392 MEMOIR OF M. ISIDORE GEOFFROY SAINT HILAIRE. 



enrich these collections of dead and living animals. The galleries soon became 

 too small to contain all that Isidore Geolfroy procured for them; sometimes by 

 using the slender resources which the too scanty fiftids of the museum placed 

 at his disposal ; sometimes by availing himself of the authority of the establish- 

 ment and his own personal influence.* At a time when it was the fashion to 

 find fxult with all that concerned the museum, objection was often made to the 

 croicdcd condition of the cases, and the professor who had the administration of 

 this portion of our riches was reproached for neglect. It was forgotten that 

 this was the most striking proof of his exertions, for had he been less indus- 

 trious, the localities sufficiently capacious for his predecessors would have sufiiced 

 for him. 



What we have just said of the galleries applies equally to the menagerie. 

 But could it be otherwise? The number of living specimens collected in the 

 parks of the museum was tripled in twenty-five years, t while the disposable 

 space remained almost the same. What minute and constant care did it not 

 require to utilize this ground so parsimoniously granted to the first scientific 

 menagerie ever formed ; to struggle against conditions often deplorable ; to meet 

 expenses constantly increasing, even when the budget was restricted in conse- 

 quence of political events. It was in the midst of such difficulties that Isidore 

 Geoff"roy succeeded in developing the noble creation of his father, and in making 

 it serve the advancement of pure as well as practical science. 



Some of the first acclimatations attempted in our age have been produced in 

 this menagerie. I need only recall the Egyptian goose.| It is known that 

 this fine species, brought to France by Etienne Geoftroy, and since then almost 

 constantly reared in the museum, has furnished, for the first time, a race truly 

 European, characterized by an increase of size and a change of color, but especi- 

 ally by a delay of about four mouths in the time of laying its eggs — a delay 

 which brings the mother and her young into harmony with the new climate to 

 v/hich they are subjected. We may also mention, in passing, the yaks, three 

 of which, arriving at the museum in 1854, have increased to a hgrd of more 

 than twenty head, without the death of a single one, young or old. 



But let us dwell a little on the part which the menagerie, often considered 

 as only fit to satiny a useless curiosity, has furnished to the scientific labor of 

 Isidore Geoflfroy. This collection of living animals was to him a field of con- 

 tinual experiment, and he owed to it the solution of some of the most delicate 

 questions of physiology and of general zoology. It was by means of it that he 

 was able to vanquish the greatest, one may say the last, difficulties opposed by 

 Cuvier, Blainville, and other naturalists, to the opinion of Guldenstiidt and Pallas, 

 as to the filiation which connects the jackal with our domestic dog. It was 

 from it that he sought instruction on the fecundity of metis and hybrids. It is 

 to the facts collected in this enclosure, and appreciated with rare 'clearness of 

 judgment which none could fail to recognize in him, that he was indebted for 

 avoiding, in the solution of such delicate questions, the opposite exaggerations 

 which IVfiYQ. alternately reigned under the sanction of great names in science. 



The museum, with its its galleries and its menagerie — the Society of Accli- 

 matation and the garden of the Bois de Boulogne — formed the world in which 



* In 1828 there were at the museum 7,500 stuffed birds and mammals; in 1835, 11,750; 

 in 1861, 15,500. Besides the magazines contained at the latter period, 12,000 skins in a 

 perfect state of preservation. 



tin 1824 the menagerie possessed 283 birds or mammals; in 1842, 420; from 1850 to 

 1861, 900, on an average. 



X The Egyptian goose lays naturally about the end of December. Those reared at the 

 museum for some generations laid, in 1844, in February ; in 1846, in March ; and since then, 

 in April. ( Acclimatation and Domestication of the Useful Animals.) It is one of the most 

 striking examples that can be quoted of the influence of the surrounding medium. 



