Zoological Garden

“ In the zoölogical gardens, as he conceives it, "the foremost condition will be the rational construction of inclosures—not cages—liberal in extent, and in strict accordance with the respective habits and instincts of the animals to be confined. Cages can not well be avoided by traveling menageries; in zoölogical gardens they are inexcusable." In the landscape features of a zoological garden, the aim should be to unite beauty with use. ”

“ Most cities have parks, or a river, or a zoölogical garden. A zoölogical garden is not to be despised by the naturalist. About ninety-nine hundredths of every wild animal remains wild in spite of iron bars and peanuts and visitors.
There is one little creature, however, that you must live at least on the edge of the country to know, for I never saw a zoölogical garden that had a pit or cage for him. Yet he is not a blood-thirsty nor a venomous beast; in fact, he is as harmless as a rabbit and every whit as interesting as a prairie-dog. ”

“ Almost every large town in Germany has its Zoological Garden, and, as it usually contains a [Pg viii] concert-hall and other similar attractions, people flock to it, and are insensibly led to take an interest in the wild animals which they see around them. It seems to me a pity that we do not make our few English Gardens equally attractive. The result would be, I feel sure, that more people would become interested in wild animals, and probably many of our large towns would start Gardens of their own. ”

“ If properly conducted, a zoological garden sees its chief use in being a powerful auxiliary to those more general schemes undertaken on the part of the state for the benefit of the community at large, in which educational ends are to be met. And in the management of such a garden, everything connected with it should be continually bent in that direction ”

“ Most difficult of all collections to settle satisfactorily in a modern zoological park or garden is the great omnium gatherum of small species—and some large ones, also—which fall within the meaning of the term “small mammals.” ”

“ The Botanical Department, besides its botanical specimens, has a museum of woods similar to that at Kew Gardens. A Cabinet of Anatomy contains a collection of skeletons of animals, &c. The Zoölogical Garden is the most interesting and most frequented part of the grounds. The lions, tigers, bears, elephants, hyenas, and other beasts have spacious enclosures, as in the Zoölogical Gardens at London, though not so well arranged, nor is the collection so extensive. ”

“ In fact, in this respect, the zoölogical garden of to-day affords but few more advantages than any of those traveling shows that come here every season....I have simply found that an animal, as closely confined as most of them are in zoölogical gardens, retains none of its natural habits ”

“ The London Zoological Society has certainly the merit of taking the lead in this description of garden; but Mr. Cross has not only proceeded more rapidly than they have done, but has erected more suitable and more imposing structures than are yet to be found in the gardens in the Regent's Park. What is there, for example, in the latter garden which can be at all compared with the circular glass building of 300 ft. in diameter, combining a series of examples of tropical quadrupeds and birds, and of exotic plants? In the plan of this building, the animals (lions, tigers, leopards, &c.) ”

“ Purple Sassaby, Red Hartebeest, Magpie Blesbok, Striped Kudu—these man can destroy, but cannot replace; and if this essay contributes ever so little towards the preservation of that magnificent fauna whose noble presence even to-day gives to many an African landscape the appearance of a vast zoological garden, it will not have been written in vain. ”

“ Having returned to the big conservatory close by, you find another conservatory full of paroquets and small cage-birds from hot countries.
The middle of the Garden is cut by an artificial river, upon the banks of which are placed enclosures for geese, ducks, and water-birds. It forms in front of the lawn of the big conservatories a large lake covered with swans, flocks of ducks, some cormorants and seals.
The monkey house is an oblong building 15 metres long and 9 metres broad. The walls are covered with earthenware slabs. ”

“ Although precedents and models for things to be done were sought far and wide, in all save a very few instances, our needs were so peculiar, and so different from those of other zoological gardens and parks, we have found really very little that we could copy. ”

“ Most of the modern zoological gardens date from comparatively recent years, and there are a larger number stocked with a finer collection of animals, more suitably housed, than at any past time in the history of the world. According to a reference list compiled by Captain Stanley Flower, there were 102 actually existing public gardens or parks containing collections of wild animals in 1910, while there are also a considerable number of private collections. ”

“ If you go to the Zoological Gardens you ought to be a good walker and not easily tired. The animals are in cages, but they are not all close together; there are long stretches of green grass and trees and beautiful flower-beds between, and to go over the Zoo thoroughly takes a very long time. ”

“ For now my little boy wants to know what sort of thing the Zoological Gardens is.
I tell him.
The Zoological Gardens is a horrid place, where they lock up wild beasts who have done no wrong and who are accustomed to walk about freely in the distant foreign countries where they come from. The lion is there, whom we have just heard roaring. He is so strong that he can kill a policeman with one blow of his paw; he has great, haughty eyes and awfully sharp teeth. He lives in Africa and, at night, when he roars, all the other beasts tremble in their holes for fear. ”

“ All the zoological gardens in the world at present would not be nearly large enough to contain representative specimens of all the varieties of animals which have from time to time found a home on this earth. ”

“ The following were born in the Garden in 1901: 346 animals of 35 species, including 3 lions, 2 leopards, 1 brown bear, 5 wolves, 2 kangaroos, 1 Shetland pony, 1 zebra, 1 llama, 1 camel, 2 nylgai antelopes, several deer, goats and sheep, some Angora cats, and a number of small rodents. ”

“ Owing to its position, situated as it is in a dense forest of fir, elm, and birch trees, this Garden is quite one of the prettiest in Europe. The houses are built in the picturesque Swiss-cottage style, and through the Garden run little rivulets and waterfalls. The collection of animals, although not large, is decidedly good.
AVIARY, BASLE.
Turning to the left after passing the entrance-gate, we wend our way through a shady wood, in which are enclosures for storks, herons, and ducks. ”

