Literary Pets – Diogenes Jugurtha the Vulture

Alexandre Dumas was always a larger-than-life figure. Playwright, historical novelist, travel writer, and even the author of a cookbook, he flung himself into life with enormous enthusiasm.

When it came to pets, he had a taste for the exotic and, for a time in his life, was the proud owner of a pet vulture who rejoiced in the grand name of Diogenes Jugurtha. He acquired the bird some time around 1847, when he was at the height of his success as a writer. The creature was originally named Jugurtha. Dumas purchased him for ten francs from a boy in Algiers. He’d been warned that the bird could be savage and soon discovered in him “a strong desire to tear in pieces everybody who came near him”. Dumas attached a chain to the bird’s leg, and put him in a cage. They then travelled on to Stora, but it was necessary to walk some of the way, and Dumas lengthened the bird’s chain and drove him along in front of him, prodding with a stick. Jugurtha was, quite naturally, furious at such treatment. However, he was finally got on board ship at Stora and brought safely back to France, where he was handed into the care of Dumas’ servant, Michel. Michel made use of an old tub to house the bird, and as a result of that Diogenes was added to his name (Diogenes, the ancient Greek philosopher, famously lived in a large ceramic jar, usually called his ‘tub’).

When Dumas knew he would be leaving France for Russia in 1851, he gave Diogenes Jugurtha to his neighbour, a restauranteur named Collinet. With delicious restaurant scraps to eat, the bird grew fat and contented and even laid an egg once a year for Monsieur Collinet, something it had never done for Dumas (who must surely have got his pet’s sex wrong). He wrote with affection of the vulture in his Histoire de Mes Bêtes (translated as My Pets).

Dumas owned other exotic creatures – monkeys, a macaw, a guinea pig, as well as plenty of dogs and cats (you will be able to read about his beloved Mysouff I in my forthcoming book Great Writers and the Cats Who Owned Them).

I have seen vultures in the wild in South African game parks, and have also visited a vulture sanctuary in the South of France. They are most interesting birds, even if not the most beautiful ones, but I have no desire to own one as a pet. Do you?