ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS. 789 



should be adopted to point out the animals belonging to the coun- 

 try in which the garden is maintained. The system of labeling 

 will do much toward this if carried out as suggested on a pre- 

 vious page ; and if keepers and others are intelligent and oblig- 

 ing, as they surely should be, they can accomplish a great deal in 

 a few words to groups of inquiring visitors. 



Many questions touching upon special details in administra- 

 tion — as the best means to be adopted to secure desirable acquisi- 

 tions to the garden, to the methods of exchange, of contracts for 

 food, and similar matters, and whether or not it is desirable to 

 make a small charge to visitors as an entrance-fee — hardly fall 

 within the scope of the present article to discuss. 



Modern architecture and artisanship, and present-day knowl- 

 edge of sanitary engineering and sanitation, with our ever -in- 

 creasing literature upon the diseases and their treatment in the 

 lower animals, all leave but little to be desired for a superintend- 

 ent of a zoological garden to draw upon for the application of 

 their principles to the institution under his charge. If means be 

 ample, there is not the shadow of excuse why such a place may 

 not be made as inviting as the " gardens of the gods," and clean- 

 liness and purity completely carried out. 



One main building always constitutes an inseparable part of a 

 model zoological garden, and it is devoted to the offices and study- 

 rooms of the staff, to the lecture-room, to the reading-room and 

 library, to the photographic gallery, to the laboratories and store- 

 rooms, and, finally, to a few spare rooms for special purposes. 



The lecture-room should be properly fitted up, and made to 

 accommodate a large audience. Here, at certain seasons, a course 

 of free lectures should be delivered on some branch of zoology or 

 zootomy, either by some resident member of the staff, or by spe- 

 cialists. 



No well-appointed zoological building in connection with a 

 garden would be complete without its reading-room and library. 

 In the latter should be found, in time, all the standard works that 

 have appeared upon the various branches of natural science, and 

 more particularly upon vertebrate zoology and morphology, in- 

 cluding, of course, such subjects as classification and geographi- 

 cal distribution of animals, and the reports of other zoological 

 gardens and societies. On the reading-tables should appear the 

 various authoritative zoological periodicals of the day, and bound 

 volumes of the same should be upon the library shelves. It is an 

 excellent idea to have the walls of such a room as this hung with 

 strong relief maps of the various parts of the world, upon which 

 are portrayed by clear defining lines the several regions as they 

 are described by zoographers, showing the natural geographical 

 distribution of animals. Within these areas there might be 



