

FLORIDA AND THE WEST INDIES 31 



will continue in the future to subordinate bricks 

 and mortar to open air, and turn a deaf ear to those 

 exhortations that are almost certain to be voiced 

 in an atmosphere infected with the skyscraping 

 bacillus. They will no doubt be asked to spend 

 bequests from wealthy patrons in erecting mansions 

 that shall rival the pride of Madison Square. 

 Palaces will be proposed for the lions, villas for the 

 monkeys ; but I hope that they will resist all such 

 appeals. So far, the buildings, it may as well be 

 confessed, do not offend by their magnificence. The 

 most stupendous of them all, the great Flying 

 Cage, is less a building than a modified open-air 

 playground, a mammoth aviary that encloses trees 

 and a lake a hundred feet in length, the delight of 

 the crimson flamingo and ponderous pelican, of 

 vultures and of many smaller fowl, all disporting 

 themselves after their own fashion within the 

 almost invisible wire fence. The Flying Cage is 

 superb, dwarfing all ordinary conceptions of an 

 aviary as the flat-iron building on Fifth Avenue 

 dwarfs the mud hovels of Connemara. 



In a climate like that of Malebolge, only damper, 

 a value is assumed by permanent buildings that 

 would be lacking under drier conditions. That 

 our Reptile House in London is of heavier design 

 than that at Bronx is therefore as it should be. I 

 am not sure that, thanks to their bath of direct 

 sunlight during the long New York summer, the 

 alligators do not flourish rather better at Bronx 

 than in the majority of Zoos, and the characteristic- 

 ally native groups of rattlesnakes and moccasins 

 are certainly better represented, as might be ex- 

 pected, than in our collection at home. The Lion 