“ However, I accept all your kind sayings as coming from a friend, and one himself devoted to that beautiful department of science, Ornithology." My subscribers are yet far from enough to pay my expenses, and my purse suffers severely for the want of greater patronage. The Zoölogical Gardens improve daily; they are now building winter quarters for the animals there. The specimens of skins from all parts of the world which are presented there are wonderful, but they have no place for them. ”

“ The varied natural conditions form an almost ideal site for a collection of animals; great care and skill have been expended on the designing and construction of the houses, the collection receives many accessions from various government departments, including the foreign consular service, and the whole institution is rapidly becoming a model of what is possible. The Zoological Gardens in Fairmount Park, Philadelphia, resemble the gardens of the Zoological Society of London, on which they were modelled. ”

“ But on account of the difficulty of securing and maintaining certain species, and their shortness of life in close captivity, our zoological gardens can only properly carry out their programme so long as it is possible for them to continually renew their stock of animals. ”

“ ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, sometimes called Zoological Parks, institutions in which wild animals are kept in captivity. Their primary object is to gratify the pleasure most persons take in viewing at close range the curious and beautiful living products of nature, but they serve also as means of instruction in natural history, providing material for museums and for investigations in comparative anatomy and pathology, while they may have a commercial value as pleasure resorts, or as show grounds for the display of animals that have been imported or bred for sale. ”

“ There are Zoological Gardens too, spread over another hill on the opposite side of the town: the cages for birds and animals are set among trees—high dark pines, with undergrowth of lighter green—and the animals are rather hard to find as you trudge up and down the steep paths. ”

“ Our zoological gardens have the task of putting the living animal world before us. Happily we are doing this by far-sighted methods. To the Zoological Gardens of Berlin belongs the credit of having, to a continually increasing extent, arranged a display of the animal world in appropriate surroundings, and with reference to systematic classification and to its relations with geographical distribution and ethnological science, so far as one can assume the connection or companionship of certain species with man. ”

“ Bentley and I went to the Gardens of the Zoölogical Society, which are at the opposite end of Regent's Park from my lodgings. The Gardens are quite in a state of infancy; I have seen more curiosities in a swamp in America in one morning than is collected here since eighteen months; all, however, is well planned, clean, and what specimens they have are fine and in good condition. ”

“ It is an inexorable law of Nature that the smallest animals shall have the shortest periods of life, and in a zoological park a small hoofed animal may be here to-day and gone to-morrow. In the following enumeration, mention will be made only of those species which are likely to remain longest on exhibition; and it may be observed that in this building there will be found various animals which are neither deer nor antelopes. ”

“ The abundant-room idea on which the Zoological Park was founded, and our desire for the full utilization of the works of nature, have from the first taxed the creative faculties of the Society to the utmost. ”

“ When it revived, the joyful parents, with their brood fairly launched on the journey of life, proudly led them down the cottage hill, through the garden, and along an osage orange hedge into the cherry orchard. These charming birds even enter towns and villages, where the gardens are of good size and guns are forbidden, sometimes going several miles to feed, and returning every evening to their roosts in ivy or brushy trees and shrubs. ”

“ To show how untrue this is, I once made a census of wild birds which were nesting in the New York Zoological Park, which is situated within the limits of New York City. Part of the Park is wooded, while much space is given up to the collections of birds and animals. Throughout the year thousands of people crowd the walks and penetrate to every portion of the grounds; yet in spite of this lack of seclusion no fewer than sixty-one species build their nests here and successfully rear their young. ”

“ One of the prettiest sights in the Gardens was a family of water-buck—two female, one male, and a baby. The wild-sheep grotto, surmounted by a tower, was extremely picturesque, and up and down the rockwork jumped guanacos, alpacas, llamas, wild goats, Barbary sheep, moufflons, ibex and chamois. There was a pretty duck-pond and lake, crossed by two wooden bridges. The airy lion house, with seventeen dens, contained a jaguar, lions, leopards, cheetah, two black leopards and pumas. Close by was a camel house, a monkey house with outdoor summer cages, and a very good collection of pheasants. ”

“ An outdoor band appears to be the only attraction of the kind in our Gardens at home, such a thing as an evening concert being almost unheard of.
Close by the concert-hall is a reindeer shed, a llama paddock, a bear pit, and a very tame collie dog kept in a cage as a rarity. Close to a duck-pond containing [Pg 47] sheldrake, wigeon, pochard and swans, there is a pen containing a kangaroo and young, some more llamas, and some zebus.
Taken as a whole, these Gardens are neither pretty nor rich in animals, and are, in consequence, perhaps scarcely worth a visit. ”

“ Every large zoological park is a school of wild-animal education and training; and it is literally a continuous performance. Let no one suppose that there is no training of wild beasts save for the circus ring and the vaudeville stage. Of the total number of large and important mammals that come into our zoological parks, the majority of them actually are trained to play becomingly their respective parts. ”

“ When it is considered that all the species will grow anywhere—in any hedgerow or lane or byeway, or among coarse grass, or in a copse, or under the shrubs, in places usually abandoned to common weeds, there is no reason why numbers of them should not be rescued from the oblivion of the botanic garden. ”

“ The bear dens are next to be seen, near a duck-pond, upon which were swimming hundreds of ducks. There are four polar bears housed near here. Passing the wapiti and moose yards, we come to a large aviary, outside which is a monument to Darwin. More than 100,000 pairs of birds are annually bought and sold in these Gardens.
Next in order is a large children’s playground, replete with swings for their amusement. There is a very picturesque rockery for wild sheep and aurochs, and American bison enclosures backed with rockwork. ”