i8o THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF LONDON xin 



the Tower had been for centuries a national institution ; and 

 it may be interesting to those who derive pleasure in tracing 

 the links between the present and the past, to be reminded 

 that our collection is in some measure a lineal continuation of 

 that time-honoured institution, as it appears from the Keports 

 of the Council that in the year 1831 His Majesty King 

 William the Fourth " was graciously pleased to present to the 

 Society all the animals belonging to the Crown lately main- 

 tained at the Tower." It is also recorded that in the previous 

 year His Majesty had made a munificent donation of the 

 whole of the animals belonging to the Koyal Menagerie kept 

 in Windsor Park. This may perhaps be the place to mention 

 that in the Eeport read April 1837 the Council " had the 

 gratification to call the special attention of the members to 

 a donation from Her Eoyal Highness the Princess Victoria," 

 consisting of a pair of those pretty and interesting little 

 animals, the Stanley musk-deer. During the fifty years that 

 have elapsed since this first-recorded mark of interest in the 

 society on the part of her present Majesty, the Queen and 

 her family have never failed to show their regard for its 

 welfare whenever any opportunity has arisen, of which the 

 acceptance of the Presidency by the late Prince Consort, on 

 the death of the Earl of Derby in 1851, was one of the 

 most signal instances. The advantages which the Society has 

 received from the numerous donations to the Menagerie, and 

 the constant kindly interest shown in its general progress by 

 H.E.H. the Prince of Wales, are so continually before the 

 observation of the Fellows, that I need scarcely do more than 

 allude to them here, beyond stating that in no year of the 

 Society's existence has the number of visitors to the Gardens 

 or the Society's income been so great as in 1876, when the 

 large collection of animals brought from India by His Eoyal 

 Highness formed the special object of attraction. 



Except for the collection, necessarily of limited extent, 

 exhibited in the Tower, and a few others having their origin 

 in commercial enterprise, as Mr. Crosse's menagerie at Exeter 

 Change and the various itinerant wild-beast shows, there were, 

 before the foundation of the Society's Gardens, little means in 

 the country of gaining knowledge of the strange forms of 



