1162 CONGRESSIONAL PROCEEDINGS. 
time, and that part of biology which embraces zoology, the structure, 
habits, distribution, classification, and derivation of animals receives 
the most earnest consideration of scientific men everywhere. There 
is in Paris the Jardin des Plantes, which has been the nursery and 
educator of naturalists for hundreds of years. They have in Regent’s 
Park, London, a great zoological garden, which has over 5,000 ani- 
mals in it to-day, and although it is an admission garden more people 
visit it than visit any other quarter of London or England. It is the 
haunt of the poor, the woman and child as well as the man, the haunt 
of the naturalist, the scientist, the traveler—the pride and the glory of 
the British metropolis. And why should we not have such a garden? 
We proudly boast of our greatness, our prosperity, our intelligence 
asa people. Let us show by our acts, our encouragement to art and 
science, that we are worthy of the distinction we claim. 
Look at this city to-day. Has the United States encouraged art, 
even in so meager a way as to provide fora national art gallery? No, 
sir. If it were not for the munificence and generosity of one man— 
I refer to the late lamented Mr. Corcoran—the capital of the United 
States would not have a single work of art free to the student, the 
people—all who love and admire the beautiful and the artistic. Thank 
God, there was one man who recognized that property was not an 
individual fact, but the creation of social agencies, and, recognizing 
his duty to society, this great and good man gave to the people the 
Corcoran Art Gallery. He recognized a principle that wealthy men 
do not recognize generally. Were it not for the generosity of that 
one man the visitor to this city to-day could find no place where might 
be seen specimens of the art of this and other countries, this and past 
ages. 
It has been well said by the gentleman from Minnesota | Mr. Nelson] 
that a great many of the animals which were found in this country are 
fast becoming extinct—such as the buffalo, the caribou, the Rocky 
Mountain goat, the moose, and other species. Are these animals, this 
part of our natural history, to be blotted out and lost forever? Must 
future generations know of them only by seeing their remains or by 
reading what naturalists say of them? 
The science of zoology is closely related to the cognate sciences of 
biology and anthropology and ethnology, and all questions relating to 
human life and life itself. They are all of vast and unbounded inter- 
est to science and to everybody. I know myself from practical expe- 
rience how interested the people generally are in all that relates to 
animal life—to the fauna of this as well as other countries. A small 
park in the city of Cleveland has recently had donated to it a little 
alligator, a very small specimen, from the region of my friend from 
Alabama. This saurian has heid levees, matinees, and noon-day recep- 
tions all summer, and has had more visitors than any other attractions 
