114 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 



Experiments are being carried on here to demonstrate to 

 how great an extent exotic animals can adapt themselves to 

 changed climatic conditions. Many ingenious and simple meth- 

 ods have been devised for confining the animals in artistic and 

 more or less natural enclosures. In the arrangement of the 

 collection more regard is paid to the natural features of the 

 ground than to the relationship or zoological sequence of the 

 groups exhibited. 



The outdoor enclosure for a group of lions for instance, 

 consists of a broad shelf of rock, banked and flanked by high 

 overhanging cliffs, up which the lions can neither jump nor 

 climb, and guarded along the front by a wide and deep ditch 

 partially filled with water. The ditch is too wide for the animals 

 to leap, and the outer side is smooth and overhanging, and is 

 further guarded by a row of iron spikes, so that should the lions 

 go down into the ditch, they are forced to go back to the rocky 

 ledge, and cannot by any means find an exit on the outer side. 



Another attractive exhibit in the Park is the Polar Bear 

 Pool, which is blasted out of the solid rock somewhat in the 

 shape of a horseshoe, having in its center a large mass of nat- 

 ural rock, which forms a kind of promontory, bounded on three 

 sides by water, and on the fourth by a cliff. The dimensions of 

 the pool are about 65 feet long by 50 feet wide. The rock which 

 surrounds the pool on the outer side rises to about 8 feet above 

 the water level, overhangs slightly and affords an excellent 

 means of preventing the escape of the bears. Thus no iron work 

 is needed and there is nothing to obstruct the view of the visitors. 



The Monkey House is a small structure consisting of an 

 inner brick-built sleeping place opening into large outdoor cages. 

 The monkeys have free access to sleeping boxes, but the super- 

 intendent, Mr. Gillespie, told me that all the monkeys spent the 

 whole of the past winter without any artificial heat whatever, 

 and remained in excellent health. The collection is made up 

 principally of the hardier species, there being none of the an- 

 thropoid apes exhibited here. 



The Hagenbeck Garden at Stellingen is one of the most 

 attractive of the zoological gardens of Europe. While many of 

 the buildings are not artistic or expensive, still they serve every 

 practical purpose, which is to shelter the animals during inclem- 

 ent weather. The Hagenbecks believe that a zoological garden 

 or park entirely fails in its function unless the animals it con- 

 tains are exhibited in a manner which allows them to live under 

 conditons which not only permit but encourage them to display 



