LOOLOGICAL 
SOCIETY 
BULLETIN 
Published by the New York Zoological Society 
Votume XXIII 
SEPTEMBER 1920 
NuMBER 5 
FAR-DISTANT PARKS OF 
ZOOLOGY 
I. THE ZOOLOGICAL PARK OF LIMA, PERU 
By Roserr CusHmMan Murpny. 
Brooklyn Museum. 
Illustrations from photographs by the Author 
With this issue we begin the publication of a series of occasional articles descriptive of the public zoolog- 
ical parks in the lands farthest from New York. 
The first of the series is an admirable word-and-camera 
picture of “The Zoological Park of Lima,” by Robert Cushman Murphy, of the Brooklyn Museum. 
Really, this fine touch of kindred nature seems to bring far off Lima much nearer to us. As New Yorkers, 
beset by fierce winters and harried by the throwers of rubbish day in and day out, we read with sighs of 
envy Mr. Murphy’s description of the peace, good order and ethereal mildness of the Lima park. 
We are promised in the future an article descriptive of the zoological park that is farthest from New 
York. Now, how many of our boy 
WERE NiGa sat hie 
course of the 
Brooklyn Mu- 
seum’s “Peruvian 
Littoral Expedi- 
tion,” in 1919-1920, 
I made a number of 
visits to the national 
Parque Zoologico y 
Botanico, which oc- 
cupies a spacious 
and well-kept rec- 
tangular area in the 
newer quarter of 
Lima, with en- 
A MUTE GUARD trances oe the fash- 
Conventionalized marble lion at the ionable 1 CAO Co- 
gate of Lima Zoo. lon. Admission in- 
to the park is ten 
centavos, the equivalent of five cents in United 
States currency, and it appears to be well 
patronized not only by people who enter for 
the special purpose of seeing the animals, but 
also by visitors to the Eaposicion restaurant, 
which is within the walls of the park. After 
taking tea or dining on the cool, shady balconies 
of the restaurant, it is a common custom of 
guests to stroll through the quiet pathways, 
[ 95 ] 
and girl readers will correctly guess where this is? 
Try it. Wien Le Ea. 
beneath a dense, green-black canopy of huge 
Ficus trees, along aisles of imposing royal palms, 
and to spend an hour or so in post-prandial con- 
templation of the comfortable enclosures in 
which the birds and quadrupeds are confined. 
Although the Aztees are said to haye main- 
tained at least two pretentious zoological gar- 
dens in Mexico before the advent of the Span- 
iards, I can find no evidence that the aborigines 
of Peru, who were no less enlightened than their 
northern contemporaries, had developed any 
institution of the sort. Regarding the age of 
the present park in Lima, I have been able to 
learn nothing, for my letter to the Director in- 
quiring about the history, management, policy, 
support, and attendance, remains unanswered. 
The Encyclopedia Brittanica, in its references 
to South America zoological gardens, does not 
mention the existence of any in Peru, and yet the 
appointment of the Lima park give evidence that 
it has occupied its present site for upwards of a 
generation. 
It is almost certain that previous to my first 
visit, in September 1919, no Old World animals 
had been received at the Lima zoological park 
for more than five years, or since the outbreak 
of the European war. Under the circumstances, 
