Menagerie Manor

by Gerald Durrell

  Marriages in zoos are, of course, arranged, as they used to be by the eighteenth-century Mammas. But the eighteenth-century Mamma had one advantage over the zoo: having married off her daughters, there was an end to it. In a zoo you are never quite sure, since any number of things may happen. Before you can even lead your creatures to the altar, so to speak, it is quite possible that either the male or the female may take an instant dislike to the mate selected, and so, if you are not careful, the bride or groom may turn into a corpse long before the honeymoon has started. A zoo matchmaker has a great number of matters to consider, and a great number of risks to take, before he can sit back with a sigh of relief and feel the marriage is an accomplished fact. Let us take the marriage of Charles, as a fairly typical one.

  Charles is – rather unzoologically – what is known as a Rock ape from Gibraltar. He is, of course, not an ape at all, but a Macaque, one of a large group of monkeys found in the Far East. Their presence in North Africa is puzzling, but obviously they have been imported to the Rock of Gibraltar, and have thus gained the doubtful distinction of being the only European monkey. We were offered Charles when the troop on the Rock underwent its periodical thinning, and we were very pleased to have him. He was brought over from Gibraltar in style on one of Her Majesty’s ships, and we duly took possession of him. He stood two feet. six inches high, when squatting on his haunches, and was clad in an immensely long, thick, gingery brown coat. His walk was very dog-like, but with a distinct swagger to it, as befits a member of the famous Rock garrison. He had bright, intelligent brown eyes, and a curious pale pinkish face, thickly covered with freckles. He was undoubtedly ugly, but with an ugliness that was peculiarly appealing. Curiously enough, although he was a powerful monkey, he was excessively timid, and an attempt to keep him with a mixed group of other primates failed, for they bullied him unmercifully. So Charles was moved to a cage of his own, and a carefully worded letter was dispatched to the Governor of Gibraltar, explaining in heart-rending terms, Charles’ solitary confinement, and hinting that he would be more than delighted if a female Rock ape should be forthcoming. In due course we received a signal to say that Charles’ condition of celibacy had been reviewed and it had been decided that, as a special concession, a female Rock ape, named Sue, was going to be sent to us. Thus another of Her Majesty’s ships was pressed into service, and Sue duly arrived.

  By this time, of course, Charles had settled down well in his new cage, and had come to look upon it as his own territory, and so we had no idea how he would treat the introduction of a new Rock ape – even a female one – into his bachelor apartments. We carried Sue in her travelling crate and put it on the ground outside Charles’ cage, so that they could see each other. Sue became very excited when she saw him, and chattered away loudly, whereas Charles, after the first astonished glance, sat down and stared at her with an expression of such loathing and contempt on his freckled face that our hearts sank. However, we had to take the plunge, and Sue was let into the cage. She sprang out of her crate with great alacrity, and set off to explore the cage. Charles, who had been sitting up in the branches dissociating himself from the whole procedure up till then, decided the time had come to assert himself. He leapt down to the ground and sprang on Sue before she realised what was happening and could take evasive action. Within a second she had received a sharp nip on the shoulder, had her hair pulled and her ears boxed, and was sent tumbling into a corner of the cage. Charles was back on his branch, looking around with a self-satisfied air, uttering little grunts to himself. We hastily went and fetched two big bowls of fruit and put them into the cage, whereupon Charles came down and started to pick them over with the air of a gourmet, while Sue sat, watching him hungrily. Eventually, the sight of the grape juice trickling down Charles’ chin was too much for her, and she crept forward timidly, leant towards the bowl and took a grape, which she hastily crammed into her mouth, in case Charles went for her. He completely ignored her, however, after one quick glance from under his eyebrows, and, gaining courage, she again leant forward and grabbed a whole handful of grapes. Within a few minutes they were both feeding happily out of the same dish, and we sighed with relief. An hour later, when I passed by, there was Charles, lying on his back, eyes closed, a blissful expression on his face, while Sue, with a look of deep concentration, was searching his fur thoroughly. It seemed that his original attack on Sue was merely to tell her that it was his cage, and that, if she wanted to live there, she had to respect his authority.

