HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
67 
writer; besides another was shot, and several 
were seen later. The animal was most beautiful 
and I sold her not long ago for only £26 or 130 
dollars to a zoo down South as I hadn't a proper 
place for the winter. 
It should be borne in mind that South America 
is many hundreds of miles from Sonora, Mexico, 
even to the canal. If anyone can throw any fur- 
ther light on this subject I'd much like to hear 
from them. 
THE ZOO AND WAR. 
INTERVIEW 
WITH DR. CHALMERS MITCHELL. 
A GOOD TIME COMING. 
From the "Westminster Gazette." 
"Domestic Pigs. Mixed Breeds. Purchased." 
Such is the inscription which you may read 
to-day on more than one of those cages at the 
Zoo that used to be reserved for rarer beasts. 
If you look for kangaroos you will find pigs. If, 
on the other hand, you look for the sea lions, you 
will find nothing but an empty pond. If you look 
for various other animals, it is quite a toss-up 
whether you will find what you are looking for. 
The Zoo, in short, has fallen upon somewhat 
evil days, but we are credibly informed and be- 
lieve that a brighter period is about to open. The 
vicissitudes of the Zoo are due to the war. A 
foreign visitor to the Zoo to-day would form a 
highly inadequate notion of what the Zoo nor- 
mally looks like, unless he were able to make 
allowances for some of the difficulties that the 
war created. 
Dr. Chalmers Mitchell, secretary of the Zoo- 
logical Society, has explained — at the invitation of 
our representative — some of the problems which 
the Society had to face, and how it dealt with 
them. "When the war began," he said, "we 
decided to cut down our expenditure. The first 
thing we did was to stop all new works, includ- 
ing the tunnel. We reduced painting and repairs 
to a minimum, and ultimately brought them to an 
end altogether. There was neither material nor 
labour. We stopped buying flowers of any kind; 
replaced flowers with vegetables. 
ANIMALS AS COUNTRY GUESTS. 
"We made up our minds it was necessary, 
although it was very unpleasant for us and for 
the public, to subordinate even an educational 
luxury to the graver exigencies of the war. We 
stopped buying any new animals. When the food 
problem began to grow difficult, we decided we 
would keep no animals that we could not feed on 
their proper food. We destroyed some animals 
which could be replaced easily when normal times 
came again. We sent to friends in the country 
animals that could pick up a living if they had 
sufficient space in the open, but which at the 
Zoo would have had to be fed on grain. You 
see the Zoological Gardens has what somewhat 
resembles a city population; it has to be fed entire- 
ly from the outside. 
"Naturally, the gardens are in a very shabby 
and dilapidated condition. It was inevitable that 
there should be a large natural mortality in four 
and a, half years. On the other hand, we have 
saved labour and material and food to the coun- 
try. We have used some of our empty spaces 
for two hundred pigs, and I do not know how 
many utility chickens and poultry. These have 
been fed upon the waste material of the clubs 
and the Marylebone Vestry, and have been sold 
at a profit. 
"I may say that during the war, by our stern 
measures of economy, we have actually improved 
our financial position ! The result is we can go 
ahead at once with the task of bringing the gar- 
dens up to their normal attractiveness. Immedi- 
ately transport and labour become available we 
shall set to work. We shall have our flowers back 
this year. I do not think we shall get wire re- 
placed, but we hope to get painting and cleaning 
done, and that is badly needed. We should be rid 
of the pigs and chickens by the end of March. 
THE ROYAL NAVY HELPS. 
"Then, thanks to the kindness of the Admir- 
alty, I hope to obtain a certain number of animals 
even before commercial transport is released. It 
is an amusement to the sailors to have one or two 
animals on board. 
" I do not think I am too sanguine in saying 
that by the time people are really coming to the 
gardens again we shall have filled up the obvious 
gaps, and in the course of the year we shall be 
making arrangements for collectors to set to work 
once more." 
"What animals are most badly needed?" 
our representative asked. 
"The sea lions had already lived beyond the 
average period," Dr. Mitchell replied. "Then 
we have no big hippopotamus now. We have only 
one giraffe. We have no kangaroos. We have 
a very poor lot of tigers, and very few lions. The 
elephant seal that you ask about is not so easily 
