Try subclassing with something like this:

package Zoo::Animal;
## it's a hashref!
my $count = {};  
sub new {
  ## get the first argument, could be a blessed object or a package na
+me  my $type = shift;  
  ## get the package name
  my $class = ref $type || $type;  
  my $self = bless {} $class;
  ## get the name of the animal
  my ($animal) = $class =~ /^Zoo::Animal::(.+)$/;
  $count->{$animal}++;
  return $self->_init(@_);  ## call the animal's init method and retur
+n what it returns
}

## does nothing in package Zoo::Animal
sub _init {} 

####
package Zoo::Animal::Camel

## no sub new

sub _init {
  $self = shift;
  ### blah blah blah
  $self->{title} = "Programming Perl";
  return $self;
}
...
# will call Zoo::Animal::new() then Zoo::Animal::Camel::_init()
my $camel = Zoo::Animal::Camel->new();
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-hth
Sidharth.

$will->code for @food or $$;