THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 83. 



a proof that artificial heating was not so necessary as had form- 

 erly been thought. The result was that the use of the hot- water 

 apparatus in the giraffe house and monkey house was discon- 

 tinued. In both the only means of heating was a common open 

 fire ; and under this system " phthisis and catarrh, the former 

 fatal pestilences of the monkey house almost entirely disappeared." 



In 1848 a shed was built, with a paddock attached, just west 

 of the giraffe house, for the European bison. The area was well 

 drained, and an artificial raised surface constructed of brick- 

 rubbish and gravel which gave no lodgment to water in unfavour- 

 able weather. The wants of the gardener were considered, and for 

 his benefit a small stove house for propagating plants was erected. 



In the South Garden the pheasantries that now stand just 

 east of the cattle sheds were put up ; the absence of any proper 

 place for the conservation of tropical species of gallinaceous birds 

 rendered this building not only desirable but indispensable. 

 Near this an enclosure was made for wading birds. A new 

 entrance gate from a design by the architect of the Crown Office 

 was opened into the Broad Walk, on the site of the South 

 Entrance. This was much appreciated by the Fellows and the 

 public ; over 50,000 people entered the Gardens by that gate in 

 the first nine months. At the other end of this garden the Great 

 — or, as it is now called, the Western — Aviary was commenced. 



The abandoned carnivora house in the North Garden was 

 converted into a room for reptiles in 1849, and this was the first 

 instance of a special building being devoted to animals of the 

 order ; the west wing of the giraffe house was built, and the 

 east wing begun, though it was not finished till the follow- 

 ing year. This last work was undertaken in anticipation of 

 the arrival of the hippopotamus. 



In 1841 the donations to the Menagerie were very numerous, 

 and the name of the President occupies a conspicuous position 

 in the list of contributors. Mr. J. Brooke, afterwards Rajah 

 of Sarawak, sent home five orangs, one of which was an adult 

 female.^ In a letter to Mr. Waterhouse, read at the meeting of 



* In the summer of 1904 six nearly adult orangs were shipped to France. Of 

 these two died early in the voyage, two just before reaching Marseilles, one soon 

 after its arrival at the Jardin d'Acclimatation in Paris, where the survivors were 

 deposited, and the last two days afterwards. Dr. P. Chalmers Mitchell went to 



