j6 The Irish Naturalist. March, 



IRISH SOCIETIES, 



ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



The annual meeting of the Society was held at the Royal College of 

 Physicians, Dublin, on February 5th, when a highly satisfactory report 

 of the past year's working was presented by Prof. D. J. Cunningham, 

 F.R.S., the honorary secretary. During 1900, 156,012 persons visited the 

 Gardens, paying £2,365 is. 8d. for admission, an increase of 8,500 visitors 

 and ^225 receipts as compared with 1899 ; while the amount received 

 from members and subscribers was £673, an increase of £76. Conse- 

 quently despite the allocation of ^1,000 towards the erection of a new 

 house for the Carnivora, a balance of over £300 remains to the credit of 

 the Society after allowing for all outstanding liabilities. 



Very special attention has been paid to the preparation of plans for 

 the new Carnivora (" Lord Roberts ") House, in the design of which 

 help has been obtained from the directors of the London as well as the 

 leading European and American Zoological Gardens. The new house, 

 which will be connected with the old Lion House, and showing its 

 principal elevation opposite the Haughton House, will contain ten new 

 dens and three or four large open-air dens, roofed over, floored with 

 wood, and with a southern aspect. The cost of the new house will be 

 considerable, but in addition to the ,£1,000 already allocated by the 

 Society, ,£1,000 has been collected, and a further sum will, it is thought, 

 be raised with little difficulty. 



A fresh impetus to the "Irish Lion industry," which is dealt with at 

 length in this report, may confidently be looked for. For the four years 

 1895-9S, only eighteen cubs were born in the Gardens and only six of 

 these were reared. But in the last sixteen months fifteen cubs have been 

 born whereof eleven are still in the Gardens. There is no fear therefore 

 of a decline in the famous Dublin lion-breeding as a whole, though there 

 has been a curious falling off in the average number of cubs in a litter — 

 two or three now as against four prior to 1886. Among the cubs now in 

 the Gardens are two — a male and a female by Caesar, the only Dublin- 

 bred adult lion still in the collection. There is every hope therefore that 

 the old Dublin strain may be preserved. 



After the completion of the " Roberts House " the Council hope to 

 erect a new Bear House and pit where all the bears may be gathered in 

 proximity to one another, and so make comparison easy to visitors. 



The various acquisitions to the Gardens through the year have been 

 duly chronicled in the pages of this Journal. Several unfortunate deaths 

 of animals are mentioned in this Report — the Sea Lion, two Cheetahs, the 

 male Ostrich, the male Bactrian Camel, and a Chimpanzee, the last 

 named loss depriving the Gardens for the present of any representative 

 of the man-like Apes. Appropriate reference is made to the great 

 interest of the Horse and Zebra hybrids lent in the summer by Prof. 

 Ewart of Edinburgh. The Society's photographic medal has been 

 awarded to Mr. Greenwood Pim. 



