HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
THE CALCUTTA ZOO IN THE 
NINETIES. 
By Frank Finn, B.A., F.Z.S. 
Within a few months of my arrival in India 
in 1894, I was made an honorary member of the 
Calcutta Zoological Society and put on the coun- 
cil, and up till my departure from India, nearly 
ten years later, I always took a keen interest in 
the Zoo affairs, though less in later years than 
when I first came out, as the garden was, in my 
opinion, better manag'ed then, when the late Dr. 
D. D. Cunningham, then Professor of Physiology 
in Calcutta University, was the leading spirit on 
the council, than it was when he left India on 
completing his service, and the management fell 
into other hands. But all the time I was very 
friendly with our excellent late superintendent, 
Rai Ram Brahma Sanyal Bahadur, whom some 
of my readers have probably met on the occasion 
of his visit to England, which fulfilled one of the 
most cherished wishes of his life, for he greatly 
esteemed our countrymen, and had a particular 
loyal affection for Dr. Cunningham. His own 
book on the management of animals in captivity 
in Lower Bengal is the best that has been pub- 
lished in any language, and reflects credit alike 
on the practical zoological attainments and com- 
mand of English of the writer. 
The Calcutta Garden is easily the most beauti- 
ful I have ever seen, not only because of the 
.splendid tropical vegetation, but because of its 
andulating contour and fine water supply, although 
the grass of the lawns was not so neat or the 
water of the ponds so clear as one sees in an 
English park, such features being inferior in the 
tropics so far as I have seen. 
The houses were, of course, designed to give 
free ventilation and shelter from sun, which is the 
great enemy to animals in the tropics, since few, 
even from those zones, like to be exposed to its 
rays during the mid-day hours. Moreover the 
violent rains during the wet season have to be 
guarded against. The Lion house was a fine semi- 
circular building with a covered walk in front — • 
visitors as well as animals, of course, want shade 
■ — and at one time we had all the large cats of the 
world, except the Aunce or Snow Leopard. The 
collection of Tigers was, as might be expected, 
fine, the orange-tawny colour of these animals' 
coats being much richer than one usually sees it 
here, as they deteriorate in captivity in this coun- 
try, no doubt owing to indoor life, as the Siberian 
Tigers kept out-doors at our zoo kept their colour 
better. I never saw a very good Lion in Calcutta, 
however, and one nice pair we got out from 
Europe, as good-sized cubs, grew up stocky, but 
small, more like Jaguars in size and build, owing, 
I think, to being left together; premature pairing 
being known to be most fatal to fine animal devel- 
opment. This is, I fancy, the reason why animals 
inhabiting a variety of climates, from the wolf 
to the sparrow, are larger in the colder ones — 
they get no chance of premature pairing owing to 
a harder life and non-forcing temperature. The 
Clouded Leopard or Clouded Tiger — whichever 
you prefer to call a beast which is neither Leopard 
nor Tiger, but a species equally distinct from 
both — we first had in my time was the finest I 
ever saw, quite as big as a full-sized ordinary 
Leopard, allowing for the difference in build. 
We had a fine lot of Monkeys, located in two 
houses of several small outside cages, including 
Orangs, but never a Chimpanzee. When I first 
came out a magnificent male Drill inhabited one- 
half of a small detached stone-work two-compart- 
ment cage, and some years afterwards we got an 
equally fine Mandrill, which was, of course, in- 
stalled in the other half of the little house, and 
equally, of course, quite swamped the attractions 
of his "poor black brother." Besides the ordinary 
Asiatic Macaques and some common African and 
American Monkeys, we had some Aery interesting' 
species of the Langur group, most charming ani- 
mals. I particularly remember one species with a 
long black coat and navy-blue face, also a speci- 
men of the Capped Langur, so popular at the Zoo, 
and, of course, the ordinary Entellus, the original 
Langur, which lives wild near Calcutta, as does 
also the original Bunder, or Rhesus. I never saw 
either of these wild in the garden, however, though 
no doubt they visited it, as it was quite on the out- 
skirts of Calcutta, in the suburb of Alipore. Palm 
Squirrels were common in it, and I once saw a 
grey Mongoose, while Jackals came in after dark, 
and rendered it necessary to shut up the smaller 
Cranes and Storks at night, though Adjutants 
and Sarus Cranes, etc. , could be left out. 
To conclude with the Monkeys. A very at- 
tractive individual was a male Hoolock Gibbon 
which used to be allowed to go loose, so that one 
could easily observe his curious upright gait on 
the ground when he passed from one tree to an- 
other — I must say that I did not observe, nor has 
it struck me in any other Gibbon, that the arms 
were held up. as balancers; it has always seemed 
to me that the slight bending of them I have seen 
was simply to get the hands off the ground, the 
animal being a true biped like ourselves. But, of 
course, the normal progress of these apes is by 
swinging hand over hand among the trees, etc., 
and it was interesting to see this specimen slide 
down a bough and drink with his hand from a 
pond. Our free-lance used to pay calls to two 
females confined in different houses, and ultimately 
had to be shut up like them, as he got 
vicious. 
(To be continued.) 
Printed by W. J. Hasted & Son (T.U.), 306, Mile End Road. E 1., and Published by J. D. Hamlyn, 221, St. George's 
Street, London Docks, E 1. 
