40 Royal Zoological Society of Ireland 



Willet, one of the pupils of the Royal Dublin Society, for 

 a very successful model of the Giraffe. 



" Of the exertions and difficulties of successive 

 Councils to uphold and advance the Society since its 

 formation, the public cannot form an adequate opinion. 

 They have been, however, so great, that your Council are 

 deeply anxious to see some means devised by which an 

 Institution beyond all question entitled to support as one 

 of popular instruction, and could be placed on a basis of 

 permanent security, and not left as much dependent as it 

 has been on the efforts of private individuals. 



"Among the intelligent portion of the community, the 

 conviction is rapidly growing that assistance to such 

 objects is within the legitimate duty of the National 

 Treasury. It would not, perhaps, be becoming in your 

 Council in their report to do more than simply to put 

 forward a claim to such support, to which they feel 

 assured the advancing intelligence will every day add 

 strength at a time, however, when the diffusion of 

 knowledge, and what is, perhaps, of more importance, the 

 taste and desire for knowledge among the people is 

 attracting a large share of attention of statesmen, they 

 feel that it may be permitted to them to suggest that such 

 an Institution as yours is of all others calculated to 

 attract the casual and thoughtless visitor to the inquiries 

 that lead to knowledge. Were the funds of your Society 

 such as to enable it to give upon one or two days in the 

 week the benefit of free admission to all, to make the 

 collection of animals more extensive, and, perhaps, to give 

 popular instruction as to their habits, history, Sec, who 

 can calculate how many among those who never elevate 

 their thoughts above the debasing influences by which too 

 many of our population are surrounded, might acquire, in 

 a visit to your Zoological Gardens, the first taste for the 

 acquisition of knowledge which carried out would expand 

 their minds, elevate their thoughts, and improve their 

 habits. While your Council acknowledge and would urge 

 with any influence they may possess, the claims of 

 Botany to the support it receives at the hands of 

 Government, in the British Dominions they feel that 

 Zoology has its claims, and they confidently look forward 

 that the efforts of the Society, so peculiarly marked by 

 their educational tendency, will be properly estimated at 

 no distant period. 



