6G 



Many of us may remember this buildings, wliicli stood 

 on the space now cleared in the centre of the Gardens. 

 Twenty-four years after its erection, in their Report, dated 

 April 1864, we find the Council speaking of it as "what 

 is at present perhaps the most defective portion of the 

 Society^s (xarden establishment/' and the erection of a 

 second " New Monkey-house " was determined upon. 

 This is the present light and comparatively airy and 

 spacious building, the superiority of which over the old 

 one in every respect is incontestable. 



Up to the year 1848 the only attempt which had been 

 made to familiarize the visitors with the structure and 

 habits of animals o£ the class Reptilia was by the occa- 

 sional display of a pair of Pythons, which were kept closely 

 covered in a box of limited dimensions in one of the 

 smaller Carnivora-houses. In 1849 the building which 

 had been rendered vacant by the removal of the Lions to 

 the new terrace was fitted up with cases with plate-glass 

 fronts on a plan entirely novel in this country, and which 

 for many years afforded an instructive exhil)ition of the 

 forms, colours, and movements of many species of Serpents, 

 Lizards, and Crocodiles. This house was a vast improve- 

 ment upon anything of the kind ever seen before ; but the 

 contrast between it and the present handsome and spacious 

 building so recently erected in the south-eastern corner 

 of the grounds affords another illustration of the great 

 progress we are making. 



If time allowed I might also refer to the Elephant- 

 house, completed in 1870, to the Insect-house, opened in 

 1881, and to various others of less importance. 



The erection of these houses has necessarily been a very 

 costly undertaking ; in fact, since what may be called the 

 reconstruction of the permanent buildings of the Gardens, 

 which commenced in the year 1860, more than £50,000 

 has been expended upon them. It is only in years of great 

 prosperity, when the Society's income has considerably 

 exceeded its necessarily large permanent expenditure, that 

 works such as these can be undertaken. 



Much as has been done in this direction, we must all 

 admit that there is still more required. The buildings of 

 to-day will, we may even hope, some day seem to our 

 successors what the former ones appear to us. The old 

 idea of keeping animals in small cramped cages and dens, 