  Sometimes one acquires mates for animals in very curious ways. One of the most peculiar was the way in which we found a husband for Flower. Now, Flower was a very handsome North American skunk, and when she first came to us she was slim and sylph-like and very tame. Unfortunately, Flower decided that there were only two things in life worth doing: eating and sleeping. The result of this exhausting life, which she led, was that she became so grossly overweight that she was – quite literally – circular. We tried dieting her, but with no effect. We became somewhat alarmed, for overweight can kill an animal as easily as starvation. It was plain that what Flower needed was exercise, and equally plain that she had no intention of going out of her way to obtain it. We decided that what she needed was a mate, but, at that particular time, skunks were in short supply and none were obtainable, so Flower continued to eat and sleep undisturbed. Then, one day, Jacquie and I happened to be in London on business, and, being a bit early for our appointment, we walked to our destination. On rounding a corner, we saw approaching us a little man dressed in a green uniform with brass buttons, carrying in his arms – above all things – a baby chimpanzee. At first, with the incongruous combination of the uniform and the ape, we were rather taken aback, but as he came up to us I recovered my wits and stopped him.

  ‘What on earth are you doing with a chimpanzee?’ I asked him, though why he should not have a perfect right to walk through the streets with a chimpanzee I was not quite sure.

  ‘I works for Viscount Churchill,’ he explained, ‘and he keeps a lot of queer pets. We’ve got a skunk, too, but we’ll ’ave to get rid of that, ’cos the chimp don’t like it.’

  ‘A skunk?’ I said eagerly. ‘Are you sure it’s a skunk?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied the little man, ‘positive.’

  ‘Well, you’ve met just the right person,’ I said. ‘Will you give my card to Viscount Churchill and tell him that I would be delighted to have his skunk, if he wants to part with it?’

  ‘Sure,’ replied the little man, ‘I should think he’d be pleased to let you ’ave it.’

  We returned to Jersey full of hope that we might have found a companion, if not a mate, for Flower. Within a few days I received a courteous letter from Viscount Churchill, saying that he would be very pleased to let his skunk come to us, and that, as soon as he had had a travelling cage constructed, he would send him. The next thing I received was a telegram. Its contents were simple and to the point, but I cannot help feeling that it must have puzzled the postal authorities. It read as follows:

  GERALD DURRELL ZOOLOGICAL PARK LES AUGRES JERSEY CI: GLADSTONE LEAVING FLIGHT BE 112 AT 19 HOURS TODAY THURSDAY CAGE YOUR PROPERTY. CHURCHILL.

  Gladstone, on being unpacked, proved to be a lovely young male, and it was with great excitement that we put him in with Flower and stood back to see what would happen. Flower was, as usual, lying in her bed of straw, looking like a black and white, fur-covered football. Gladstone peered at this apparition somewhat short-sightedly and then ambled over to have a closer look. At that moment Flower had one of her brief moments of consciousness. During the day she used to wake up periodically for about thirty seconds at a time, just long enough to have a quick glance round the cage to see if anyone had put a plate of food in while she slept. Gladstone, suddenly perceiving that the football had a head, stopped in astonishment and put up all his fur defensively. I am quite sure that for a moment he was not certain what Flower was, and I can hardly say I blame him, for when she was just awakened from a
deep sleep like that she rarely looked her best. Gladstone stood staring at her, his tail erect like an exclamation mark; Flower peered at him blearily and, because he was standing so still and because she had a one track mind, Flower obviously thought he was some new and exotic dish which had been put in for her edification. She hauled herself out of her bed and waddled across towards Gladstone.

