Described and Illustrated with Photographs by W. P. Danpo, F.Z.5. 
Few visitors conceive the enormous amount 
of food required to feed the 
animals at the Zoo in one year 
and the number of varieties 
necessary. A chef at a first-class restaurant 
has not so many different tastes to cater for, 
and it will astonish most people when I 
state that over 1,338 tons, equalling about 
3,000,000lbs. of food, is the yearly consumption 
of the animals. The Report of the Council 
for last year shows that 2,691,012lbs. was 
provided by the Society, made up of 59 
varieties, with “ Liebig,’ 9,530 fowls’ heads, 
and 33,300 eggs just thrown in as a luxury. 
The provender alone weighed 1,168,400lbs. ; 
fish, 35,000lbs.; and the fresh meat, killed at 
the Society's abattoir, 916,400lbs. Under 
the légwmes, carrots alone 
work out at 173,550lbs. 
All this is without reckon- 
ing rabbits, fowls, pigeons, 
rats, mice, live fish, and 
many millions of mealworms, 
etc., for feeding those animals 
who will only eat the food 
they kill themselves. For 
some reason the Report does 
not include these items, 
although we all know that 
snakes, etc., in the Reptile 
House, are fed on live 
animals: the big python 
kills and swallows whole SH 
several good-sized goats ina | Ses 
year. SS 
3,000,000Ibs. of 
food consumed 
annually. 
Nor do the figures include the enormous 
amount of food given to the animals by the 
visitors, which amounts to many tons during 
the year. I learn from Mr. Humberset, 
the courteous manager of Spiers & Pond, 
who cater for the Zoo, that the average sale 
of “bags of food” sold weekly is about 500 
during half of the year, without reckoning 
buns, cakes, etc., sold in the ordinary manner, 
which on a very busy day has amounted to 
12,000 buns, 3,000 cakes, and thousands of 
rolls, a large portion of which finds its way 
inside the animals, and this again is without 
reckoning all the food brought into the 
Gardens by the visitors, so that my calcu- 
lation is rather under than over. 
In conversation with Mr. Clarence Bartlett, 
THE OLDEST INHABITANT. 
t) 
