9 
the special subscription, to which allusion will be made 
further on. It amounted to £347 19s. 
Lions.—The lions continue to enjoy excellent health, 
but were less prolific during the year than usual, 
one of the lionesses having ceased to breed—and 
another, Minnie’s cub, born on the 24th October, 1886, 
has not had any offspring yet. The remaining 
lioness, Queen, had two cubs (male and female) on the 
26th June; they are now in the same cage with the 
three young tigers, to which reference will be made 
further on. Queen’s two cubs of the previous year 
(21st June, 1883), have recently been sold, and as was 
mentioned in last year’s Report, four cubs, all of which 
were males, were sold in January, so that in all six 
cubs were disposed of during the year, and the prices 
obtained were most satisfactory, as they amounted 
altogether to £200 in cash, and a pair of pumas, valued 
at £50—in all say £250; or an average of £42 10s. 
per cub. 
From the beginning of 1884 to the end of 1889—six 
years—29 cubs were boru in the Gardens, to which 
number one of the lionesses, Queen, contributed 23 (in 
7 jitters), and the other, Minnie, only 6 (in 2 litters) — 
of this total 18 were males and 11 females, the per cent- 
age proportions being, therefore, as 62 to 38, which indi- 
cates a considerably larger proportion of males, namely, 
24 per cent., than that derived from an examination of 
the relative proportions of the sexes in the whole number 
of cases, which gives an excess of only 13 per cent. of 
males over females. 
Out of the 29 cubs born since the beginning of 1884, 
only one has died, 24 have been sold, and 4 are nowin 
the Gardens. 
The total number of births of lion cubs in the Gardens 
for the last 32 years now stands at 145; of which 82 
were males, 62 females, and 1 the sex of which was not 
recorded. 
