of Lulu’s hoots of pleasure, leant forward and smelt her breath. Obviously, she had been eating chocolate, so Lulu, instead of receiving a husbandly embrace, received a swift clout over the back of the head. In the end, I had to go and fetch the rest of the chocolate biscuits to placate Chumley. Lulu’s ear healed up perfectly, and within six months you had to look very closely to see the scar.

  About a year later Chumley decided that it was his turn to fall ill, and of course he did it – as he did all things – in the grand manner. Chumley, I was told, had tooth ache. This rather surprised me, as, not long before, he had lost his baby teeth and acquired his adult ones, and I thought it was a bit too soon for any of them to have decayed. Still, there he was, squatting forlornly in the cage, clasping his jaw and ear with his hand and looking thoroughly miserable. He was obviously in pain, but I was not sure whether it was his ear or his jaw that was the cause of it. The pain must have been considerable, for he would not let me take his hand away to examine the side of his face, and when I persisted in trying he became so upset that it was clear I was doing more harm than good, so I had to give up. I stood for a long time by the cage, trying to deduce from his actions what was the matter with him. He kept lying down, with the bad side of his head cuddled by his hand, and whimpering gently to himself; once, when he had climbed up the wire to relieve himself, he lowered himself to the ground again rather awkwardly, and as his feet thumped on to the floor of the cage he screamed, as though the jar had caused him considerable pain. He refused all food and, what was worse, he refused all liquids as well, so I could not give him any antibiotics. We had to remove Lulu, as, instead of showing wifely concern, she bounded round the cage, occasionally bumping into Chumley, or leaping on to him and making him cry out with pain.

  I became so worried about his condition by the afternoon that I called into consultation Mr Blampier, a local veterinary surgeon, and our local doctor. The latter, I think, was somewhat surprised that he should be asked to take a chimpanzee on to his panel, but agreed nevertheless. It was plain that Chumley’s jaw and ear would have to be examined carefully, and I knew that, in his present state, he would not allow that, so it was agreed that we would have to anaesthetise him. This is what had to be done, but how to do it was another matter. Eventually, it was decided that I should try to give Chumley an injection of a tranquilliser which would, we hoped, have him in an agreeable frame of mind by the evening to accept an anaesthetic. The problem was whether or not Chumley was going to let me give him the injection. He was lying huddled up in his bed of straw, his back towards me, and I could see he was in great pain, for he never even looked round to see who had opened the door of his cage. I talked to him, in my best bedside manner, for a quarter of an hour or so, and at the end of that time he was allowing me to stroke his back and legs. This was a great advance, for up till now he had not let me come within stroking distance. Then, plucking up my courage, and still talking feverishly, I picked up the hypodermic and swiftly slipped the needle into the flesh of his thigh. To my relief, he gave no sign of having noticed it. As gently and as slowly as I could, I pressed the plunger and injected the tranquilliser. He must have felt this, for he gave a tiny, rather plaintive hoot, but he was too apathetic to worry about it. Still, talking cheerful nonsense, I closed the door of his bedroom and left the drug to take effect.

  That evening Dr Taylor and Mr Blampier arrived, and I reported that the tranquilliser had taken effect: Chumley was in a semi-doped condition, but, even so, he still would not let me examine his ear. So we repaired to his boudoir, outside of which I had rigged up some strong lights and a trestle table on which to lay our patient. Doctor Taylor poured ether onto a mask, and I opened Chumley’s bedroom door, leant in and placed the mask gently over his face. He made one or two half-hearted attempts to push it away with his hand, but the ether, combined with the tranquilliser was too much for him, and he slipped into unconsciousness quite rapidly. As soon as he was completely under, we hauled him out of the cage and laid him on the trestle table, still keeping the mask over his face. Then the experts went to work. First, his ear was examined, and found to be perfectly healthy;
just for good measure, we examined his other ear as well, and that, too, was all right. We then opened his mouth and carefully checked his teeth: they were an array of perfect, glistening white dentures without a speck of decay on any of them. We examined his cheeks, his jaw and the whole of his head, and could not find a single thing wrong. We looked at his neck and shoulders, with the same result. As far as we could ascertain, there was nothing the matter with Chumley whatsoever, and yet something had been causing him considerable pain. Dr Taylor and Mr Blampier departed, much mystified, and I carried Chumley into the house, wrapped in a blanket, and put him on a camp-bed in front of the drawing-room fire. Then Jacquie brought more blankets, which we piled on top of him, and we sat down to wait for the anaesthetic to wear off.

  Lying there, his eyes closed, breathing out ether fumes stertorously, he looked like a slightly satanic cherub who, tired out after a day’s mischief-making, was taking a well-earned rest. The amount of ether he was expelling from his lungs made the whole room reek, so that we were forced to open a window. It was about half an hour before he began to sigh deeply and twitch, as a preliminary to regaining consciousness, and I went over and sat by the bedside with a cup of water ready, since I knew from experience the dreadful thirst that assails one when you come out from under an anaesthetic. In a few minutes he opened his eyes, and as soon as he saw me he gave a feeble hoot of greeting and held out his hand, in spite of the fact that he was still half asleep. I held up his head and put the cup to his lips and he sucked at the water greedily before the ether overcame him again and he sunk back into sleep. I decided that an ordinary cup was too unwieldy to give him drinks, as a considerable quantity of liquid was spilt. I managed, by ringing up my friends, to procure an invalid’s cup, one of those articles that resemble a deformed teapot, and the next time Chumley woke up this proved a great success, as he could suck water out of the spout without having to sit up.

