Chapter 11

Consider the case of the female black leopard that escaped from the Zurich Zoo in the winter of 1933. She was new to the zoo and seemed to get along with the male leopard. But various paw injuries hinted at matrimonial strife. Before any decision could be taken about what to do, she squeezed through a break in the roof bars of her cage and vanished in the night. The discovery that a wild carnivore was tree in their midst created an uproar among the citizens of Zurich. Traps were set and hunting dogs were let loose. They only rid the canton of its few half-wild dogs. Not a trace of the leopard was found for ten weeks. Finally, a casual labourer came upon it under a barn twenty-five miles away and shot it. Remains of roe-deer were found nearby. That a big, black, tropical cat managed to survive for more than two months in a Swiss winter without being seen by anyone, let alone attacking anyone, speaks plainly to the fact that escaped zoo animals are not dangerous absconding criminals but simply wild creatures seeking to fit in.

And this case is just one among many. If you took the city of Tokyo and turned it upside down and shook it, you would be amazed at the animals that would fall out. It would pour more than cats and dogs, I tell you. Boa constrictors, Komodo dragons, crocodiles, piranhas, ostriches, wolves, lynx, wallabies, manatees, porcupines, orang-utans, wild boar - that's the sort of rainfall you could expect on your umbrella. And they expected to find - ha! In the middle of a Mexican tropical jungle, imagine! Ha! Ha! It's laughable, simply laughable. What were they thinking?

  第十一章

    考虑一下1933年冬天一只雌性黑豹从苏黎世动物园逃跑的实例。她是新来的，似乎与雄豹相处不错。但是她身上很多被抓伤的痕迹暗示了他们夫妻间的冲突。人 们还没有决定该怎么办，她已经从笼子顶部栏杆的一处缺口挤了出去，消失在夜色里。有一只从笼子里逃出来的野生食肉动物就在他们中间，这一发现引起了苏黎世 市民的骚动。人们设置了陷阱，放出了猎狗。这些措施只消灭了州里极少的几只半野生的狗。十个星期过去了，却没有发现豹子的任何踪迹。最后，一名临时工在 25英里外的一座牲口棚里发现了她，开枪把她打死了。附近发现了吃剩的狍。一只生活在热带的大型黑色猫科动物在瑞士的冬天生活了两个多星期而没有被任何人 发现，更不用说袭击任何人了，这一事实明显说明从动物园里逃跑的动物并不是危险的逃犯，而只是努力适应环境的野生动物。

    而这只是许多事例当中的一个。如果你把东京倒过来抖一抖，掉出来的动物会让你大吃一惊的。我告诉你倾泻而下的可不只是猫和狗。王蛇、巨蜥、鳄鱼、水虎鱼、 鸵鸟、狼、猞猁、沙袋鼠、野牛、豪猪、猩猩、野猪——这些就是你指望会落到你伞上的雨。而他们期望发现——哈！在墨西哥一座热带丛林的中心，想像一下吧！ 哈！哈！逮太好笑了，简直太好笑了。他们那时在想什么呢？