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CHAPTER IX. 



1891-1900. 



Several changes in the principal officers took place during 

 this decade. In 1896 the health of the Superintendent, Mr. 

 Abraham Dee Bartlett, failed, and he died on May 7, 1897, in 

 his eighty-fifth year, and the thirty-eighth in the Society's 

 service. He was a man of wide experience and more than 

 ordinary skill in the management of animals in captivity. He 

 has left it on record in his scanty autobiographical notes that 

 Cross of Exeter 'Change allowed him "to crawl about the 

 beast-room of that menagerie," so that he could not recollect 

 seeing lions, tigers, elephants, or any other wild beasts for the 

 first time, for the reason that he spent his early years among 

 them. After his apprenticeship to his father, a hairdresser 

 and brushmaker, he became a taxidermist, and though self- 

 taught, obtained a first prize in the Great Exhibition of 1851. 

 Prior to this he had become known to Yarrell, Ogilby, Gould, 

 and other Fellows of the Zoological Society, and corresponded 

 with D. W. Mitchell, who then resided in Cornwall. Bartlett 

 set down in these Notes his astonishment that Mitchell obtained 

 the secretaryship, and continued: 



He did not fail, however, to consult me on the future prosperity of 

 the Society, and this led to the opening of the Gardens [in April, 1848] 

 to the public on payment of sixpence on Mondays. The success of 

 this concession to the public undoubtedly brought about the popularity of 

 the collection and its advancement to its present condition. 



Bartlett's appointment took place in 1859, and from that 

 time till his death he was a favourite with the public, who 

 saw in him the personification of the Zoological Society. 

 For them there was neither Council nor Secretary: Bartlett 

 was all-important and all-powerful. It was the same with the 

 Press. At his death his services to popular zoology were set 

 forth at much greater length than has ever been devoted to 



