134 J. B. Housden—Visit to Neiv York Zoological Park


The admission is free, except Monday and Thursday, when the

admission is fifteen cents. It was a very wet day, and being a pay day,

we were almost the only visitors. The area of the Park is 264 acres ;

the crowning glory of the Zoological Park is the magnificent forest

growth of some forty species of trees and shrubs, which covers, thickly

or sparsely, about two-thirds of its land area. Over seventy species of

wild birds nest in the Park. There are six entrances to the Park, the

extreme length from north to south is just under one mile, its extreme

width three-fifths of a mile.


We saw our first native birds, a large flock of Purple Grackles and

a number of Downy Woodpeckers. We called at the office of Captain

C. William Beebe, our Fellow-Member, and the curator of ornithology,

and found he was away in the south.


The first building we visited in the Park was “ The Small Mammal

House.” Here, in the 176 cages in and around this building, the visitor

finds a large collection of animals, chiefly small mammals. On the

whole, the most striking animals in the Small Mammal House are three

beautiful Albino Racoons, from Illinois ; also an Albino Woodchuck and

Opossum.


We noticed in this and other buildings the following notice :—

“ Hands off, warning, $3 fine for feeding any of the animals.”


The Mammoth Flying Cage, one of the wonders of the Zoological

Park, was empty. This cage is the summer home of a mixed flock of

large and showy water birds ; all these birds are located during the

winter in “ The Aquatic Bird House.” This building (as the official

guide informs the visitor) is the result of an attempt to solve an old

problem in a new way—the care of large migratory water birds in the

most uneven winter climate on earth. A large collection of Flamingoes,

large Herons, Egrets, Ibises, and other large birds, all in splendid plumage

were in this crowded house. (I hope to pay another visit on my return

in July to New York, and see all these birds in their summer quarters.)


We next visited the “ Large Bird House,” a very handsome

building, and, we believe, the largest home for perching birds in

existence.


Here I met and renewed my acquaintance with the head keeper (the

last time we had met was twenty years ago in our own Zoological



