FOURTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT 115 



It is always interesting to know how new American institu- 

 tions are regarded by keen and serious-minded critics from 

 abroad. Zoologically, Americans have much more in common 

 with Englishmen than with the people of any other nation. The 

 English have the habit of judicial analysis to an extent that ren- 

 ders their reviews and criticisms much more valuable than the 

 majority of similar productions on this side of the water. In 

 order that we may once more see ourselves as others see us, the 

 following article from the London Daily Mail of December 12, 

 1909, by Mr. W. Beach Thomas, an English ornithologist, and 

 associate of Lord Northcliffe, will be of general interest : 



"THE PERFECT 'ZOO.' 



"Beyond all comparison the 'Zoo' at Bronx Park, just out- 

 side New York, is the finest in the world, and coming from a day 

 spent in its precincts in company with its director, I feel as if I 

 had seen the world's wildest of wild animals in their native 

 haunts. 



"Is it quite impossible for Regent's Park to rival the Bronx? 

 Our English 'Zoo' is the most envied in the world. Our Empire 

 touches every part of the world where animals live. Within the 

 Empire all are able to do and are doing what no people has ever 

 been able to do. In Africa we protect animals through the whole 

 course of a long migration. Gifts of animals are showered on our 

 'Zoo' by men who hunt and observe with the native English zest 

 in all parts of the world, but especially Africa, whence always 

 comes, in natural history as in politics, the 'aliquid novi' — the 

 something new, which Pliny noted centuries ago, now taking the 

 form of an okapi or antelope. 



"But the 'Zoo' so thoroughly envied even by the Americans, 

 is very far from equalling the Bronx, and is not nearly so popu- 

 lar. Though placed ten miles nearer to the middle of London 

 than the Bronx to New York, it is not visited by more than half 

 the number of people. You come away from the Bronx as you 

 might come away from Woburn Park, happy for having seen a 

 multitude of happy, if captive, animals. In the 'Zoo' the restless 

 patrol, the almost insane chasse to and fro, the unkempt appear- 

 ance of the wilder animals often leaves a mental picture that is 

 far from pleasant to dwell on, and keeps many aloof. 



"THE BEAUTY OF THE BRONX. 



"No spot in England is quite so well fitted as the Bronx for 

 an animal sanctuary. You walk about a spacious domain of 



