on a visit to the Zoo eighty years ago.



331



These are the only sad notes struck during the tour, if one

excepts the reference to the inevitable “ hills of mortality.” Here

the London clay receives its due share of blame for the frequent

length of these; the same is as true to-day as then. However, it is

noted that the sick beasts have the benefit of the service of “ a learned

and experienced medical attendant,” who, however, we are told often

had to contend with great difficulties in “ administering remedies

and performing operations, bleeding for instance.” Here in these

last three words is a true and certain index to the age of the article,

even if it had been put before us undated and without any external

evidence of its origin. But otherwise, and as a whole, it is remark¬

ably modern and even apropos to the present, not only as regards

things actually pertinent to its subject, hut generally speaking, for it

includes, in fact, begins with, that time-honoured British institution

a “ grouse,” and one, too, at the British Government, a form of

grouser, which I suppose has always been one of our special

privileges from time immemorial, and will remain so until the end.


This is where I ought to end also, hut I cannot help throw¬

ing out the suggestion that the Zoological Society should reprint the

whole article, so interesting is it, not only to a casual reader, but

also historically. The Society could from its records add notes on

the persons and incidents mentioned in the review itself and on the

many changes in the geography of the Gardens between then and

now. If this idea commends itself to those who sit at the zoological

helm, I would suggest that those old woodcuts of scenes and build¬

ings in the Gardens some of which appear as tailpieces in the two

volumes of ‘ The Gardens and Menagerie Delineated,’ should he used

to illustate the review itself, as they were no doubt well known to

the writer thereof and are certainly most suitable companions to his

account, both in character and period, for the volumes mentioned

appeared in 1830, while photographs would do the same for the

modern notes which 1 hope wiH accompany and amplify it.


Where was the Lion house of those days, and where were

Monkeys? Presumably not far from the lawn, for our reviewer

calls that “ monkey green,” and wonders that any can he found to

gaze at apes when it (the green) “ is crowded with England’s richest

beauty.”



