THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 113 



The following remarks on the subject are quoted from the 

 Times of October 23, 1852 : 



The accident occurred in the serpent-house, which, as everybody who 

 has visited the gardens will recollect, is fitted up in such a manner as, with 

 the most ordinary precautions, to ensure perfect safety from casualties of 

 the kind. By means of an iron rod, hooked at the end, and inserted 

 through the small aperture at the top of each compartment, the reptiles 

 are easily removed into the compartment next their own, and made secure 

 there while the keepers place food in, and clean out the empty one. 

 Visitors are enabled to see the serpents in perfect security, through the 

 thick glass fronts of the compartments, and nothing can be better than the 

 arrangements of the Society in this portion of their display, the keepers 

 having the strictest orders never on any account to lift the glass slides 

 or to attempt doing anything in the compartments without first removing 

 their occupants. 



An inquest was of course held, and the jury found that the 

 poor fellow's death was the consequence of his own rashness 

 and indiscretion. 



The first great ant-eater exhibited was obtained in an un- 

 expected way. While passing a shop, occupied temporarily 

 by a showman, the Secretary was attracted by the doorman's 

 invitation : " Come and see the great antita heat a hegg ! " ^ 

 He paid his money, and the result of his report to the Council 

 was that the animal was purchased. The Literary Gazette of 

 October 8, 1853, said: 



The specimen now exhibiting at the Zoological Gardens was one of a 

 pair captured near the Rio Negro in the Southern Province of Brazil, 

 and shipped for England by some German travellers. The male died on 

 the voyage ; the female arrived about a fortnight ago, and was exhibited 

 in Broad Street, St. Giles, until purchased by the spirited administrators 

 of the Zoological Society's funds for the sum of £200. The Council in 

 effecting this purchase have shown that they comprehend their duties in 

 a wide and liberal sense, and that not the least of these is to secure for 

 exhibition, when possible, every rare animal which has not before been 

 seen alive in England, irrespective of difficulties or expense in maintaining 

 such acquisitions. 



It was stated in the Gazette that this example was the first 

 to reach Europe alive. Thereupon J. T. Pettigrew wrote calling 



* Field, February 10, 1900. The form "antita" occurred in more than one 

 contemporary newspaper description of the animal, and was intended to represent 

 the pronunciation of the Germans. 

 I 



