REPORT OF THE 

 DIRECTOR OF THE ZOOLOGICAL PARK 



TO THE BOARD OF MANAGERS. 



r\F all the institutions for objective education, none are more 

 ^^ sensitive to the vicissitudes of war than zoological parks. 

 The permanence of museum and art exhibits are at once the envy 

 and the despair of vivarium zoologists. The perpetual recur- 

 rence, in inexorable succession, of arrival, death and departure, 

 renders life in a collection of living things a constant struggle 

 for equilibrium. 



As a mechanical cut-off in the annual supply of live animals, 

 a great war possesses boundless possibilities for mischief. At 

 this moment the procuring of a giraffe from Africa would be 

 almost as difficult as the obtaining of a live mammoth trom 

 Alaska ; for both are equally impossible. By impossibilities in 

 transportation, the entire supply of African antelopes now is 

 cut off, as completely as if Africa had sunk to the depths of the 

 sea. At the same time, the world's stock of antelopes is dimin- 

 ishing by death. 



Strange to say, however, the annual West African output 

 of chimpanzees continues to arrive, both in London and in New 

 York ; and occasionally a baby orang survives the voyage from 

 Singapore. 



During the past year (1917) , the bird collections of the Zoo- 

 logical Park have been kept quite up to high-water mark, for 

 which the Assistant Curator of Birds, Mr. L. S. Crandall, is de- 

 serving of great credit. His diligence in exploiting the live-bird 

 market, far and near, is alone responsible for our high figures 

 both in species (813) and in specimens (2,799). 



In the mammal collections no falling off worthy of mention 

 has occurred ; and in one direction a great success has been 

 scored. We have brought together a collection of kangaroos that 

 is so large and so rich in species that it appears to have only 



