WILL ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1679, 4 May 1904, Page 76 (Supplement)

WILL ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY

WHAT THE ZOO IS AND ITS COST.

!(By O. J. Cornish.)

[Am. Rights Reservfd.] The ever popular Zoo is the menagerie • of a learned Society. That is what i!t is in theory—a collection of living speci- - mens of animals from all parts vof the World, made nominally in the interests of the three thousand gentlemen and ladies who subscribe, and 1 are "Fellows" of the Society. They are proposed and elected, paying a subscription of ,£3 a year, and an entrance fee of .<£s; or they become life members for s£3s. The Duke of Bedford, is the President of-the Society, not / because he is a great territorial noble, but because he . has begun and’ carried, out in his park at Woburn Abbey the most (extensive experiments in animal act climdtisation 'ever made in this country. He had at one time more than 300 foreign deer of all the known varieties of the world, in this park and his collection of birds was scarcely less remarkable. " The®ociety have also a, magnificent library in Hanover Square, and publish a highly scientific and costly work annually, called the Zoological Record, a summary of the work done by zoologists all over the world, as.well as accounts of th* and scdeaitific papers jf the Society. At the Zoo itself there is also a very useful department, presided over by Mr F. E. Beddard. a Fellow of the Royal Society, who is a kind of universal anatomist, for which the opportunities at the Zoo are great, and who has published among many other learnel books the standard work on the structure and classification of birds, from the rtasult of his studies there. This useful side of the Zoo is not obtruded, and consequently not so wellknoWh as it should be. EXPENSE® OF THE ZOO. The magnificent menagerie contained recently 2656 birds, beasts, and reptiles, besides a floating population of exquisite butterflies and tropical moths. Its maintenance cpjts more than .£3oo©; the privisions for the animats nearly ,£4000; salaries for the keepers and office, .£5500; j and new animals and their carriage, 1£2325. Gardens, rates, taxes, and clothes ( for the keepers amount to another <£l3oo, and buildings to amount which the Society can afford, and there is a largo, item for Work and materials. Altogether at the Zoo and at Hanover Square, fiom purchasing animals to paying foe' books, of subscribing to scientific objecca, the Society spends nearly <£30,000 anf nuaily. .. i . As the members’ subscriptions do not amount to more than some <£sooo, the balance- ia made up by what the public v pay as entrance fees. It is in this wav - that the •'‘Zoo" has become the semi-pub-lic institution Which it is. It speaks volumes for the .good sense of its general •management, and for the good feeling which is reciprocated by the public, tha<it is, withorn exception, the least hampered with regulations and prohibitons. and -on the -whole the most popular of all ' eights in London which can be enjoyed by payment. It is the Society’s menagerie; but they continue to let it be the people’s Zoo. PRIVATE BENEFACTORS. ' . It has also in a measure accommodat'd itself to what the practical wants ox jth * public are. In the early days of the Zoo the main object of the collection was to judge what -useful animals could be acclimatised here, as well as to show what the creatures of distant lands were like But the early promoters, men like Sir Stamford .Raffles* the brilliant founder of what has become our empire in the Far East and Sir Humphrey Davy, we ■ s ‘thoroughly representative Englishmen, and those who have followed them awlike unto them. When it seemed that the "utility" was better served by improving our unrivalled breeds of domesticated animals, than by introducing new species, such as armsCStiPos, to take the 'place of rabbits, or crossing wild sv>eci.M with our domestic cattle, they gradually tried to make the Zoo as far as possible a representative collection of the fauna of the world. There are always gaps, at present there are some very large ones; b'u. on the whole ’the Society manages to maintain a sound and varied collection, kept on rather, old-fashioned lines, an J recruited from, time to time by energetic and costly expedients. The animals are also contributed, sometimes on a great scale, by private 1 friends, who take the oppor- ,, trinity of doing a public service in a unostentatious way. Chief among the proven?, benefactors of the Zoc is the Hou. Walter Rothschild. M.P. When a particularly fine specimen, or rare animal )g brought to England it is usually offered to him bv the owners, as a matter of business." If he thinks it good enough for his museum at Thing he often pure has jb it, and leaves it at the Zoo “on deposi'" till it dies, when the skin or skeleton go to TTring. At the moment of writing, F or example, there was in the snake house a large “king cobra" and a python larger than that which .recently died, spending their, days in the Zoo the property of this eminent Fellow of the Society. V Among the apes there is a very larger ourahg outang, and in the new osfcricn house a whole series of the rare cassowaries from New Guinea, lent by the earns owner. NATURAETNCREAISE OF THE STOCK. . Part of the menagerie maintains itself, for there aa\e species which breed regular ]y, and. others which have young occasionally, in the gardens'. The year 1900. for example, was remarkable the natural increase of the stock. Thera was a yoxing puna, n loppard'cait. an Af r rloan wild ass, and a most beautiful zebra : Joal \tsra Snrchfflls variefly)'i x a' zebra hybrid. -an3! a ■ young wild bn l l. Wild 'cattle, wild •'sheep,, unu doer always do well there. Wateman, the.late keeper, who had an early training in lojkiug

