166 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1961 



In Washington, the Director spoke on three radio programs and 

 appeared on television, showing a number of Zoo animals. 



Senior Keeper William F. Widman and Supervisory Keeper 

 Holmes M. Vorous have written an article on the hatching of kooka- 

 burras in the Zoo, which will be published in England by Avicultural 

 Magazine in the autumn of 1961. 



Senior Keeper Mario DePrato and Holmes M. Vorous accompanied 

 a shipment of live reptiles to the Detroit Zoo in August 1960, arriving 

 there in time for the opening of the new reptile house. Wiile in the 

 Midwest they visited zoos in Toledo, Cleveland, and Pittsburgh, 

 studying methods of exhibiting and handling animals. 



Ordinarily the Zoo does not conduct guided tours of the Park, but 

 exceptions were made for a group of children from the Columbia 

 Lighthouse for the Blind and for four other groups of handicapped 

 children. 



On July 14, 1960, 1,523 foreign exchange students visited the Zoo ; 

 the schoolboy patrol, consisting of 9,740 students from all parts of the 

 country, came to the Park on May 13, 1961 ; and a group of African 

 students toured the Park on June 21, 1961. 



While the Zoo does not conduct a regular research program as 

 such, effort is made to study the animals and improve their health, 

 housing, and diet in every way possible. 



REPORT OF THE VETERINARIAN 



The veterinarian. Dr. James F. Wright, reports that the major 

 veterinary problems at the National Zoological Park for this year, as 

 in past years, stem from the lack of facilities and help to investigate 

 disease in the collection, absence of suitable hospitalization and 

 quarantine, and the need for a full-time arrangement for orphan- 

 animal care. 



The central nervous system disease of monkeys mentioned in last 

 year's report is still under investigation by the Armed Forces Institute 

 of Pathology. Necropsies have been performed on seven monkeys 

 which during life had shown the typical signs of acute amaurotic 

 epilepsy as described by Langdon and Cadwallader in 1915 and again 

 by Van Bogaert and Scherer in 1935. These cases include two im- 

 mature Barbary apes (died January 5, 1960, and April 8, 1961), an 

 immature pig-tailed macaque (July 20, 1959), an immature hybrid 

 (Philippine x Javan) macaque (January 6, 1960), an immature drill 

 (April 9, 1960), an immature mandrill (June 24, 1960), and an im- 

 mature hybrid gibbon {Hylobates lar x H. sp.) which was raised in a 

 keeper's home from the day of birth and was thus rather free of the 

 Park environment. Three monkeys in the collection, a grajj-'Cheeked 

 mangabey, a black-crested mangabey, and a mandrill, all female 



