Panthers and Leopards, are fed sheeps heads and plucks [offal] twice a day, of which a Lion eats four or five in a day; but Leopards, Panthers, and Tigers, are much fonder of raw dogs-flesh. They drink as often as they please. Usually several times in a day; each having a stone trough in his den .
By the time the guidebook was published, exotic animals were no longer the creatures of myth and legend. Surveys conducted in London between the 1730s and 1750s by George Edwards and Eleazer Albin show that ownership of unusual pets was spread across the social classes, with around a third owned by the artisan classes, including Mr Bradbury the apothecary with his mongoose, Mr Scarlet the optician with his jerboa, and Mrs Kennon the midwife with her ring-tailed lemur and marmoset. It’s impossible to know if they flourished in their domestic settings, but some seem to have defied early deaths long enough to become treasured companions. Back in the menagerie in the 1750s, the big cat cubs survived into adulthood. However, the keeper of the King’s animals, John Ellys, made an arrangement that the surgeon John Hunter was to have first refusal on the bodies of all the menagerie animals, so that they might be dissected.
In about 1767, John Wesley visited the Tower with a flute player, requesting that the man play for the animals whilst he watched for any sign of a soul. Animals that did not show any such response included the dangerous grizzly bear, Old Martin, who was an old man by 1823 but still regarded his keepers as ‘ perfect strangers ’. Old Martin died in 1838, allegedly over a hundred years old, but he was probably Old Martin mark two or three. Other dangerous animals included the hyena and the jackals. The disconsolate solitary mongoose was made happy by the addition of a friend, and the two slept together, interlacing ‘ their limbs and tails in a singular fashion’ so that each could see over the other’s back, ‘and like that fall comfortably asleep ’.
The School of Monkeys lay in an outer yard near the Lion Tower. In 1753, the guidebook issued a warning about one of the baboons who had become expert in throwing missiles and would ‘ heave anything that happens to be within his reach with such Force as to split Stools, Bowls and other Wooden Utensils in a Hundred Pieces’. One young baboon was deemed unfit for polite company as ‘by his Motions when Women approach him, [he] appears to be lecherous to a surprising Degree ’. The monkeys were not a huge success, and were removed in 1810 for ‘ one of them having torn a boy’s leg in a dangerous manner’.
There was usually an Indian elephant in the menagerie. They were largely judged to be inferior to a dog or a horse in understanding, yetthey were observed to play by spraying things with water from their trunks. Mr Cops, one of the better keepers at the Tower, was convinced of their ‘ wisdom’. Quite how they found out that elephants are ‘fond of wine, spirits and other intoxicating articles ’ is best consigned to the past, but the elephant rations contained a gallon of wine daily.
Kangaroos and emus wandered about freely in the grounds. The Royal Park at Windsor had quite a stock of roaming kangaroos, and they were breeding successfully at the Tower before 1820. An aside in an account of the Tower menagerie of this period notes that there were various parklands around England where kangaroos were present in some quantity.
My favourite account of an animal in the Tower is from the 1820s, when a zebra was recorded in the menagerie. Zebras are stubborn, and remain wild under all but the most confined circumstances. The Tower zebra had retained her character, suffering the indignities of her confined state with a tolerably good nature, provided she got her reward.
The subject of the present article , which has now been about two years in the Menagerie, will suffer a boy to ride her about the yard, and is frequently allowed to run loose
By the time the guidebook was published, exotic animals were no longer the creatures of myth and legend. Surveys conducted in London between the 1730s and 1750s by George Edwards and Eleazer Albin show that ownership of unusual pets was spread across the social classes, with around a third owned by the artisan classes, including Mr Bradbury the apothecary with his mongoose, Mr Scarlet the optician with his jerboa, and Mrs Kennon the midwife with her ring-tailed lemur and marmoset. It’s impossible to know if they flourished in their domestic settings, but some seem to have defied early deaths long enough to become treasured companions. Back in the menagerie in the 1750s, the big cat cubs survived into adulthood. However, the keeper of the King’s animals, John Ellys, made an arrangement that the surgeon John Hunter was to have first refusal on the bodies of all the menagerie animals, so that they might be dissected.
In about 1767, John Wesley visited the Tower with a flute player, requesting that the man play for the animals whilst he watched for any sign of a soul. Animals that did not show any such response included the dangerous grizzly bear, Old Martin, who was an old man by 1823 but still regarded his keepers as ‘ perfect strangers ’. Old Martin died in 1838, allegedly over a hundred years old, but he was probably Old Martin mark two or three. Other dangerous animals included the hyena and the jackals. The disconsolate solitary mongoose was made happy by the addition of a friend, and the two slept together, interlacing ‘ their limbs and tails in a singular fashion’ so that each could see over the other’s back, ‘and like that fall comfortably asleep ’.
The School of Monkeys lay in an outer yard near the Lion Tower. In 1753, the guidebook issued a warning about one of the baboons who had become expert in throwing missiles and would ‘ heave anything that happens to be within his reach with such Force as to split Stools, Bowls and other Wooden Utensils in a Hundred Pieces’. One young baboon was deemed unfit for polite company as ‘by his Motions when Women approach him, [he] appears to be lecherous to a surprising Degree ’. The monkeys were not a huge success, and were removed in 1810 for ‘ one of them having torn a boy’s leg in a dangerous manner’.
There was usually an Indian elephant in the menagerie. They were largely judged to be inferior to a dog or a horse in understanding, yetthey were observed to play by spraying things with water from their trunks. Mr Cops, one of the better keepers at the Tower, was convinced of their ‘ wisdom’. Quite how they found out that elephants are ‘fond of wine, spirits and other intoxicating articles ’ is best consigned to the past, but the elephant rations contained a gallon of wine daily.
Kangaroos and emus wandered about freely in the grounds. The Royal Park at Windsor had quite a stock of roaming kangaroos, and they were breeding successfully at the Tower before 1820. An aside in an account of the Tower menagerie of this period notes that there were various parklands around England where kangaroos were present in some quantity.
My favourite account of an animal in the Tower is from the 1820s, when a zebra was recorded in the menagerie. Zebras are stubborn, and remain wild under all but the most confined circumstances. The Tower zebra had retained her character, suffering the indignities of her confined state with a tolerably good nature, provided she got her reward.
The subject of the present article , which has now been about two years in the Menagerie, will suffer a boy to ride her about the yard, and is frequently allowed to run loose
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