  Although he recognised us, he was still in a very drugged and stupid state, and so I decided that I would spend the night sleeping on the sofa near him, in case he awakened and wanted anything. Having given him another drink, I made up my bed on the sofa, turned out the light and dozed off. About two o’clock in the morning I was awakened by a crash in the far corner of the room. I hastily put on the light to find that Chumley was awake and wandering round the room, like a drunken man, barging into all the furniture. As soon as the light came on and he saw me, he uttered a scream of joy, staggered across the room and insisted on embracing and kissing me before gulping down a vast drink of water. I then helped him back on to his bed and covered him with his blankets, and he slept peacefully until daylight.

  He spent the day lying quietly on his bed, staring up at the ceiling. He ate a few grapes and drank great quantities of glucose and water, which was encouraging. The most encouraging thing, however, was that he no longer held the side of his face and did not appear to be suffering any pain.

  In some extraordinary way we seemed to have cured him without doing anything. When Dr Taylor telephoned later that day to find out how Chumley was faring I explained this to him, and he was as puzzled as I. Then, later on, he rang up to say that he had thought of a possible explanation: Chumley might have been suffering from a slipped disc. This could have caused intense pain in the nerves of jaw and ear, without there being anything externally to show what caused it. When we had Chumley limp and relaxed under the anaesthetic we pulled his head around quite a lot during our examination, and probably pushed the disc back into place, without realizing it. Mr Blampier agreed with this diagnosis. We had no proof, of course, but certainly Chumley was completely cured, and there was no recurrence of the pain. He had naturally lost a lot of weight during his illness, and so for two or three weeks he was kept in a specially heated cage and fed up on every delicacy. Within a very short time he had put on weight and was his old self, so that whenever anyone went near his cage they were showered with handfuls of sawdust. This, I presume, was Chumley’s way of thanking one.

  Sometimes animals injure themselves in the most ridiculous way imaginable. Hawks and pheasants, for example, are the most hysterical of birds. If anything unusual happens they get into a terrible state, fly straight up, like rockets, and crash into the roof of their cage, either breaking their necks or neatly scalping themselves. But there are other birds equally stupid. Take the case of Samuel.

  Samuel is a South American seriama. They are not unlike the African secretary bird. About the size of a half-grown turkey, they have long, strong legs, and a ridiculous little tuft of feathers perched on top of their beaks. In the wild state seriamas do not fly a great deal, spending most of their time striding about the grasslands in search of snakes, mice, frogs and other delicacies. I had purchased Samuel from an Indian in Northern Argentina, and as he had been hand-reared he was, of course, perfectly (and sometimes embarrassingly) tame. When I finally shipped him back to Jersey with the rest of the animals, we took him out of his small travelling crate and released him in a nice, spacious aviary. Samuel was delighted, and to show us his gratitude the first thing he did was to fly up on to the perch, fall off it and break his left leg. There are times when animals do such idiotic things that you are left bereft of words.

  Fortunately, for Samuel, it was a nice dean break, half-way down what would be the shin in a human being. We made a good job of splinting it, covering the splint with plaster of Paris bandage, and, when it was dry, put him in a small cage so that he could not move around too much. The following day his foot was slightly swollen, so I gave him a penicillin injection – which he took great exception to – and his foot returned to normal size as a result. When we eventually took off the splint, we found the bones had knitted perfectly, and today, as he strides importantly around his aviary, you have to look very closely to see which leg it was that he broke. Knowing Samuel for the imbecile he is, it would not surprise me in the least if he did not repeat the performance at some time in the future… probably on a day when I am up to my eyes in other work.

  During the course of your Florence Nightingale work you become quite used to being bitten, scratched, kicked and bruised by your patients, and on many occasions, having performed first-aid on them, you have to perform it on yourself. Nor is it always the bigger creatures that are the most dangerous to deal with. A squirrel or a pouched rat can inflict almost as much damage as a flock of Bengal tigers when they put their minds to it. While anointing a fluffy, gooey-eyed bush-baby once for a slight skin infection on the tail, I was bitten so severely in the thumb that it went septic, and I had to have it bandaged for ten days. The bushbaby was cured in 48 hours.

  Human doctors are covered by the Hippocratic Oath. The wild animal doctor employs a variety of oaths, all rich and colourful, but which would, I feel, be frowned upon by the British Medical Council.

  CHAPTER SIX

  LOVE AND MARRIAGE

  Dear Mr Durrell,

  I am seven years old and I have just had a baby tortoise...

  You can tell if an animal is happy in captivity in a number of different ways. Principally, you can tell by its condition and appetite, for a creature which has glossy fur or feathering, and eats well to boot, is obviously not pining. The final test that proves beyond a shadow of doubt that the animal has accepted its cage as ‘home’ is when it breeds.

  At one time, if an animal did not live very long in captivity, or did not breed, the zoos seemed to be under the impression that there was something wrong with it, and not something wrong with their methods of keeping it. So-and-so was ‘impossible’ to keep in captivity, they would say, and, even if it did manage to survive for a while, it was ‘impossible’ to breed. These sweeping statements were delivered in a wounded tone of voice, as if the wretched creature had entered into some awful conspiracy against you, refusing to live or mate. At one time there was a huge list of animals that, it was said, were impossible to keep or breed in confinement, and this list included such things as the great apes, elephants, rhinoceros, hippopotamus and
so on. Gradually, over the years, one or two more agile brains entered the zoo world, and to everyone’s surprise and chagrin it was discovered that the deaths and lack of babies were not due to stubbornness on the part of the creature, but due to lack of knowledge and experiment on the part of the people who kept them. I am convinced there are precious few species of animals which you cannot successfully maintain and breed, once you have found the knack. And by knack I mean once you have discovered the right type of caging, the best-liked food, and, above all, a suitable mate. On the face of it, this seems simple enough, but it may take several years of experiment before you acquire them all.