CORRESPONDENCE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 83, 5 October 1910, Page 4

CORRESPONDENCE.

ZOOLOGICAL MATTERS. TO THE EDITOR. Sir, — I learn by your last Saturday's issue that three Zoological Committees exist in the city — one, the third, being a. "society." The original City Council's committee, standing m its municipal integrity, is thereby dilterent to the other two, which in their functions mus>t deal therewith. Of the other two, it seems that thero is some doubt which is, the '"Simon Pure." I would here suggest that if the first of these two' is not really defunct — which many thought was the case — that there need be no friction whatever between them. There is ample scope for the work and enterprise of each separately, if they will not .otherwise combine and form one Zoo Society alone. If the former oae will regalvaniae itself into lively activity, let it do so by all fair means it seeks to. And let "it pursue its original course, improving- its policy and methods. Also lei- the new Zoo Society take up in speciality marine zoology, say, _ at Lyall Bay, and have all .the marine animuls placed there in suitable conditions much more in keeping with their natural conditions in sea water, etc. In IJurope alone this idea is carried out with the most_ signal success in every way. Some thirty years ago myself and several other citizens considered the advisability of forming a marine zoo and spa at Oriental Bay, but the fact of the drainage of the city emptying into the harbour proved fatal to the project. Since then Lyall Bay has come to the fore, with its tramway connection with the city tram systems; also the City Council has in hand further projects of a fine spa nature _in the immediate view thereat. A marine zoological enterprise would be just the necesßary addendum thereto, and all the more help its success and justify the council's present enterprise. Surely the poor marine creatures in their present unnatural conditions and plight appeal to cur sympathies. Plenty of visitors there express displeasure at seeing them m such an element as fresh water, etc., so foreign to their natural habitatsea water, etc._ Seeing that we are the masters of their confinement, these sad creatures hare a claim upon us which cannot bo« ignored without just responsibility therefor. — I am, etc., E.F.J. Wellington, 28th Sept., 1910.