after the best class of Suffolk cattle and live stock, managed the cattle and deer as cleverly as if he were looking after a. home farm. In a single year there were born a yak, a gazal (a huge wild ox which the Assam tribes reclaim from the jungle and domesticate), thirteen lambs from different breeds of wild sheep, and ten fauna and calves by different herds of deers. These animals are valuable,.. A yak, for instance, will sell for T3O, and a wapiti deer for <£2©. But all the creatures bred in the Zoo during the year would not, if sold, go very far to pay for a new giraffe, or to keep up the beautiful flower gardens, which are now one of the most charming features of the place. Gardening at the Zoo is done as well as in the grounds of some fine county houses, and the rich beds of caunas, cockscomb, and later in the year the chrysanthemums, add greatly to its attractiveness. Who then pays for the upkeep of this unique institution ? Twothirds are paid by the public, whose shillings one year amounted to the great sum of <£17,192. The rest is enjoyed "gratis" from the balance contributed by the Society. In other words every visitor who pays a shilling, enjoys six pennyworth of added pleasure for nothing. For that they have to thank the hellows of the Zoological Society, and the donors and depositors of animals. Another advantage enjoyed by the pre-/ sent generation of visitors to the Zoo is that the menagerie has been so long established, that any defects and gaps are quite well-known, and are gradually filled up from time to time. There is a “house ready and waiting for nearly every large and interesting animal in the world, tr it happens to be vacant the latch is n reminder that that creature is “wanted ’’ The Zoo is like a cabinet, with compartments which, if empty, merely need time to be filled. The management of every creature is pretty well understood and the wants of the Society are known most of the dealers and collectors m toreign parts, who notify them if they nay* a chance of obtaining the desired specimen. Some creatures never seem to do well there; the great koodoo, the finest o f all African antelopes, is an example. But it would be difficult to name any land animal larger than a rabbit, which has not, at some time or other, been shown to the visitors to the Zoo. The Liberian hippopotamus and the wild camel are the only instances to the contrary which the writer can recollect. WHAT ARE THE SERVICES RENDERED BY THE ZOO? It may be asked what are the real services which the Zoo does, either to knowledge or to the general improvement of the‘public? They are great and easily indicated. The actual presence of the creatures enables their colour, size, proportions, weight (if any would take th y trouble to ascertain it, which they do not), their tempers, rate of growth, and some of their habits to be accurately known. After they are dead, the exact inquirer has opportunities for dissection

and comparison of the animals of the whole globe. 'To give a concrete instance of what this means. Mr Beddard the prosector desired to classify the whole race of birds; on a definite system, bv the difference iq their anatomy, chat is, not only by their skeletons, but by the minute differences' in their muscles, organs, and general interior structure. He did so, iu his recently published book largely by the facilities offered at the Zoo. The birds not available there are procurable preserved in spirits from the countries in which they are found. But th? Zoo offered a suitable centre and a considerable source of supply for uiaferial for work of tbis kind. Its chief benefit, however, is the suggestion of new ideas, new form®, new colours 1 , beauties of shape, of tint, of texture, and of motion, by the animals themselves. People who live in a little island in the West Atlantic, with its limited number of bird® and beasts, and still 1 more those who live in cities in such an island, derive actual benefit from all these fresh and suggestive sights. Imagination, curiosity, sympathy wonder, are. all awakened by u visit to the Zoo. If we can only dimly realise the possibility of other worlds than burs', we can at least see the forms and face® of being® which have other shapes, and other minds than ours, brought over distant oceans to our doors. They are example® of the natural inhabitants of the world, proper subjects for the knowledge and curiosity of the owners of a world-wide empire.