508 THE ROYAL MENAGERIE OF FRANCE. 



centennial of the foundation of the museum of which it constitutes one 

 of the most imj)ortant branches. 



A menagerie, in the modern and scientific sense of the word, is above 

 all a vast laboratory in which, under conditions which he himself deter- 

 mines, the naturalist comes to observe and experiment. He studies, iu 

 the animal whose external characteristics are already well known to 

 him, the manifestations of intelligence or instinct, the degree of docil- 

 ity, the kind of alimentation, its endurance of captivity or of climate, 

 everything that may by careful observation lead to an extension of the 

 boundaries of human knowledge.' He studies also the modifications 

 due to age and sex, and those which are due to a change of environ- 

 ment continued for a considerable time. He may, by appropriate 

 unions, fix a useful or curious character; or he may, by crossing species 

 or races, produce hybrids or mongrels, and thus approach a solution of 

 great zoological problems which occasion much controversy at the 

 present time. 



Jjy his side the artist will reproduce, with the pencil, the brush, the 

 modeling stick, the forms and attitudes of the animals that are living 

 before his eyes in the cages or in the paddocks, and when they finally 

 die the anatomist comes to complete with his scalpel, and above all with 

 his microscope, the descriptions and the comparisons of his predecessors, 

 while the taxidermist seeks in studying the relief of the muscular masses 

 the sure means of establishing for the museum collections the true forms 

 of the animals. 



Such is the course of affairs in modern scientific establishments of 

 which the centenarian menagerie of the museum is the prototype. 



1 hardly need to say that it is only by gradual degrees, because of 

 the slow progress of biology, that an establishment of so deeply a 

 scientific character as this has been enabled to prevail. 



The first centuries of our history knew no other collections of animals 

 than those of the troops of savage beasts that the Romans, and after 

 them the Franks, used in the arena.^ Methodically starved, artfully 

 irritated, these unhappy captives rushed at each other in furious com- 

 bats, to the great joy of the brutal and blood-thirsty spectators. 



The taste for combats of animals lasted quite a long time in France; 

 the last of the Valois still had lion fights, and it was in one of these 

 fights, ordered by Francis 1, that the brave Sieurde Lorges ^ descended 

 into the ring, cloak in hand and sword drawn, to pick up the glove 

 which the lady of his affections had dropped among the beasts in 

 order to test his valor.^ 



'Cf. A. Milne Edwards, Museum d'histoire naturelle. La Menagerie; rapport au 

 uiiuistre de 1 iustructiou publique. Paris, 1891. 



2Rec. des Hist, des Gaules et de la France, Vol. II, page 243; Vol. Ill, page 87. 

 Cf. Mem. Acad. Inscrip. et Belles-Lettres, Vol. X, page 3o0 et seq. 



^Frangois de Montgomery, sieurde Lorges. 



■•Oeuvres completes de Pierre de Bourdeille, seigneur de Brautome, published by 

 Ludovic Lalanne, Vol. IX, Des dames ^suite). Paris, 1876, pages 390-391. 



