ZOO’S CENTENARY

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1929, Page 10

ZOO’S CENTENARY

INTERESTING RECOLLECTIONS

The Zoological Society of London is celebrating this year its centenary with a meeting and a dinner, to be held to-day. On the evening of June 20 there is to be a centenary garden party for all the Fellows, when the Zoo will illuminate itself. Out of several anniversaries the society has chosen the centenary of the granting of the Royal Charter of Incorporation for its festival, though neither of the dates chosen marks the exact hundred years. For it was on March 27, 1829, that the society became “One Body Polite and Corporate.”

Both tho society and its gardens were in existence already. The society was started by Sir Stamford Raffles in 1826, and it was in that year, too, that it began, though in a very small way, to keep liV animals and birds. ,The first living things to come into its possession were a griffon vulture, a. white-headed eagle, and a. “female deer from Sangor.” -The gardens were in full swing a year before the charter was granted. February 25, 1828. is the first red-letter day, for then the first sheet of “Occurrences” was received at the society’s offices, then in 33 Bruton street, from the gardens in Regent’s Park. It tells the story of a day at the Zoo: —

Received eleven wild ducks, ’six sil ver-haired rabbits. The otter died in consequence of a diseased tail. Emu laid her fourth egg. Al! animals and birds well.

No. of visitors —four. Particular visitor —Lord Auckland. That journal of life at the Zoo has been continued day by day for over a hundred years.

The Zoo indeed had fully come to life by 1828. Strangers were only admitted “by the written order of a “Fellow,” though presently this rule was relaxed, and those who applied at the Bruton street offices were given written permission to buy tickets at Regent’s Park. For many years afterwards the general public had only this roundabout access to the gardens. But the Zoo at once became the rage, and the difficulty of entrance seems to have exercised little check. The collection grew by leaps and bounds. A year after the charter William IV. presented the society with his menagerie from Windsor ■Park, consisting of sixty-one mammals, including, oddly enought thirteen kangaroos and eighty-seven birdes. A year later tho lions from the Tower ar rived. r Phe menageries in the Tower had been, one of the most ancient jests of tho City of London. Even as early as 1255 Louis of France presented it with an elephant There had been another elephant in 1822, though now it was dead, but there camo to the Zoo more than twenty animals, including two lions, two lionesses and their cubs, a tiger, a leopard, and two bears, and soon His Majesty made good the dead elephant by presenting the society with a new one. For many years these were the chief attractions.

In those days they had more ambitious schemes than the mere exhibiting of animals in captivity. In the charter itself the hope is expressed that it might, be possible to introduce “new and curious subjects of the animal kingdom,” by which was intended nothing less than the permanent domestication of foreign animals. AVhat excitement there was in 1832 when it was announced that “the armadillo has three times produced young, and hopes are entertained of this animal, so valuable as an article of food, being naturalised in this country!” It was proposed that curassows and guans should rival our barndoor fowls and turkeys. There were hopes even of British giraffes, and once there was a. great feast for which an eland was sacrificed, and thq banqueters prophesied that wo should have a new domestic animal and a new dish at last. But the giraffes as years went on bred less successfully, and no more elands were eaten.

THE FIRS’E CHIMPANZEE

London was agog on tho arival of each new animal. The, excitement over the first chimpanzee is historic. Theodore Hook wrote a poem in which he described satrically hw Lord John Russell, Lord Glenig, Lord Melbourne, Lord Palmerston, and the Speaker went in turn to see ‘‘the monkey child.” When the society sent out a successful expedition to Egypt which brought back a hippopotamus, Macaulay hurj-ied off to see it, and reported that he had seen it asleep and had seen it awake, “and whether asleep or awake, I can assure you that it is the ugliest of God’s creatures.” -

Tho Victorians fed the beasts circumspectly. One of the early guides records wonderingly that the black-and-brown bears “are never, tired of climbing in quest of buns and other donations, which are conveyed to them by inea’is of a pointed stick” — and the book is illustrated with a print of a gentleman in a tall hat “conveying” a bun to the bear sitting on the top of its pole by means of a stick (apparently provided for the purpose) at. least 6ft long. Books on popular zoology were pouring from the presses. There had been some

opposition at first, and the editor of !the “Literary Gazette” called the Zoo “a most profane burlesque on Noah’s Ark,” but the opposition soon died, Leigh Hunt and the “Quarterly” controverted’ mildly about giraffes. The “Quarterly” found them infinitely graceful (“towering swandike; necks, lofty heads, and large brilliant eyes, worlthy of Juno, herself and. full of noble expression”), but. Hunt, regarding them with Skimpole-ish eyes, said “they are like young ladies, not ungraceful, but with bad habits; their necks are not on a line with their forelegs, perpendicular and held up, nor yet arched like horses’ necks, but make a feehle-looking obtuse angle completely answering to the word ‘poking’. ” Hunt sat foi* a page and and a. half in front,- of the elephant, and called it the Dr. Johnson of the .animals. He gathered that its opinions of tho keeper' would be express-

ed in words like these: “Why sir, Hipkins is upon the whole a good, fellow, like myself, sir (smiling), but not so . considerate; he knows I love him and presumesi too much, on my forbear- , ,'ance. He teases me for the idle amusement of the bystanders. Sir, Hipkins takes the display of allowance for the merit of ascendancy.” Thus from the beginning the whole nation took an almost personal interest in the London Zoo. Except for a very, bad/ patch in the late ’forties, its popularity has been growing stead, ily; Of the strictly scientific side of the society’s work in its 100 years there is no need t,to speak here. The advance in the- science’’ of zoology bears' it sufficient testimony.—“ Observer.”