oh his Visit to Australia.



257



liience to rove the gardens until his keepers coaxed him back to

captivity. A female Indian Elephant, which daily added to the

revenue of the Society by carrying children, was remarkable from

the fact that she carried quite a coat of long hair ; she was quite

the most hairy Elephant I have ever seen.


Amongst the birds, the Crane family was the best repre¬

sented, Japanese White-necked, Manchurian, Asiatic White,

Sarus, Demoiselle and Native Companion being all present at

the time of my visit. The collection of Waterfowl was poor, but

one exhibit worthy of record was a pair of hybrids between a

Black Swan atid domestic Goose, ugly-looking birds, clearly

betraying their parentage.


The houses in the Sydnejr Zoo. are small and in many cases

unsuited for their inhabitants, and the whole Zoo. is not worthy

of the fine city to which it belongs. The site in fact is ill-adapted

for a Zoological Garden.


During my stay in Sydney there was a talk of moving the

Zoo. to a new site on the opposite side of the harbour to that on

which Sydney itself is situated, and if this can be done there is

no reason why Sydney should not some day possess perhaps the

finest Zoological Garden in the world. There are hundreds of

acres of land here, at present thickly covered with native bush,

where the Coach-whip bird can be heard any day and the Blue

Mountain Lorikeet sucks the nectar from the flowering gums.

Ring-tailed Opossoms have their nests in the Wattle trees, and

all is as it was before the white man commenced to destroy

Nature’s handiwork. This site, which has been, I understand, a

government military reserve, has been left untouched by the

speculative builder who has planted villas on almost every other

available site on the banks of this superb harbour. It is a site

for a Zoo that would be worthy of the oldest, and in many ways

the finest, city in Australia.


The wild birds in the Sydney Zoo. were very interesting to

me and afforded me some entertainment in endeavouring to add

some of them to my collection. I noticed that every evening,

just about closing time, quite a number of Pied Grallinas came

into the gardens and disported themselves upon the lawns and

round the ornamental ponds. I was very anxious to take some



