28 REPORT OF THE SECRETARY. 



From all parts of the country, for many years, presents of live ani- 

 mals have been made to tbe Government through the Smithsonian In- 

 stitution or the Museum; but the absence of any appropriation for their 

 care has led to their being sent away (though most reluctantly) to in- 

 crease tbe collections of the zoological parks in Philadelphia, New York, 

 London, and other cities. It should be better known than it is that 

 everywhere through the country there is a disposition on the part of 

 private individuals to give to the Government in this way, and without 

 any expectation of return, remarkable specimens, which the donor (very 

 commonly a poor man) sometimes refuses advantageous pecuniary offers 

 for, and it seems hard to decline gifts made in such a spirit, or, accept- 

 ing them, to give them away again. 



But little over a year ago I gave instructions that these live speci- 

 mens should be retained temporarily, as an experiment, and although a 

 very few have been purchased, the collection, which is a subject of so 

 much local popular interest, has been thus formed, substantially by gift, 

 within perhaps fifteen months, and this though many proffers have been 

 declined for want of means to care for them. 1 am persuaded that, if 

 it were generally known that the Government would receive and care 

 for such gifts, within a very few years the finest collection of American 

 animals in the world might be made here in this way, with compara- 

 tively no expenditure for purchase. 



Among the many interested in the incipient collection was Senator 

 Beck, whose bill for the formation of a zoological park was brought 

 before the Senate on April 23, 1888. The writer directed the Senator's 

 attention to the fact that a piece of ground singularly suitable, by the 

 variety of its features, to the provision for the wants of all the different 

 kinds of animals, existed in the picturesque valley of Rock Creek in 

 the part nearest to the city. Here not only the wild goat, the mountain 

 sheep and their congeners would find the rocky cliffs which are their 

 natural home, but the beavers brooks in which to build their dams ; the 

 buffalo places of seclusion in which to breed and replenish their dying 

 race; aquatic birds and beasts their natural home, and in general all 

 animals would be provided for on a site almost incomparably better 

 than any now used for this purpose in any other capital in the world. 



With this is the pre-eminently important consideration that the imme- 

 diate neighborhood to the city would make it accessible not only to the 

 rich, but to the poor, and therefore a place of recreation to the great 

 mass of the residents, as well as to the hundreds of tbousauds of citi- 

 zens from all parts of the country who now annually visit the capital. 



It may be added that, so far as is known to the writer, all those in- 

 terested in the desirable but larger plan for a public park along the 

 whole Rock Creek region — that is to say, all those acquainted with the 

 beauties and advantages of the site — regard the establishment of the pro- 

 posed zoological park there with favor. It is very difficult for any one 

 who has not visited the region to understand its singularly attractive 

 character, due to the good fortune which has preserved its picturesque 

 features intact urtil now, although the growing city is sweeping around 

 aud enveloping it. 



The Smithsonian Institution has not customarily received with favor 

 the propositions continually made it to place different local or national 

 interests under its charge, but the very special reasons which seem in 

 this case to enable it to at once secure a home and city of refuge for the 

 vanishing races of the continent, and a place for the hjealth and recrea- 

 tion of the inhabitants of the city, and citizens of the United States, 

 together with an opportunity for the carrying out an enterprise of 



