CARE OF CAPTIVE ANIMALS^ 



By Ebnest p. Walker 

 Assistant Director, National Zoological Park 



[With 12 plates] 

 INTRODUCTION 



Tlie purpose of this article is not to stimulate the keeping of 

 animals in captivity, but rather to make more tolerable and, if 

 possible, more happy the lives of those that are inevitably to be kept 

 in captivity. Most pets are kept because the captor is fond of them. 

 Yet in altogether too many instances the animals are not properly 

 cared for. The result is often suffering, ill health, or death due 

 largely to lack of knowledge on the part of the captor, who would 

 gladly provide his pet all it needed if he but knew how. 



Anyone not sufficiently fond of and interested in animals to be 

 willing to provide the proper quarters for pets and thereafter give 

 them proper and regular care should not attempt to keep them. 



* Animals of many kinds have not yet been successfully kept In captivity, or if they have 

 been so kept, the fact is not generally known. Therefore the information now available 

 about the best ways of keeping many kinds is necessarily very incomplete. It is hoped 

 that readers of this paper who have had experience in the keeping of animals whose needa 

 in captivity are little known, will communicate with the author in order that the benefit of 

 their experience may be added to his records and so be made available for others who are 

 interested in the subject. 



Acknowledgment is made to the following persons for information, assistance, and advice 

 in the preparation of this paper : Dr. Carter H. Anthony, veterinarian. National Zoological 

 Park ; Mr. Vernon Bailey, retired, chief field naturalist, U. S. Biological Survey (now the 

 Fish and Wildlife Service) ; Dr. Doris Cochran, as.sistant curator, Division of Herpetology, 

 U. S. National Museum, for examination and considerable work on the reptile and amphib- 

 ian sections ; Mr. Malcolm Davis, principal keeper. National Zoological Park ; Dr. Herbert 

 Friedmann, curator of birds, U. S. National Museum, for examination of the bird section ; 

 Mr. John N. Hamlet, of the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service ; Mr. Roy H. Jennier, principal 

 keeper. National Zoological Park, who has given consideration to the reptile and amphibian 

 sections ; Dr. David Johnson and Dr. Remington Kellogg, of the Division of Mammals, 

 U. S. National Museum, for examination of the mammal section ; Mr. Charles E, Kellogg, 

 Section of Fur Resources, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service ; Dr. J. E. Shillinger, Section of 

 Wild Animal Disease Studies of the same service; and numerous others who have at various 

 times supplied me with information which Is incorporated herein. Such a work as this is 

 necessarily a composite of information obtained from innumerable sources, all of which 

 cannot be specifically credited. 



Mr. Gerrit S. Miller, jr., associate in biology, U. S. National Museum, has painstakingly 

 gone over the entire manuscript to review it from both biological and editorial points of 

 view. 



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