Show LAN AND SPOT The Baby Leopards Philadelphia are Eaten by Their Cannibalistic Mother Special to TUE E1 Examiner Dispatch PuiLADELrni Dec 27 Nearly three hundred members of the Eight oclock club went to the zoological gardens Christmas Christ-mas to see Dan and Spot the baby leopards but to their surprise and grief they learned that the little pets were dead All day the children lingered around the cage watching Mrs Bob tho mother of the pal stride up and down tho enclosure Scarcely any of tho children suspected that tho cute little animals ani-mals had been eaten by their own mother yet that is the conclusion the keepers have arrived at concerning the manner of their death Dan and Spot were kept in a large box which was placed beneath their i mothers cage Mrs Bob reached them by climbing through a trap door in tho floor One of the first instincts of tho leopard family is to conceal its young immediately after birth and when Dan and Spot were born > the keepers of the lon house built this box > for Mrs Bob to hide her babies in She was so zealously protective of her children that tho keepers wero not allowed to ap preach their box and Dan and Spot ap lot be seen except when their mother brought them out Tho receptions became be-came very popular and crowds of lt le Jolks waited in front of tho cage every day for the appearance of the twin babies Last Monday Mrs Bob kept her children in the nursery and on Tuesday they did not make their appearance in pubic pub-ic On the afternoon of that day Keeper shannon of the lion house noticed Mrs Bob acted in a strange manner She en fired the box continuously and crept out again in a few minutes with a guilty ex irassion in her catlike eyes Then she sat for a long time on he high board which runs across the back of the cage Then she would reenter the box and immediately immedi-ately came out again and hid herself in the far corner of the enclosure The keepers suspicions were aroused anu ho decided to make a close examination of the box in which he supposed the baby leopards were At the first glance the bed of straw did not seem to be disturbed and it was apparently in excellent condition But Dan and Spot were missing With tho aid of a lantern he then made a cldser examination of the bottom of the box and found ta his sorrow a few bloody shreds of fur which he quickly recognized a belonging to tho unfortunate fortunate cubs He sorrowfully mado his way to a group of expectant children standingin front of the cage and told them I of the death of the little leopirds |