656 Remarks on laying oid 



decidedly the best. A scientific correspondent, to whom we 

 have submitted this article, is also in favour of the geographical 

 arrangement ; and justly observes that "it is the habits, and, of 

 course, habitats, that we study in living animals ; and the struc- 

 ture in dead ones, to which alone the scientific arrangement 

 seems appropriate." An hospital, and a reserve department for 

 breeding and rearing, may be considered as essential to a com- 

 plete zoological garden. 



Whatever arrangement is adopted, the trees and shrubs ought 

 to follow it, and we should not have the bears of the north placed 

 among the ilices of Italy, or the goat of the Alps among the 

 magnolias of America. We do not carry this idea so xar as to 

 say that we would inti'oduce tropical trees in the houses devoted 

 to tropical animals ; that, we know, would be impracticable, ex- 

 cept in the case of the smaller birds : but what we contend for 

 is, that the associations of nature should be violated as little as 

 possible ; and, though we could not place our elephant amid 

 palm trees and bamboos, we would at least not surround him 

 with birches, trembling poplars, and other trees of the frigid zone. 



The great object in a zoological garden, which must necessarily 

 contain many buildings in a small space, is to show only one 

 building as a leading feature at one time. To do this, to con- 

 ceal all the walks except that which is walked on, and at the 

 same time to show depth of landscape, are matters that require 

 considerable care and skill ; but they may be efi^ected where the 

 soil is dry, and where there are no existing objects to interfere 

 with the disposition of the ground. It is not easy for a person 

 who has not had some experience in laying out grounds, to con- 

 ceive how much may be effected in the foreground of a scene, by 

 lowering the walk 3 ft. below the general level, and raising a 

 bank at a short distance from it, the same height above the 

 general level. Much may be done by changes of this kind, 

 even independently of the use of trees and shrubs ; and the effect 

 of the whole can be determined by the application of the laws of 

 perspective, before any part of it is carried into execution. 



The principle of laying out the walks of zoological and other 

 scientific gardens has been already mentioned ; and too much 

 consideration can hardly be given to the subject by the artist. It 

 is not, perhaps, altogether fair to criticise with extreme severity 

 the walks in the London Zoological Garden ; because that garden 

 has been formed by degrees, and one portion added after an- 

 other; nevertheless we have the clearest evidence in the portions 

 from time to time added to this garden, that the rule of having 

 but one leading walk to show the whole, which shall not omit any 

 main feature, or show any thing twice, has not been kept in view ; 

 or rather has never been thought of. What can be worse than 

 the connexion of the entrance terrace-walk of that garden with 



