SECOND ANNUAL REPORT. Did 
in plenty. What interests one much more, however, is the room 
devoted to the gibbons—the long-armed, ‘‘ living-skeleton’’ apes 
of Borneo, Burmah and Siam, who can, when pursued, almost //y 
through the tree-tops. Going down hill they actually turn sum- 
mersaults, one after another, catching alternately with their 
hands and their feet, and flying forward at a tremendous rate. 
There were three jet black gibbons (from Burmah), two of which 
were of medium size, while the third was almost a giant of his kind. 
They perched high in the upper corners of their tall cages, and 
from below resembled three black imps of darkness. 
The keeper spoke to them in their own language, and the re- 
sponse is almost beyond description. The big fellow had a voice 
like a steam calliope, and he was generous with it. 
‘* FToo-lock ! hoo-lock ! hoo-lock !’’ he cried, over and over ; 
and his mates answered him until the windows rattled, and our 
ears rang. Then he paused, made up a most diabolical wry 
face, drew a long breath, opened his mouth to an enormous 
stretch, and emitted a prolonged, ear-rasping, falsetto shriek. It 
was an excellent imitation of the shriek of an European loco- 
motive. 
The Small Cats’ House, adjoining the apes’ quarters, is the only 
building in the Gardens in which there is a pronounced animal 
odor. Although the cages are kept as clean as water and labor 
can make them, yet the characteristic feline odor is there. 
Amongst zoological garden men, it is generally conceded to be 
practically inseparable from every large collection of small Felidz. 
For this reason, there are some zoological gardens on the continent 
from which small cats are absolutely banished. Notwithstanding 
the admitted impossibility of maintaining a collection of the 
smaller Felidze on an odorless basis, the group is so large, and to 
most persons so interesting, it seems that its representatives should 
be kept. In America, certainly, with its fine array of lynxes, 
wild cats, ‘‘bob’’ cats and ocelots; its yaguarundi, eyra, and 
other forms, their entire absence from a zoological garden which 
assumes to be reasonably complete, would be quite inexcusable. 
By many zoological garden authorities on the Continent, the 
kangaroo collection and its installation in the London Gardens is 
said to be the best in existence. And inasmuch as England owns 
the entire kangaroo fauna of the world (excepting the New 
Guinea tree-kangaroo), thisis quite as it should be. The kanga- 
