36-4 



SCIENCE 



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



modelling- and designing, to use the gar- 

 dens at nominal rates. 



Menageries provide a rich material for 

 the anatomist, histologist, physiologist, 

 parasitologist and pathologist. It is sur- 

 prising to note how many of the animals 

 used by Lamarck and Cuvier, Johannes 

 Miiller and Wiedersheim, Owen and Hux- 

 ley were obtained from zoological gardens. 

 At all the more important gardens in- 

 creasing use is being made of the material 

 for the older purposes of anatomical re- 

 search and for the newer purposes of pa- 

 thology and physiology. 



There remains the fundamental reason 

 for the existence of menageries, that they 

 are collections of living animals and there- 

 fore an essential material for the study of 

 zoology. Systematic zoology, comparative 

 anatomy, and even morphology, the latter 

 the most fascinating of all the attempts of 

 the human intellect to recreate nature 

 within the categories of the human mind, 

 have their reason and their justification in 

 the existence of living animals under con- 

 ditions in which we can observe them. 

 And this leads me to a remark which 

 ought to be a truism but which, unfortu- 

 nately, is still far from being a truism. 

 The essential difference between a zoolog- 

 ical museum and a menagerie is that in the 

 latter the animals are alive. The former 

 takes its value from its completeness, from 

 the number of rare species of which it has 

 examples, and from the extent to which its 

 collections are properly classified and ar- 

 ranged. The value of a menagerie is not 

 its zoological completeness, not the number 

 of rare animals that at any moment it may 

 contain, not even the extent to which it is 

 duly labeled and systematically arranged, 

 but the success with which it displays its 

 inhabitants as living creatures under con- 

 ditions in which they can exercise at least 

 some of their vital activities. 



The old ideal of a long series of dens or 

 cages in which representatives of kindred 

 species could mope opposite their labels is 

 surely but slowly disappearing. It is a 

 museum arrangement, and not an arrange- 

 ment for living animals. The old ideal by 

 which the energy and the funds of a men- 

 agerie were devoted in the first place to 

 obtaining species "new to the collection" 

 or "new to science" is surely but slowly 

 disappearing. It is the instinct of a col- 

 lector, the craving of a systematist, but is 

 misplaced in those who have the charge of 

 living animals. Certainly we like to have 

 many species, to have rare species, and 

 even to have new species represented in 

 our menageries. But what we are learn- 

 ing to like most of all is to have the ex- 

 amples of the species we possess, whether 

 these be new or old, housed in such a way 

 that they can live long, and live happily, 

 and live under conditions in which their 

 natural habits, instincts, movements and 

 routine of life can be studied by the nat- 

 uralist and enjoyed by the lover of animals. 



Slowly the new conditions are creeping 

 in, most slowly in the older institutions 

 hampered by lack of space, cumbered with 

 old and costly buildings, oppressed by the 

 habits of long years and the traditions es- 

 tablished by men who none the less are 

 justly famous in the history of zoological 

 science. Space, open air, scrupulous at- 

 tention to hygiene and diet, the provision 

 of some attempt at natural environment 

 are receiving attention that they have 

 never received before. Ton will see the 

 signs of the change in Washington and 

 New York, in London and Berlin, in Ant- 

 werp and Rotterdam, and in all the gar- 

 dens of Germany. It was begun simul- 

 taneously, or at least independently, in 

 many places and under the inspiration of 

 many men. It is, I think, part of a gen- 

 eral process in which civilized man is re- 



