Page 360 - The Secret Museum

archives of the Natural History Museum in London.

I also saw a stuffed Barbary lion in the vaults of the Swedish Museum of Natural

History. It’s not on display because it’s in an unnatural, quite camp pose – paw lifted
off the ground – unbecoming of a ferocious lion. It’s mane runs half way along its
body and it has a golden halo around its face. The lion is part of a genetic study
called The Barbary Lion Project which is trying to work out the genetic code of the
species and then use living lions, in zoos, which are genetically close to the Barbary
lion, to selectively breed back the species.

Nowadays, the Tower of London’s most famous animals are the ravens. ‘If the
ravens leave the Tower, the kingdom will fall…’ is the old superstition. However,

the earliest reference to a raven in the Tower dates back only to 1885 (a picture in
Pictorial World newspaper). Today, seven ravens (including Baldrick and Marley)
are kept at the Tower. They each have a wing clipped to ensure they can’t fly far,
although one – Grog – made it as far as a pub in the East End in 1981 on foot – or
claw. All but one of the Tower’s ravens died from stress during the Blitz. A piece of
the bomb that fell on the Tower of London during the Blitz is in the Royal Armouries
archive beside Blood’s dagger.