52 SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION 



Dr. Gustav Brandes, the director, is a well-known student of the 

 orang-outangs, and his collection of these is notable. They are kept 

 in a temperature very humid as well as warm, under a Vita-glass roof, 

 in large cages which have wire mesh instead of wooden floor, with 

 logs arranged so that the animals never come to the ground but live 

 their natural lives in the tree tops. The gorilla is kept under the 

 same conditions. The most astonishing sight we saw in any zoo was 

 Dr. Brandes going into a cage with a family of orang-outangs, the 



Fig. 42. — Flight cage, Dresden. Artificial rock work and waterfall add greatly 

 to its attractiveness. 



male 12 years old, the female 15, and a two-year-old baby, the latter 

 born from other parents, and still another young one that had been 

 born in the zoo at Dresden. Dr. Brandes goes in among these four 

 orangs, and calmly feeds them and Inrushes them, even brushing the 

 five-or-six-inch-long hair on the male. When he came out of the cage 

 he informed us that the male had been captured as an adult only 18 

 months ago. 



The sea-lion pool is unusually large. There are big rocks for the 

 seals to dive from, and a chute for penguins to slide down into the 

 water. The rock work in the reptile house is made up of samples 

 from all over Germany and forms a geological collection of interest. 



