102 NEW YORK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY, 
contracted in transit, and which, not infrequently, arrive at the 
Park in a moribund condition. Suffice it to say that our mortality 
compares not unfavorably with the human records for the Bronx 
Borough. This is largely due to the fact that we are attempting 
to keep many animals which other parks have given up on ac- 
count of the great difficulty of keeping them. The New York 
Zoological Society feels that with its superior facilities it owes 
science the attempt to devise methods for the keeping of these 
animals, some of which already threaten to become extinct. If 
we were to strike from our lists the deaths of the moose, caribou, 
and native deer, all of which have been practically given up by 
less ambitious institutions of like nature, our mortality rate would 
be greatly reduced. Nevertheless, we have learned from these 
sad experiences many facts, and we hope that in the near future 
we shall be able to demonstrate that it is possible to keep these 
animals when the necessary conditions shall be fully understood. 
Recent results with the antelope and caribou fully justify us in 
these conclusions. It must also be borne in mind that many of 
these animals are short-lived even in a state of nature. 
Post-mortem examinations are now systematically made on all 
animals dying in the Park. We find that these necropsies can 
be made without injuring the carcass for the taxidermist, while 
at the same time facts of the greatest scientific importance are 
being discovered. I wish to particularly impress the importance 
of routine examinations, for it is well known that we often find 
the most valuable conditions where they are least expected. The 
records of these examinations are filed, and in the course of a 
few years we shall possess a collection of pathological data bear- 
ing on the diseases of wild animals in captivity of the greatest 
value, both practically and scientifically. . 
On January I, 1903, there were nearly two thousand animals 
in the Park. 
Deaths have been most frequent among the primates. Of the 
one hundred and seventy deaths recorded in the entire collec- 
tion sixty-seven have been members of this group. 
Of these sixty-seven deaths thirty have been from tuberculosis. 
This brings the death rate in our monkeys from this disease to 
within a small margin of the frequency of death from tuberculosis 
in the human. 
TUBERCULOSIS. 
Observations have been conducted with particular interest in 
regard to this disease, and we have apparently established certain 
