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Show Doctor, With Long-Handled Brush, Can Make Lions Perform a Series of Tricks Before an evening dress audience of members of the British Medical association and their wives and daughters. Dr. R. H. Hunter, lecturer lec-turer in anatomy at Queens university, uni-versity, Belfast Northern Ireland, entered the lion's den at the Belfast Zoo, armed only with a long-handled brush, and made the animals perform per-form a series of tricks, writes a correspondent cor-respondent in the New York Times. Lions and lionesses circled, stood on their hind legs and lay down at the bidding of the doctor, who is used to training wild animals. In addition to being a lecturer of the university, he is a curator of the zoo. "I draw the line at polar bears." said Doctor Hunter to reporters af'er the performance. "I would run for my life from one of them. They are so uncertain. They appear to be perfectly gentle and then have a sudden lapse. A lion may lrap and bite you once and hold on. but a polar bear goes on biting you all the time. "My worst experience w-as in this zoo with a fully grown leopard. He had escaped just as I was entering the zoo and I tried to capture h;m by ca'.chir.g hold of h;s tail. "He turned on me and I hit him in the face and knocked him over. He was 'bagged' by keepers with sacks and got back to his box. But I was badly bitten. "I use my brush to push the lions whenever necessary and they take the hint Whips or sticks only enrage en-rage the animals, but the brush does not hurt them. "I have given up golf altogether for lion taming. In comparison golf is far too slow. I get as much exercise ex-ercise in half an hour in a lion's den as a week's golf would give me, and you need to be ace-fit for it." |
