63 



the expectations that were raised when the question of 

 establishing them was first brought before the notice of 

 the Council. 



Although^ as will be seen by a consideration of the 

 various subjects which I have already referred to^ the 

 Society has a wide sphere of operation and many methods 

 by which the objects of its founders are carried out, it is 

 undoubtedly the maintenance of the menagerie of living 

 animals in the Gardens where we are now assembled, by 

 which it is most known, both to the public as well as to a 

 large number of our Fellows. It will be well therefore, 

 before concluding, to add a few words upon some points 

 of interest connected with the past history and present 

 condition of this branch of the Society^s operations, the 

 one which is at the same time the largest source of its 

 revenue and cause of expenditure. 



The collection and exhibition of rare and little-known 

 living animals has long been a subject of interest and 

 instruction in civilized communities, and in many countries 

 either the State or the Sovereign has considered it as part 

 of their duty or privilege to maintain a more or less 

 perfect establishment of the kind. 



Before the Zoological Society was formed the " Lions '■" 

 at 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 establishment, as it 

 appears from the Reports of the Council that in the year 

 1831 His Majesty King William the Fourth " was gra- 

 ciously pleased to present to the Society all the animals 

 belonging to the Crown lately maintained 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 Royal Menagerie kept in Windsor 

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

 Report read April 1837 the Council "had the gratification 

 to call the special attention of the members to a donation 

 from Her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria,"^ con- 

 sisting 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 



