368 Mc))iorinl of George Broivii Goode. 



and the minuteness of his observations and the accuracy of his descrip- 

 tions are very surprising. He discusses at length the plants of Peru, 

 especially the maguey, the pineapple, the tobacco, and "the pretious 

 leaf called O^m," whose virtues pharmacologists now hold in such high 

 CvSteem, and devotes chapters to "The Emeralds, Turquoises, and Pearls 

 of that Countrey; " to gold and silver, and to quicksilver. 



De la Vega refers to a certain place in the city of Cuzco, where lions 

 and other fierce creatures are kept in captivity. The taste for menager- 

 ies and gardens seems to have been less pronounced in Peru, however, 

 than in Mexico. 



Much has been written concerning the wonderful collection of animals 

 and plants which the vSpanish conquistadors found in Montezuma's cap- 

 ital cic}'. Carus, in his Geschichte der Zoologie declares that at the 

 time of the discovery of Mexico, Europe had no menageries and botani- 

 cal gardens which could be compared with those of Chapoltepec and 

 Huextepec, a statement wdiich is quite within the bounds of truth, for 

 the earliest botanical garden in the Old World was that founded at Pisa 

 in 1543.' Our fellow member, Doctor Charles Rau, has also described 

 the zoological gardens of Mexico in glowing terms," and Professor 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 declares that this testifies to a 

 cultivation of natural history which was really beyond the European le\'el 

 of the time. 



Is it not to be regretted that the capital of the United States in 1S85 

 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 nuist express 

 my conviction that the truth is more nearly touched in the l)luff , soldier- 

 like narrative of Cortez himself than in the flowery and redundant para- 

 phrases of Prescott. We may, prol^abl}', safel}' accept the story as told 

 by Bernal Uiaz del Castillo, one of the companions of Cortez, to whom 

 Torquemada, Robertson, Eockhart, Rau, and others give high praise as 

 a truthful narrator. 



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

 was particularly impressed l:)y the royal aviaries: 



We saw here every kind of eagle, from the king's eagle^ to the smallest kind 

 included ; and ever}' species of hird, from the largest known to the little colil)ris,^ in 

 their full s])lendor of plumage. Here also were to be seen those birds from which 

 the Mexicans take the green-colored feathers, of which they manufacture their 



' William Whewell, A History of the Inductive Sciences, from the Earliest to the 

 Present Time, HI, 1837, p. 325. 



'^ Carl Rau, Thiergarten. New Yorker vStaats-Zeitung, April 26, 1S63. 

 3 The golden eagle, .says Aguileru. 

 ■» Humming birds. 



