FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT. 77 



force in our educational system and as a delightful pleasure- 

 ground. 



" On this auspicious occasion, which closes three years of 

 planning and study and one year of hard practical work, our first 

 acknowledgments are due to mother Nature herself. A site such 

 as this in City limits is without a parallel. Nature seems to 

 have shaped these two hundred and sixty-one acres for the ex- 

 press purposes of a Zoological Park. Two hundred thousand 

 years ago the great Ice Sheet cut its giant grooves through Bird 

 Valley where we are standing, and through Beaver Valley yonder, 

 on either side of the broad ridge of granite which the engineers 

 are now levelling for the imposing buildings of Baird Court. The 

 Ice Sheet left behind the famous '' Rocking Stone " as 'a memorial 

 of its visit, and there followed the forest of oak and beech, whose 

 noble offspring are the glory of the Park. Then wandered in 

 the Mastodon, Buffalo, the Elk, Moose, Deer, and Beaver, the 

 Indian, and finally our Dutch and English ancestors as the ene- 

 mies and exterminators of all. We have to thank the former 

 owners of this tract that the forest was preserved. The Mastodon 

 is beyond recall, but before long his collateral descendant, the 

 elephant, will be here ; and this afternoon, as you wander through 

 the ranges, you will see restored to their old haunts all the other 

 noble aborigines of Manhattan. Later we shall find a place upon 

 the Buffalo Range for the Indian and his tepee. 



" Yes, Nature has given the City this Park and has given us 

 the motive for its treatment. Every natural beauty has been care- 

 fully protected and preserved, hardly a tree has been cut down. 

 And when our general scheme of planting and enclosure is com- 

 pleted, all the animals of North America, and many of the Old 

 World, will be seen just as they live in the woods — happier per- 

 haps because safe from the rifle of the hunter, free from the keen 

 struggle for existence, generously quartered and fed. 



" We must acknowledge to-day the gifts of the liberal men 

 and women of this City, who have thus far contributed about 

 $150,000 toward the plans, buildings, and animals, while the tax- 

 payers, in the good judgment of the Mayor and the Board of 

 Estimate, have contributed an equal amount toward the paths, 

 grading, drainage, fences, and pavilions. Yet this third of a 

 million already expended is only the beginning of an undertaking 

 in which all citizens will take a direct interest and contribute ac- 



