September 19, 1912] 



NATURE 



79 



animals, and could afford space for the larger and 

 better-known animals. These tracts have not yet been 

 brought under cultivation, and are rarely traversed 

 except by the sportsman, the explorer, and the 

 prospector. On these there should be established, in 

 all the characteristic faunistic areas, reservations 

 which should not be merely temporary recuperating 

 grounds for harassed game, but absolute sanctuaries. 

 Under no condition should they be open to the sports- 

 man. No gun should be fired, no animal slaughtered 

 or captured save by the direct authority of the wardens 

 of the sanctuaries, and for the direct advantage of 

 the denizens of the sanctuaries, for the removal of 

 noxious individuals, the controlling of species that 

 were increasing beyond reason, the extirpation of 

 diseased or unhealthy animals. The obvious examples 

 are not the game reserves of the Old World, but the 

 national parks of the New World and of Australasia. 

 In the United States, for instance, there are now the 

 Yellowstone National Park with more than two million 

 acres, the Yosemite in California with nearly a million 

 acres, the Grand Cafion Game Preserve with two 

 million acres, the Mount Olympus National Monu- 

 ment in Washington with more than half a million 

 acres, and the Superior Game and Forest Preserve 

 with nearly a million acres, as well as a number of 

 smaller reserves for special purposes, and a chain of 

 coastal areas all round the shores for the preservation 

 of birds. In Canada, in Alberta, there are the Rocky 

 Mountains Park, the Yoho Park, Glacier Park, and 

 Jasper Park, together extending to more than nine 

 million acres, whilst in British Columbia there are 

 smaller sanctuaries. These, so far as laws can make 

 them, are inalienable and inviolable sanctuaries for 

 wild animals. We ought to have similar sanctuaries 

 in every country of the world, national parks secured 

 for all time against all the changes and chances of 

 the nations by international agreement. In the older 

 and more settled countries the areas selected unfor- 

 tunately must be determined by various considerations, 

 of which faunistic value cannot be the most important. 

 But certainly in Africa, and in large parts of Asia, 

 it would still be possible that they should be selected 

 in the first place for their faunistic value. The scheme 

 for them should be drawn up by an international com- 

 mission of experts in the geographical distribution of 

 animals, and the winter and summer haunts of migra- 

 tory birds should be taken into consideration. It is 

 for zoologists to lead the way, by laying down what is 

 required to preserve for all time the most representa- 

 tive and most complete series of surviving species 

 without any reference to the extrinsic value of the 

 animals. And it then will be the duty of the nations, 

 jointly and severally, to arrange that the requirements 

 laid down bv the experts shall be complied with. 



And now I come to the last side of my subject, that 

 of zoological gardens, with which I have been specially 

 connected in the last ten years. My friend M. Gustave 

 Loisel, in his recently issued monumental " Histoire 

 des Menageries," has shown that in the oldest civilisa- 

 tions of which we have record, thousands of years 

 before the Christian era, wild animals were kept in 

 captivity. He is inclined to trace the origin of the 

 custom to a kind of totemism. Amongst the ancient 

 Egyptians, for instance, besides the bull and the ser- 

 pent, baboons, hippopotami, cats, lions, wolves, 

 ichneumons, shrews, wild goats, and wild sheep, and 

 of lower animals, crocodiles, various fishes, and beetles 

 were held sacred in different towns. These animals 

 were protected, and even the involuntary killing of 

 any of them was punished by the death of the slayer, 

 but besides this sreneral protection, the priests selected 

 individuals which thev recognised bv infallible signs 

 as being the divine animals, and tamed, guarded, and 



NO. 2238, VOL. go] 



fed in the sacred buildings, whilst the revenues derived 

 from certain tracts of land were set apart for their 

 support. The Egyptians were also famous hunters, 

 and kept and tamed various, wild animals, including 

 cheetahs, striped hysenas, leopards, and even lions^ 

 which they used in stalking their prey. The tame 

 lions were sometimes clipped, as in ancient Assyria, 

 and used both in the chase and in war. The rich 

 Egyptians of Memphis had large parks in which they 

 kept not only the domestic animals we now know, 

 but troops of gazelles, antelopes, and cranes, which 

 were certainly tame and were herded by keepers with 

 wands. So also in China at least fifteen centuries 

 before our era, wild animals were captured in the 

 far north by the orders of the Emperor and were kept 

 in the royal parks. A few centuries later the Emperor 

 Wen-Wang established a zoological collection between 

 Pekin and Nankin, his design being partly educa- 

 tional, as it was called the Park of Intelligence. In 

 the valley of the Euphrates, centuries before the time 

 of Moses, there were lists of sacred animals, and 

 records of the keeping in captivity of apes, elephants, 

 rhinoceroses, camels and dromedaries, gazelles and 

 antelopes, and it may well be that the legend of the 

 Garden of Eden is a memory of the royal menagerie 

 of some ancient king. The Greeks, whose richest 

 men had none of the v(/ealth of the Egyptians or of 

 the princes of the East, do not appear to have kept 

 many wild animals, but the magnates of imperial 

 Rome captured large numbers of leopards, lions, bears, 

 elephants, antelopes, giraffes, camels, rhinoceroses and 

 hippopotami, and ostriches and crocodiles, and kept 

 them in captivity, partly for use in the arena, and 

 partly as a display of the pomp and power of wealth. 

 In later times royal persons and territorial nobles 

 frequently kept menageries of wild animals, aviaries 

 and aquaria, but all these have long since vanished. 



Thus, although the taste for keeping wild animals 

 in captivity dates from the remotest antiquity, all the 

 modern collections are of comparatively recent origin, 

 the oldest being the Imperial Menagerie of the palace 

 of Schonbrunn, Vienna, which was founded about 

 1752, whilst some of the most important are only 

 a few years old. These existing collections are of two 

 kinds. A few are the private property of wealthy 

 landowners, and their public importance is due partly 

 to the opportunity they have afforded for experiments 

 in acclimatisation on an extensive scale, and still more 

 to the refuge they have given to the relics of decaying 

 species. The European bison is one of the best- 

 known cases of such preservation, but a still more 

 extraordinary instance is that of P^re David's deer, 

 a curious and isolated type which was known only in 

 captivity in the imperial parks of China. The last 

 examples in China were killed in the Boxer war, and 

 the species would be absolutely extinct but for the 

 small herd maintained by the Duke of Bedford at 

 Woburn Abbey. In iqog this herd consisted of only 

 twenty-eight individuals ; it now numbers sixtv-seven. 

 The second and best-known types of collections of 

 living animals are in the public zoological gardens and 

 parks maintained bv societies, private companies. 

 States and municipalities. There are now more than 

 a hundred of these in existence, of which twenty- 

 eight are in the United States, twenty in the German 

 Empire, five in England, one in Ireland, and none in 

 Scotland. But nerhaps T may be allowed to sav how 

 much I hope that the efforts of the Zoolog-ical Society 

 of Scotland will be successful, and that before many 

 months are over there will be a zoolocical park in the 

 capital of Scotland. There is no reason of situation 

 or of climate which can be urged asrainst it. The 

 smoke and fog of London are much more baleful to 

 animals than the east winds of Edinburgh. The 



