REVIEW. 254. 
great, the other very small, both white with something of yellow 
in the midst ; the lesser hath no green leaves on the stalk to be seen, 
and the inner part of the white leaves’ (petals) “is full of thick and 
long down. ‘The greater flower hath smooth, long and strait petals ; 
and grows on a plant whose leaves are large and almost perfectly 
round, floating on the surface of the water. Both these flowers have 
a strange property ; in the night they are always closed,” &c., &e. 
“ Hvidently two kinds of Lotus,” says the Hditor ; and both plants 
are called lotus. He is less happy in identifying them as of genus 
Nelumbium, for the round floating leaves are evidence that the larger 
was Nymphea lotus, those of Nelumbium stand. above the water ; on 
strong stalks well able to bear their weight. 
The little flower is the “ Cotton-lotus,” Lmnanthemum indicum, 
which is not a lily or lotus at all, but a gentian. Della Valle, we 
think, was wrong in supposing that it closed at night ; probably 
misinformed. However, he has in this, as in other cases, left to us 
from the early sixteen hundreds a specific description recognizable 
to-day. This is his last, as soon after writing it he sailed for Europe, 
where, though he did not exactly “ live happily ever afterwards,” he 
lived long enough to marry (being already a widower) and beget no 
less than fourteen sons. One would be very glad indeed of a little 
more of his correspondence. 
THE MANAGEMENT OF ANIMALS IN THE CALCUTTA 
ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.* 
The project of establishing a Zoological Garden in Calcutta was mooted as 
far back as 1842 by Dr. McClelland, the Curator of the Bengal Asiatic 
Society's Museum, who formulated a plea for its foundation in the pages of 
the “Calcutta Journal of Natural History” for that year. But this scheme, 
as set forth in his article, did not attract any notice at the time. The subject 
was again taken up by an anonymous writer, and discussed in the pages of the 
* Calcutta Review ” for 1866 in an article entitled “The Indian Museum and 
the Asiatic Society of Bengal.” In this article the writer advocated the estab- 
lishment of a State-aided zoological collection in Calcutta, which would not only 
serve the purposes of a place of recreation to the public, but also be a scienti- 
fic institution where the habits and instincts of the brute creation might be 
* A hand-book of the Management of Animals in Captivity in Lower Bengal by Ram Brama 
caval, Super tend ent of the Zoological Gardens, Caleutta, Published at the Bengal Secretariat 
ress, Price Rs, 5, 
