Guinness® Collectors Club

As the mechanism comes into action a musical box, provided with an amplifier in the base of the cabinet, is started up and plays appropriate music during the time the figures are in action.

First on the programme is the Zoo Keeper who is housed in a pulpit-like compartment on the right of the clock, normally closed by a canopy similar to a gaudily coloured umbrella.

As the umbrella opens the Zoo Keeper rises up ringing his handbell and moving his head from side to side. While this is going on the gilded Sun disc above the Keeper's head gyrates like a windmill.

The umbella is timed to open just before the Keeper starts to rise by means of a motor which operates the hinged canopy through a leadscrew and linkage.

Another motor driven leadscrew then operates the Keeper, while two other worm-geared motors operate, one to move the Keeper's arm as he swings his handbell, the other to move his head from side to side.