788 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



this class, do best in a sluggish pool, with marshy banks, and with 

 flat, mossy rocks and logs to bask themselves upon. Out at 

 West End, in New Orleans, there is a small place of this kind, 

 and the several large alligators I saw in it seemed to be as well 

 contented as though they were enjoying the peculiar advantages 

 of their native bayous ; and, as common as these great reptiles 

 are in Louisiana, those at West End always seemed to have more 

 or fewer people intently watching them ; and sometimes, even in 

 the broiling noonday sun, one might see one of the oldest and 

 most aristocratic residents of Royal Street stop there for a pass- 

 ing moment, just to "take a glance at the 'gators." 



Throughout the garden the names of all the animals should 

 be made known to the visitors by the managers seeing to it that 

 the cages or other receptacles confining them are properly though 

 not too conspicuously labeled. An excellent form of label is a 

 small, water-tight, cast-iron, and painted one, with a glass-slide 

 front. In this the white paper slip may be kept, upon which in 

 plain black letters is printed the name of the animal — that is, its 

 m.ost common name — with its accepted technical name ; and a 

 brief statement giving sex and normal geographical range in 

 nature. 



However amusing it may be, it also has its other aspects, to 

 see a party of some ten or a dozen people standing before a large 

 tank-cage containing a pair of fur-seals, and, from the absence of 

 a label, not a soul able to divine the name of the creatures con- 

 tained in it ; and perhaps, too, one or more ladies in the group 

 with a seal sack on. 



In a country like the United States, where a number of its 

 finest mammals and some birds are rapidly becoming extinct, it 

 devolves as a solemn duty upon the management of a zoological 

 garden to secure a goodly representation of these for permanent 

 preservation. Among the mammals which now need such action 

 none is better known than the buffalo, though the Rocky Mount- 

 ain goat (Mazama), the beaver, and several species of deer stand 

 in the same case ; indeed, I presume the day will come to this 

 country when all of our larger mammals will cease to exist in a 

 state of nature, and we shall have to depend upon our gardens and 

 parks for examples of them. Of the birds, our Carolina parrot 

 and roseate spoonbill are conspicuous examples, and it can be 

 only a few years at most when both species will be extinct in this 

 country. 



Animals in a zoological garden should be grouped, so far as 

 circumstances will admit, into their natural orders of the class to 

 which they belong. For instance, all the dogs, wolves, and foxes, 

 and their nearest allies, should be made to inhabit a den or dens 

 in the same part of the garden, and in all cases special means 