  Flower walking looked, if anything, more extraordinary than Flower reclining. You could not see her feet, and so you had the impression of a large ball of black and white fur propelling itself in your direction in some mysterious fashion. Gladstone took one look, and then his nerve broke and he ran and hid in the corner. Flower, having discovered that he was only a skunk, and therefore not something edible, retreated once more to her bed to catch up on her interrupted nap. Gladstone steered clear of her for the rest of the day, but towards evening he did pluck up sufficient courage to go and sniff her sleeping form and find out what she was, a discovery that seemed to interest him as little as it had done Flower. Gradually, over a period of days, they grew very fond of one another, and then came the great night when I passed their cage in bright moonlight and was struck dumb with astonishment, for there was Gladstone chasing Flower round and round the cage, and Flower (panting and gasping for breath) was actually enjoying it. When he at length caught her, they rolled over and over in mock battle, and, when they had finished, Flower was so out of breath she had to retire to bed for a short rest. But this was only the beginning, for after a few months of Gladstone’s company Flower regained her girlish figure, and before long she could out-run and out-wrestle Gladstone himself.

  So zoo marriages can be successful or unsuccessful, but if they are successful they should generally result in some progeny, and this again presents you with farther problems. The most important thing to do, if you can, is to spot that a happy event is likely to take place as far in advance as possible, so that the mother-to-be can be given extra food, vitamins and so forth. The second most important thing is to make up your mind about the father-to-be: does he stay with the mother, or not? Fathers, in fact, are sometimes more of a problem than the mothers. If you do not remove them from the cage, they might worry the female, so that she may give birth prematurely; on the other hand, if you do remove them, the female may pine and again give birth prematurely. If the father is left in the cage, he might well become jealous of the babies and eat them; on the other hand, he might give the female great assistance in looking after the young: cleaning them and keeping them amused. So, when you know that a female is pregnant, one of your major problems is what to do with Dad, and at times, if you do not act swiftly, a tragedy may occur.

  We had a pair of slender loris of which we were inordinately proud. These creatures look rather like drug-addicts that have seen better days. Clad in light grey fur they have enormously long and thin limbs and body; strange, almost human, hands; and large lustrous brown eyes, each surrounded by a circle of dark fur, so that the animal appears as though it is either recovering from some ghastly debauchery, or a very unsuccessful boxing tournament. They have a reputation for being extremely difficult and delicate to keep in captivity, which, by and large, seems to be true. This is why we were so proud of our pair, as we had kept them for four years, and this was a record. By careful experiment and observation, we had worked out a diet which seemed to suit them perfectly. It was a diet that would not have satisfied any other creature but a slender loris, consisting as it did of banana, mealworms and milk, but nevertheless on this monotonous fare they lived and thrived.

  As I say, we were very proud that our pair did so well, so you can imagine our excitement when we realised that the female was pregnant: this was indeed going to be an event, the first time slender loris had been bred in captivity, to the best of my knowledge. But now we were faced with the father problem, as always; and, as always, we teetered. Should we remove him or not? At last, after much deliberation, we decided not to do so, for they were a very devoted couple. The great day came, and a fine, healthy youngster was born. We put up screens round the cage, so that the parents would not be disturbed by visitors to the Zoo, gave them extra titbits, and watched anxiously to make sure the father behaved himself. All went well for three days, during which time the parents kept close together as usual, and the baby clung to its mother’s fur with the tenacity and determination of a drowning man clasping a straw. Then, on the fourth morning, all our hopes were shattered. The baby was lying dead at the bottom of the cage, and the mother had been blinded in one eye by a savage bite on the side of her face. To this day we do not know what happened, but I can only presume that the male wanted to mate with the female, and she, with the baby clinging to her, was not willing, and so the father turned on her. It was a bitter blow, but it taught us one thing: should we ever succeed in breeding slender loris again, the father will be removed from the cage as soon as the baby is born.

