Raccoons
Another little animal from North America that reminds me of the coati is the raccoon. They have the same inquisitive natures, and the same sort of flat-footed walk as the coati. In the wilds they sleep during the day, sometimes in hollow trees, and sometimes in rough nests they build up in the tree-tops. They come out at night to hunt for their food, which consists of almost anything that is edible, from fruit to frogs and baby birds. They are very skillful climbers, and a lot of birds’ nests fall victim to them. In some parts of North America they are called wash bears, and this is owing to their rather bear-like walk, and a very curious habit they have developed. Whenever they find any food, they take it to the nearest water and very carefully wash it before eating it. They sit there, looking like fat, fluffy washerwomen, all wearing black masks, dipping their food into the water and rubbing it carefully with their paws before they eat it. It does not matter what sort of food it is: they will wash fruit or vegetables or birds1 eggs, and will even carefully wash a frog in the same stream in which they have caught it.
Now we come to one of the most popular of our zoo’s animals: Claudius the South American tapir (TAY-per). Millions of years ago, in prehistoric times, there were tapirs, and we know from their skeletons that they looked exactly as Claudius does today.
So Claudius is really a prehistoric animal, for he and his ancestors have come down unchanged through the centuries. Baby tapirs when they are born are a pale fawn color, streaked and spotted all over with white. When you first see this curious coloration, you think that it would make the baby tapir very conspicuous to his enemies. But then when you see the baby lying under some bushes in the forest, where the sunlight filters through the leaves and makes a dappled pattern in the shade, you realize that the baby’s coloration is his best protection, for he merges into the pattern of sunshine and shadow so beautifully that you have to look very closely to see that he is there at all. When I first got Claudius he was about the size of a large dog. and he was just starting to lose his pattern of spots and stripes. I bought him off a hunter when I was in Buenos Aires—the capital of Argentina—before I had any place to keep my animals. Naturally the hotel I was staying in would not let me keep him there, and in desperation I telephoned some friends of mine and asked if they could keep Claudius in their garden. They very kindly said they would. I bought
him a big collar and lead, and took him round to my friends’ ^
house. Here I found that the garden (of which they were very proud) was quite tiny. But we tied Claudius to the railings of the balcony, and he seemed very happy, with a great pile of fresh vegetables in front of him. Early the next morning I telephoned my friends to find out how Claudius was, and learned to my horror that he had grown bored when he had eaten all his vegetables, and he had calmly broken his lead and wandered about the garden, treading on all the flower beds, and had eaten half the flowers. I had to rush round to my friends’ house with a new and stronger lead for Claudius, and a lot of potted plants to replace the ones he had eaten. I apologized to my friends, gave Claudius a good talking to and tied him up once again. The next morning I again telephoned to find out how Claudius was, and they told me that this time he had broken his collar, trampled down most of the garden and eaten the remains of the flowers. Again I had to rush round with more potted plants and a very thick collar and chain, which was strong enough. I would have thought, to hold an elephant. But the following morning my friends telephoned me and asked if I would please take Claudius away. That evening, they had given a dinner party to some friends. Claudius got bored with being left alone in the garden, and as there was a party going on inside the house he did not see why he should not be invited too. He broke his chain, and calmly walked up the steps to the balcony (trailing about twenty feet of chain behind him) and walked through the French windows and into the dining room. Of course, all the guests sitting at dinner were not prepared for the arrival of a live tapir in their midst, and were panic-stricken. The more frightened they became, the more it frightened Claudius, who could not understand what all the fuss was about. There was Claudius galloping round and round the dining- table, while all the guests screamed and leapt on their chairs. It was quite some time before one of the braver guests managed to shoo Claudius out into the garden again, and by then the dinner was ruined, with broken plates and overturned chairs lying everywhere in the dining room. As my friends pointed out, they could not keep Claudius and entertain friends to dinner, and Claudius would have to go. Luckily, by that time I had a place to keep my animals, and I moved Claudius. I do not think my friends were very sorry to see him go, for their garden, of which they had been so proud, looked as though it had had a bulldozer loose in it, and even their dining-room still had traces of the night when Claudius was the unexpected guest of honor.
Tapir
Another animal from South America, which I got at the same time as Claudius, was Juanita, the white-collared peccary (PECK-er-ee). I think that peccaries are one of the prettiest looking of the pig family, with their slender legs, neat, polished little hoofs, their handsome brindled gray coats and the neat white collar of fur round their necks. Juanita was brought to me by a hunter when she was only a few weeks old, and she measured about a foot high at the shoulder. She was, of course, very tame, and liked nothing better than to lie on her back to have her tummy scratched. At that time I was keeping all the animals I had collected in a big garage, and as most of them were tame I never shut them up in their cages, but let them have the run of the place. At feeding time I would put three or four large dishes on the floor, and from every part of the garage would come a strange mixture of creatures to feed out of the same dish: parrots, macaws, toucans, wild rabbits, a wildcat, agoutis, monkeys and coatis. Juanita, though much bigger than most of the other animals, would behave very well, and she did not push or shove at the food plate. The only time 1 saw her get annoyed—and I could hardly blame her—was when a parrot, eager for his food, flew down and perched on her nose. She shook him off with an indignant squeal and chased him right across the garage. It was the last time that parrot tried to perch on her nose.