84 THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



July 13, Mr. Brooke naturally expressed the hope that the 

 animals would reach England. He was, however, quite aware of 

 the dangers of the passage: for if they died the captain had 

 directions to put the bodies into spirits " so that the members 

 might have an opportunity of seeing them." 



Unfortunately, not one of these anthropoids reached England 

 alive. Mr. Brooke's donations must have greatly enriched the 

 Museum collection, for in the following year he sent home 

 fourteen skeletons and forty-five skulls. The Council gratefully 

 acknowledged their indebtedness to " the zeal and good wishes 

 of their valued correspondent." 



A male giraffe was born in May, 1841. In consequence of the 

 former failure to rear the fawn, "judicious arrangements were 

 adopted." The omission of details is irritating ; but it is satis- 

 factory to know that the dam immediately noticed her offspring, 

 permitted it to take its natural nourishment, and reared it 

 successfully. There was a justifiable note of jubilation in the 

 Report presented on April 29, 1842: "The Society has thus 

 happily succeeded in rearing the first giraffe which probably 

 ever reached the adult state out of Africa, or in a state of 

 domestication." Without being hypercritical, it may be sug- 

 gested that the expression " adult state " is scarcely applicable to 

 a giraffe not yet a twelvemonth old. This animal was presented 

 to the Dublin Gardens in 1844. 



The ursine colobus received in 1842 deserves mention. This 

 fine West African monkey was described by Ogilby from skins 

 at the scientific meeting on July 14, 1835, and the species is 

 figured in Eraser's " Zoologica Typica," which was planned for 

 the description and illustration of the new forms exhibited in 

 the Gardens, but unfortunately it came to an end with the first 

 volume. It seems to have sus^orested to D. W. Mitchell and 

 Joseph Wolf the idea of the "Zoological Sketches,""^ for which 

 Dr. Sclater wrote the letterpress after Mitchell's resignation. 



Paris on behalf of the Society, and saw the two orangs, but their condition pre- 

 cluded any idea of purchase. They were the largest animals of this species he had 

 ever seen. This is probably the only shipment of orangs larger than that made 

 by Mr. Brooke. 



* Through the care of Mr. Mitchell no rare specimen has died within the last five 

 years without previously sitting for its portrait. — Quarterly Review, Dec. 1855, p. 245. 



