MENAGERIES. 7 



into the den o f the hyaena, and that animal constituted himself execu- 

 tioner by promptly depriving him of his head with one bite. 



There were several small menageries in England at the com- 

 mencement of the present century, mostly of the travelling kind ; 

 but the Tower, and two small collections kept for exhibition, one 

 in the Surrey Zoological Gardens and the other in Exeter Change, 

 were the only places worth mentioning where our grandfathers 

 could get any sight of wild animals alive. It is curious to read 

 that the front of Exeter Change projected over the Strand, and 

 was daubed all over with pictures of monsters and wild beasts 

 between the Corinthian pillars, presenting a grotesque appearance 

 not easily forgotten by the " country cousins " who came in shoals 

 to see it, nor by the children who gazed upon the sham Yeoman of 

 the Guard stationed outside, inviting passers-by to step in and see 

 the lions, tigers, elephants, and monkeys. 



Leigh Hunt, writing about Exeter Change, speaks of it as a 

 place where the animals had no air, and where he remembered an 

 elephant wearing boots, because the rats gnawed his feet. This was 

 the elephant " Chunee," which was a well-known animal, for he was 

 on exhibition from 1809 till 1826, when he met a tragic fate, which 

 will be described further on in the chapter on elephants. 



In the present day Londoners are more favoured, for they now 

 possess two of the finest and most comprehensive collections 

 ever brought together in the world. One is in the magnificent 

 building of the natural history sectidn of the British Museum, 

 lately opened in the Cromwell Road, where the stufied collection 

 of animals, birds, and fishes include nearly every known variety; 

 and the method of arrangement, carried out under the superin- 

 tendence of its able chief, Professor Flower, allows the student 

 to study not only the outward appearance of the specimens, but 

 to a very large extent their anatomical structure. Here also can 

 be seen fossil remains and skeletons of strange and mighty animals 

 now extinct, and which even at a late period of our history 

 were said never to have existed, and their descriptions in ancient 

 writings considered mythical. 



The other collection referred to is in the Zoological Society's 

 Gardens, in Regent's Park, where animals, birds, reptiles, and 



