ANIMALS IN MENAGERIES. 



PART I. 



MENAGERIE OF QUADRUPEDS. 



The subject to which this volume is devoted, accord- 

 ing to the original plan, is one in which little of novelty 

 can be expected. The institution of Zoological Gardens, 

 for the reception and exhibition of living animals, has 

 given birth to several popular accounts, under the same 

 title as this, in which the objects usually seen in such 

 collections have been repeatedly described, and anecdotes 

 of their habits and manners in a state of nature intro- 

 duced. The same plan will be here pursued ; for the 

 scientific naturalist, who has not had a living specimen 

 under his eye, can only speak of its manners from the 

 accounts of others. 



The best account of animals in menageries, so far as 

 their pecuharities in such a state are concerned, would 

 come from the keepers themselves, if such persons were 

 as skilful in writing upon, as they are in managing, their 

 charges. For, after all, what can a systematic naturahst 

 or a field observer do on a subject of this kind, but take 

 for granted what he hears from others ? He is almost 

 debarred from the power of giving original observations, 

 unless upon such native animals as he is acquainted 

 with. "Dead men tell no tales;" and so is it with confined 

 beasts. If he has merely to describe a preserved animal, 

 he may find something new, or something requiring 

 illustration, in its structure or its colour ; and if he 

 writes with nature before him, his account is original ; 

 but, when he comes to touch upon its manners and 



