friendship

found in an old national geographic / sitting kitty / A patient little cat endures lessons in baboonery. According to notes accompanying the photograph—which arrived at the Geographic in 1956 but was never published by the magazine—"Baboon mother tries to make Fluffy sit up like a good monkey baby. But the kitten always falls back on her four legs. It seems like such a hopeless case." The baboon, named Helen, was an attraction at Ross Allen's Reptile Institute, a roadside zoo funded in 1929 in Silver Springs, Florida. She may have been a holdover from the days when Tarzan movies were filmed in the region and Allen provided animal actors for visiting Hollywood productions. by Margaret G. Zackowitz