Read Online The New Noah by Gerald Durrell - Free Book Online

arms and screaming in the most terrifying manner. Many a fat African woman carrying a basket of fruit on her head would chance to pass too closely to Cholmondely’s box,
and would have to drop her basket, pick up her skirts, and run for dear life, while Cholmondely danced victoriously at the end of his chain, hooting and showing all his teeth in a grin of
delight.
    With snakes, of course, he was not nearly so brave. If he saw me handling one, he would get very agitated, wringing his hands and moaning with fear, and if I put the reptile on the ground and it
started to crawl towards him, he would run to the very end of his chain and scream loudly for help, throwing bits of stick and grass at the snake to try and stop it coming any closer.
    One night, I went to shut him up in his box, as usual, and, to my surprise, he flatly refused to go into it. His bed of banana leaves was nicely made, and so I thought he was simply being
naughty, but when I started to scold him, he took me by the hand, led me up to his box and left me there while he retreated to the safety of the end of his chain, and stood watching me anxiously. I
realized there must be something inside, of which he was frightened, and when I cautiously investigated I found a very small snake coiled up in the centre of his bed. After I had captured it, I
found that it was a harmless type; Cholmondely, of course, could not tell the differ­ence, and he was taking no chances.
    Cholmondely was so quick at learning tricks and so willing to show off that when he returned to England he became quite famous and even made several appearances on television, delighting the
audiences by sitting on a chair, with a hat on, taking a cigarette and lighting it for himself, pouring out and drinking a glass of beer, and many other things.
    I think he must have become rather swollen-headed with his success, for not long after this he managed to escape from the zoo and went wandering off by himself through Regent’s Park, much
to the horror of everyone he met. On reaching the main road, he found a bus standing there and promptly climbed aboard, for he loved being taken for a ride. The passengers, however, decided they
would rather not travel by that particular bus if Cholmondely was going to use it as well, and they were all struggling to get out when some keepers arrived from the zoo and took Cholmondely in
charge.
    He was marched back to his cage in disgrace, but if I know Cholmondely, he must have thought it worth any amount of scoldings just for the sight of all those people trying to get off the bus
together, and getting stuck in the door. Cholmondely had a great sense of humour.

Problems of hairy frogs, tortoises, and other beasts
    Catching your animals is generally, but not always, the easiest part of a collecting trip. Once you have caught them, your job is to keep them alive and well in captivity, and
this is not always so easy. Animals react in various ways to captivity, and you will even get individuals of the same species that seem to have totally different outlooks. Sometimes they will
differ in quite small things and at other times their reactions will be so dissimilar that you would think they might be two separate species.
    I once bought two baby drills from a hunter. Drills are those large, grey-coloured baboons with pink behinds that you can see in most zoological gardens. These two babies settled down very well
but they differed in a lot of small habits. For example, when they were given bananas, one of them would carefully peel the fruit and eat it, throwing away the skin, while the other would peel his
banana just as carefully, eat the skin, and throw away the fruit.
    With the monkey collection one of the most important items of their diet was the milk that they got every night. This was dried milk that I would mix up in a big kerosene tin full of hot water;
then I would stir in several calcium tablets and a number of spoonfuls of malt and cod-liver oil