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SCIENCE 



[N. S. Vol. XXXVI. No. 925 



Assyria, and used both in the chase and in 

 war. The rich Egyptians of Memphis 

 had large parks in which they kept not 

 only the domestic animals we now know, 

 but troops of gazelles, antelopes and 

 cranes which were certainly tame and 

 were herded by keepers with wands. So 

 also in China at least fifteen centuries 

 before our era, wild animals were captured 

 in the far north by the orders of the 

 emperor and were kept in the royal parks. 

 A few centuries later the Emperor Wen- 

 Wang established a zoological collection be- 

 tween Pekin and Nankin, his design being 

 partly educational, as it was called the 

 Park of Intelligence. In the valley of the 

 Euphrates, centuries before the time of 

 Moses, there were lists of sacred animals, 

 and records of the keeping in captivity of 

 apes, elephants, rhinoceroses, camels and 

 dromedaries, gazelles and antelopes, and it 

 may well be that the legend of the Garden 

 of Eden is a memory of the royal menag- 

 erie of some ancient king. The Greeks, 

 whose richest men had none of the wealth 

 of the Egyptians or of the princes of the 

 East, do not appear to have kept many 

 wild animals, but the magnates of imperial 

 Rome captured large numbers of leopards, 

 lions, bears, elephants, antelopes, giraffes, 

 camels, rhinoceroses and hippopotami, and 

 ostriches and crocodiles, and kept them in 

 captivity, 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 men- 

 ageries 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 collec- 

 tions are of comparatively recent origin, 

 the oldest being the Imperial Menagerie of 

 the palace of Schonbrunn, 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 im- 

 portance is due partly to the opportunity 

 they have afforded for experiments in ac- 

 climatization on an extensive scale, and 

 still more to the refuge they have given to 

 the relics of decaying species. The Euro- 

 pean bison is one of the best-known cases 

 of such preservation, but a still more ex- 

 traordinary instance is that of Pere 

 David's deer, a curious and isolated type 

 which was known only in captivity in the 

 imperial parks of China. The last ex- 

 amples 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 main- 

 tained 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 rea- 

 son 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 excel- 

 lent institution at Copenhagen have to en- 

 dure winters much more severe than those 

 of lowland Scotland, whilst the arctic 



