Wild about you

A longtime source of inspiration for authors and artists, wild animals were once considered acceptable household pets and beloved companions, finds Jeremy Hobson

- Jeremy Hobson

DURING a visit to the Parthenon in 1850, Florence Nightingale discovered local children playing with a little ball of fluff', which, upon closer inspection, turned out to be a young owl. Perhaps (quite likely) money changed hands in order that Nightingale could become the bird's new owner. Appropriately enough, bearing in mind the classical associations of owls, she named it Athena.

According to Florence's sister Parthenope, Athena very quickly became quite mannerly and took her meals regularly from her mistress's hand'. All didn't end well, however. As Florence and 38 other women volunteer nurses prepared to leave for the Crimea in 1854, the owl was 'put in a room by herself... [where] the cold and isolation were too much... [and] she fell down in a fit'. Distraught at Athena's unnecessary demise, Nightingale was reportedly heard to say: 'Poor little beastie, it was odd how much I loved you.'

An equal affection for wildlife as unlikely pets was apparent when the child Beatrix Potter kept, according to Mark Bryant, author of Casanova's Parrot, 'rabbits, frogs, lizards and hedgehogs'. Not wanting to be parted from them for even the short duration of a family holiday, 'Beatrix would... take her menagerie with her... [all] packed away in various boxes and hutches'.