THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 185 



hogs produced young in 1883, and each succeeding year till 

 1886. 



A greater Vasa parrot died in 1884, apparently of old age ; it 

 had been fifty-four years in the Gardens. The next year the 

 Society lost a Sumatran and a Javan rhinoceros. The note- 

 worthy deaths in 1886 were a male hippopotamus, born in 

 the Amsterdam Gardens in 1876, which had been in the 

 Menagerie nearly nine years ; a giraffe, purchased in 1874 ; and 

 a West African python, that had been in the collection twenty- 

 three years. In 1888 a Sumatran rhinoceros, one of a pair 

 purchased in 1875, died; a condor, purchased in 1856, died 

 in 1889 ; and the death in 1890 of a crane bred in the 

 Gardens in 1863 is worth mention. 



The event that attracted most attention from the general 

 public during this decade was the sale of Jumbo, the great 

 African elephant, to Barnum. The facts of the case were 

 simple; yet the motives of the President, Council, and Sec- 

 retary seem to have been misunderstood, and many of the 

 articles on the subject did small credit to the wisdom of a 

 section of the newspaper Press. 



In 1881 Jumbo developed dangerous tendencies and did 

 a great deal of damage to the house, rendering necessary 

 the setting up of stout timber buttresses, more than once 

 destroyed. Those last erected are still in position. There was, 

 however, at times — worse than this — the disposition to attack 

 persons. Bartlett's own words should carry conviction as to 

 the danger of keeping the animal in the Gardens : 



Finding that he, at the end of this period, was likely to do some 

 fatal mischief, I made an application to the Council to be supplied 

 with a sufficiently powerful rifle in the event of finding it necessary to 

 kill him.* 



It may be well to give the Superintendent's Keport on the 

 subject in full ; for although it was published in the Times of 

 March 9, 1882, it is not generally known : 



I have for some time past felt very uncomfortable with reference to 

 this fine animal, now quite, or nearly quite, adult, and my fear of him is 

 also entertained by all the keepers except Matthew Scott, who is the only 



• " Wild Animals in Captivity," p. 49. 



