PRESIDENTIAL ADDRESS. 51 



had no menageries and botanical gardens which could be com- 

 pared with those of Chapoltepec and Huaxtepec, a statement 

 which is quite within the bounds of truth, for the earliest botani- 

 cal garden in the old world was that founded at Pisa in 1543. '" 

 Our fellow-member, Dr. Charles Rau, has also described the 

 zoological gardens of Mexico in glowing terms, f and Prof. E. B. 

 Tylor states that in the palace gardens of Mexico all kinds of 

 birds and beasts were kept in well appointed zoological gardens 

 where there were homes even for alligators and snakes, and de- 

 clares that this testifies to a cultivation of natural history which 

 was really beyond the European level of the time. 



Is it not to be regretted that the capital of the United States in 

 1885 is still unprovided with a means of public instruction which 

 was to be found in the capital of Mexico four hundred years ago ? 



I have examined the historians of Mexico with care and must 

 express my conviction that the truth is more nearly touched in 

 the bluff, soldier-like narrative of Cortez himself, than in the 

 flowery and redundant paraphrases of Prescott. We may proba- 

 bly safely accept the storv as told by Bernal Diaz del Castillo, 

 one of the companions of Cortez, to whom Torquemada. Robert- 

 son, Lockhart, Rau and others give high praise as a truthful nar- 



1 



rator. 



Diaz presents a most vivid word-painting of the city of Mexico, 

 and was particularly impressed by the royal aviaries : 



" We saw here every kind of eagle, from the king's eagle j to 

 the smallest kind included, and every species of bird from the 

 largest known to the little colibris§ in their full splendor of plum- 

 age. Here also were to be seen those birds from which the Mex- 

 icans take the green colored feathers of which they manufacture 

 their beautiful feathered stuffs ; these last- mentioned birds very 



* Whewell : History of the Inductive Sciences, iii, p. 325. 

 t Carl Rau: Thiergarten. <^ New Yorker Staats-Zeitung, April 26, 

 1863. 

 \ The golden eagle, sa}'S Aguilera. 

 § Humming-birds. 



