FIFTIETH CONGRESS, 1887-1889. 1175 
referred the bill (H. 11810) for ‘‘the establishment of a zoological 
park in the District of Columbia,” having had the same under con- 
sideration, respectfully submit the following report: 
Appended hereto is a letter of Prof. S$. P. Langley, Secretary of the 
Smithsonian Institution, portraying the necessity of such a park and 
the advantages to be derived from its establishment; and, for the rea- 
sons therein set forth, your committee respectfully recommend the 
passage of the bill. 
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 
Washington, D. C., January 18, 1889. 
My Dear Sir: I write what follows in accordance with the suggestion of your yes- 
terday’s letter, intending it for your consideration and that of the committee. 
From all parts of the country, for many years, presents of live animals have been 
made to the Government through the Smithsonian Institution or the Museum, but 
the absence of any appropriation for their care has led to their being sent away 
(though most reluctantly) to increase the collections of the zoological parks in Phila- 
delphia, New York, London, and other cities. It should be better known than it is 
that everywhere through the country there is a disposition on the part of private 
individuals to give to the Government in this way, and without any expectation of 
return, remarkable specimens, which the donor (very commonly a poor man) some- 
times refuses advantageous pecuniary offers for, and it seems hard to decline gifts 
made in such a spirit, or, accepting them, to give them away again. 
But little over a year ago I gave instructions that these live specimens should be 
retained temporarily, as an experiment, and although a very few have been pur- 
chased, the collection, which is a subject of so much local popular interest, has been 
thus formed, substantially by gift, within perhaps fifteen months, and this though 
many proffers have been declined for want of means to carefor them. Iam persuaded 
that if it were generally known that the Government would receive and care for such 
gifts within a very few years the finest collection of American animals in the world 
might be made here in this way, with comparatively no expenditure for purchase. 
Among the many interested in the incipient collection was Senator Beck, whose 
bill for the formation of a zoological park was brought before the Senate on April 23, 
1888. The writer directed the Senator’s attention to the fact that a piece of ground 
singularly suitable, by the variety of its features, to the provision for the wants of 
all the different kinds of animals, existed in the picturesque valley of Rock Creek, in 
the part nearest to the city. Here not only the wild goat, the mountain sheep, and 
their congeners would find the rocky cliffs, which are their natural home, but the 
beavers brooks in which to build their dams, the buffalo places of seclusion in which 
to breed and replenish their dying race, aquatic birds and beasts their natural home, 
and in general all animals would be provided for on a site almost incomparably bet- 
ter than any now used for this purpose in any other capital in the world. 
With this is the preeminently important consideration that the immediate neigh- 
borhood to the city would make it accessible not only to the rich but to the poor, 
and therefore a place of recreation to the great mass of the residents, as well as to the 
hundreds of thousands of citizens from all parts of the country who now annually 
visit the capital. 
It may be added that, so far as is known to the writer, all those interested in the 
desirable but larger plan for a public park along the whole Rock Creek region—that 
is to say, all those acquainted with the beauties and advantages of the site—regard 
the establishment of the proposed zoological park there with favor. It is very diffi- 
cult for anyone who has not visited the region to understand its singularly attractive 
character, due to the good fortune which has preserved its picturesque features intact 
until now, although the growing city is sweeping around and enveloping it. 
