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numbers of leopards, lions, bears, elephants, antelopes, giraffes, camels, rhino- 
ceroses and hippopotami, and ostriches and crocodiles, and kept them in cap- 
tivity, partly for use in the arena, and partly as a display of the pomp and power 
of wealth. In later times royal persons and territorial nobles frequently kept 
menageries of wild animals, aviaries and aquaria, but all of these have long since 
vanished. 
Thus, although the taste for keeping wild animals in captivity dates from the 
remotest antiquity, all the modern collections are of comparatively recent origin, 
the oldest being the Imperial Menagerie of the palace of Schénbrunn, Vienna, 
which was founded about 1752, whilst some of the most important are only a few 
years old. These existing collections are of two kinds. A few are the private 
property of wealthy landowners, and their public importance is due partly to the 
opportunity they have afforded for experiments in acclimatisation on an extensive 
scale, and still more to the refuge they have given to the relics of decaying species. 
The European bison is one of the best-known cases of such preservation, but a 
still more extraordinary instance is that of Pére David’s deer, a curious and 
isolated type which was known only in captivity in the Imperial Parks of China. 
The last examples in China were killed in the Boxer war, and the species would 
be absolutely extinct but for the small herd maintained by the Duke of Bedford 
at Woburn Abbey. In 1909 this herd consisted of only twenty-eight individuals ; 
it now numbers sixty-seven. The second and best-known types of collections of 
living animals are in the public Zoological Gardens and Parks maintained by 
Societies, private companies, States and municipalities. There are now more than 
a hundred of these in existence, of which twenty-eight are in the United States, 
twenty in the German Empire, five in England, one in Ireland, and none in 
Scotland. But perhaps I may be allowed to say how much I hope that the efforts 
of the Zoological Society of Scotland will be successful, and that before many 
months are over there will be a Zoological Park in the capital of Scotland. There 
is no reason of situation or of climate which can be urged against it. The smoke 
and fog of London are much more baleful to animals than the east winds of 
Edinburgh. The Gardens of North Germany and the excellent institution at 
Copenhagen have to endure winters much more severe than those of lowland 
Scotland, whilst the arctic winter and tropical summer of New York form a 
peculiarly unfortunate combination, and none the less the Bronx Park at New 
York is one of the most delightful menageries in existence. The Zoological 
Society of Scotland will have the great advantage of beginning where other 
institutions have left off; it will be able to profit by the experience and avoid 
the mistakes of others. The Zoological Society of London would welcome the 
establishment of a menagerie in Scotland, for scientific and practical reasons. 
As I am speaking in Scotland, I may mention two of the practical reasons. The 
first is that in Great Britain we labour under a serious disadvantage as compared 
with Germany with regard to the importation of rare animals. When a dealer 
in the tropics has rare animals to dispose of, he must send them to the best 
market, for dealing in wild animals is a risky branch of commerce. If he send 
them to this country, there are very few possible buyers, and it often happens 
that he is unable to fd a purchaser. If he send them to Germany, one or other 
of the twenty Gardens is almost certain to absorb them, and failing Germany, 
Belgium and Holland are near at hand. Were there twenty prosperous Zoo- 
logical Gardens in Great Britain, they could be better stocked, at cheaper rates, 
than those we have now. The second practical reason is that it is a great advan- 
tage to menageries to have easy opportunities of lending and exchanging animals ; 
for it often happens that as a result of successful breeding, or of gifts on the cne 
hand or of deaths on the other, a particular institution is overstocked with one 
species or deficient in another. 
One of the ideas strongly in the minds of those who founded the earlier of 
modern Zoological Gardens was the introduction and acclimatisation of exotic 
animals that might have an economic value. It is curious how completely this 
idea has been abandoned and how infertile it has proved. The living world would 
seem to offer an almost unlimited range of creatures which might be turned to 
the profit of man and as domesticated animals supply some of his wants. And 
yet I do not know of any important addition to domesticated animals since the 
remotest antiquity. A few birds for the coverts, fancy water-fowl for ponds 
and lakes, and brightly plumaged birds for cages or for avyiaries have been 