  In the case of some animals, of course, removing the father would be the worst thing you could do. Take the marmosets, for instance. Here the male takes the babies over the moment they are born, cleans them, has them both clinging to his body and only hands them over to the mother at feeding time. I had wanted to observe this strange process for a long time, and thus, when one of our cotton-eared marmosets became pregnant, I was very pleased. My only fear was that she would give birth to the baby when I happened to be away, but luckily this did not happen. Instead, very early one morning, Jeremy burst into my bedroom with the news that he thought the marmoset was about to give birth, so, hastily flinging on some clothes, I rushed down to the Mammal House. There I found the parents to be both unperturbed, clinging to the wire of their cage and chittering hopefully at any human who passed. It was quite obvious from the female’s condition that she would give birth fairly soon, but she seemed infinitely less worried by the imminence of this event than I. Getting myself a chair, I sat down to watch. I stared at the female marmoset, and she stared at me, while in the corner of the cage her husband – with typical male callousness – sat stuffing himself on grapes and mealworms, and took not the slightest notice of his wife.

  Three hours later there was absolutely no change, except that the male marmoset had finished all the grapes and mealworms. By then my secretary had arrived and, as I had a lot of letters to answer, I made her bring a chair and sit down beside me in front of the marmoset cage while I dictated. I think that visitors to the Zoo that day must have thought slightly eccentric the sight of a man dictating letters, while keeping his eyes fixed hypnotically on a cageful of marmosets. Then, about midday, someone arrived whom I had to see. I was away from the cage, for approximately ten minutes, and on my return the father marmoset was busy washing two tiny scraps of fur that were clinging to him vigorously. I could quite cheerfully have strangled the female marmoset: after all my patient waiting, she went and gave birth during the short period I happened to be away.

  Still, I could watch the father looking after the babies, and I had to be content with that. He looked after the twins with great care and devotion, generally carrying them slung one on each hip, like a couple of panniers on a donkey. His fur was so thick and the babies so small that most of the time they were completely hidden; then, suddenly, from the depths of his fur, a tiny face, the size of a large hazel nut, would appear, and two bright eyes would regard you gravely. At feeding time the father would go and hang on the wire close alongside the mother, and the babies would pass from one to the other. Then, their thirst quenched, they would scramble back on to father again. The father was extremely proud of his babies, and was always working himself up into a state of panic over their welfare. As the twins grew older, they became more venture-some, and would leave the safety of their father’s fur to make excursions along the nearby branches, while their parents eyed them with pride, as well as a little anxiously. If you approached too near the cage when the twins were on one of their voyages of exploration, the father would get wildly agitated, convinced that you had evil designs on his precious offspri
ng. His fur would stand on end, like an angry cat’s, and he would chitter loud and shrill instructions to the twins, which were generally ignored as they grew older. This would reduce him to an even worse state of mind, and screaming with rage and fear, he would dive through the branches, grab the twins and sling them into place, one on each hip; then, muttering dark things to himself – presumably about the disobedience of the modern generation – he would potter off to have a light snack to restore his nerves, casting dark glances at you over his shoulder. Watching the marmoset family was an enchanting experience, more like watching a troupe of strange little fur-covered leprechauns than monkeys.

  Naturally, the biggest thrill is when you succeed in breeding some creature which you know from the start is going to be extremely difficult. During my visit to West Africa I had managed to acquire some Fernand’s skinks, probably one of the most beautiful of the lizard family, for their big, heavy bodies are covered with a mosaic work of highly polished scales in lemon yellow, black, white and vivid cherry-red. By the time the zoo in Jersey was established I had only two of these magnificent creatures left, but they were fine, healthy specimens, and they settled down well in the Reptile House. Sexing most reptiles is well-nigh impossible, so I did not know if these skinks were a true pair or not, but I did know that, even if by some remote chance they were a true pair, the chances of breeding them were one in a million. The reason for this lay in the fact that reptiles, by and large, lay the most difficult eggs to hatch in captivity. Tortoises, for example, lay hard-shelled eggs which they bury in earth or sand. But if you do not get the temperature and humidity just right in the cage, the eggs will either become mildewed or else the yolk will dry up. A lot of lizards, on the other hand, lay eggs which have a soft, parchment-like shell, which makes matters a bit more difficult, for they are even more sensitive to moisture and temperature.