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Mr. J. Lewis Bonhotk,



THE GIZA ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS.


By J. Lewis Bonhote, M.A., F.Z.S..


It has been my privilege, as the guest of Mr. M. J. Nicoll,

the Assistant Director, to spend three months of last winter

in the Giza Zoological Gardens, and to a zoologist primarily

devoted to living animals, it formed a treat not easily forgotten.


The Zoological Gardens were formerly the gardens attached

to the Palace and Harem of Ismail Pasha, who laid them out

regardless of expense. Large ponds crossed by rustic bridges,

fantastic grottoes, and an abundance of trees and other vegetation

combine to make an ideal retreat in the midst of a flat and bare

country. By the enterprise of the Egyptian Government and

the energy of Capt. S. S. Flower, the Director, these gardens

now contain a very representative collection of African fauna,

one of their main features being the extremely good collection of

Antelopes, which in the dry and warm climate of Egypt do ex¬

tremely well and breed freely. However, we are here concerned

with the birds, so passing over very many interesting and rare

animals and reptiles we come to our subject. The ‘ rara avis’ of

the collection is of course the Whale-headed Stork (Balceniceps

rex), of which this garden contains the only examples in cap¬

tivity, except for one in the Palace Gardens at Khartoum. They

share a large paddock with the Cranes, in which they stalk about

solemnly and with very slow and deliberate strides. It can hardly

be said that they are extremely attractive, as their movements are

so slow and ungainly, still, to the Ornithologist, they are very

interesting as showing what this peculiar form of bird is like in

life.


The next in order of rarity is probably a very fine example

of the Secretary Bird from the Sudan. Those usually seen in

Zoological Gardens come from South Africa, where the species is

by no means common and strictly preserved, and in the Sudan,

though well protected, it is decidedly scarcer.


The collection of Vultures is very good ; five species*—

the Sociable, Riippells, Cinereous, Griffon and Egyptian—all living



* O to gyps auricularis. Gyps riippelli, Vultur monachus, Gyps ftilvus, Neophron

percnopterus.



