ZOOS OF LONG AGO

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 199, 20 May 1936, Page 3

ZOOS OF LONG AGO

Ancient Egypt and Since CHINESE EMPEROR’S EXPERIMENTS To-day nearly two hundred public zoos are scattered over the world, and Hie private menageries, some equal to many public institutions, are beyond enumeration. For this reason, writes E. G. Boulenger in the “Observer, ’ London, therefore, a special interest attaches to those early collections which first gave the incentive to what is now a world movement. The oldest "civilised” zoo of any importance is that at Schonbrunn, Vienna, founded in the middle of the seventeenth century. The Jardin des Plantes of Paris, which came a little later — 1793—is, however, regarded as the mother of modern zoos, since it was this collection which inspired Sir Stafford Rallies to found the London Zoo 20 years later. But these collections, venerable though they are, rank as ventures of yesterday compared with some zoological collections now no more. The early Egyptians must have kept animals on an extensive scale, for thousands of mummified remains have been unearthed, and they cover a wide range of animals from baboons and cats to crocodiles and ibises. Educational Feature. As far as one can trace, however, the first public zoo appears to have been established in China by Woo Wang, the first Emperor of the Chow dynasty, who founded a public zoo 1000 years before the Christian era. That it was intended as an educational feature and no mere “wild beast show” is evident from its delightful title of "The Intelligence Park.” As everyone knows, the Greeks and Romans kept wild animals on an almost unbelievable scale, but they were appreciated merely as! adjuncts to the bloody combats of the Coliseum and other circuses where lions, tigers, leopards, bears, elephants, and even giraffes, were employed cither to kill each other or to be butchered by professional fighting mon. Most early zoos were the private possessions of royal personages, who made gifts to one another of strange creatures acquired during their numerous campaigns. An early effort of this kind was that of Montezuma IL, Emperor of Mexico, who maintained a zoo in the ancient Aztec capital. This zoo, established about the year 1500, comprised a huge botanic garden, extensive tanks for both freshwater and marine fish, vast aviaries and reptiliaries, and dens full of carnivores, rodents, etc. Many of the serpents, boas and anacondas, .were of groat size, and kept in cages lined with feathers or in troughs of mud, these forming part of the main collection housed in a hall over 150 feet long. All the carnivorous animals were fed op turkey, 500 birds being used daily. A collection of human oddities completed this extraordinary menagerie. A King’s Dream. Later, in Europe, there was a royal menagerie established at the Louvre. It was the first got together by Louis XL, but bis successor, Henri HL, had all the larger animals killed as the result of a dream, in which he saw himself torn to pieces by lions, bears, and dogs. He ordered the slaughter as a precaution against the drcam being realised. Louis XIV. founded a menagerie at Versailles which was of some scientific value. It lasted nearly a

century, when it fell into a state of general mismanagement. This menagerie was eventually destroyed by the mob in 1759, only a lion, Indian rhinoceros, hartebeest, and quagga surviving. Parisian zoos of the past seem generally to have led very chequered careers, for it was only as recently as 1870 that the animals forming the Jardin des Plantes collection had to be slaughtered and publicly sold in order to feed the besieged citizens. Even London saw some strange attempts at Zoological collections prior to the formation of the Zoological Society. At the Tower, where now stands a refreshment buffet, were a series of vaulted stone chambers, housing lions, tigers and many other beasts. The abundance of Thames fish at that time may bo gauged by the fact that the Polar bear was led out on a chain from the water gate and allowed to help himself. Contemporray with the Tower a. lingerie in its 'iter days was that of the Dealer Cross at Exeter Change in the Strand. The famous elephant. Cliunee, was lodged here, and took nightly exercise down the Strand. It was indeed quite a London character until, being driven mad by a diseased tusk, it had to be shot—a proceeding which, in those days of tlntlock weapons, was carired out by a squad of infantry.