HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
mvng- Birds which ought to have been called 
"Birds of Paradise"; the Amherst Pheasant ought 
certainly to have been the Cilver, as it is a sort 
of silver counterpart of the golden species; and 
the Mandarin Duck might well complain that it 
ought to have been the "Paradise Duck" instead 
of the New Zealand Sheldrake, about which M. 
Rogeron, after carefully describing its tempes- 
tuous disposition in his charming "Les Canards," 
says that he wonders at its receiving such a name, 
since its colour and temper rather point to "the 
other place." 
So it is with the subject of this note; by 
"Spotted Panther Bird" we ought to mean a sort 
of feathered counterpart of the Panther or Leo- 
pard (Panther is simply the Greek name "the all- 
hunter," mosti appropriate for a beast which, as 
Blanford says, "will strike down an ox or bound 
upon a sparrow"). And such a bird should be 
large and powerful, with spotted plumage and 
eyes which gleam with cold rapacity; a bird which 
would pry on feather and fur alike, and never 
relax its relentless grip till the miserable victim 
had yielded its last breath under the grip of its 
iron talons, etc, etc. 
The Martial Hawk Eagle (Spizaitus bellico- 
sus) of Africa would fill the bill nicely; but what, 
as a matter of fact, has been called the "Spotted 
Panther Bird" ? A little Australian bird of much 
the same size and habits as our Blue Tit, with 
drab plumage set off with touches of red and yel- 
low, and with the black cap facings set off by a 
sprinkling of white spots. The spotting is all it 
has of the Panther; and, as a matter of fact, the 
name "Panther Bird" is "made in Germany," and 
is a rendering of the scientific name, Pardalotus, 
from pardalis, another Greek name of the Leopard. 
The particular species of which I am writing 
is Pardalotus punctatus — there are several others 
in Australia, but these are less common; and if 
you want to get information about our present 
subject from Australians or Australian books, you 
must ask for the "Diamond Bird," and you may 
have to make it clear that you don't mean the 
Diamond Sparrow, which is quite a different 
species altogether, and now-a-days called in Aus- 
tralia the Spotted-sided Finch. The Diamond 
Bird proper is an insect feeder, and has much the 
habits of the Blue Tit, but, though also nesting 
in a hole, it builds low down, making its nest in 
a burrow which it tunnels out in a bank, after the 
fashion of our Sand Martin, except that it does 
not bore so deep, and makes a more elaborate 
nest at the end, a domed one, in fact. It is prob- 
ably, like the Blue Tit again, not any too easy to 
keep, although common and widely distributed; 
and on doubt our Editor's idea in asking- me to 
write about it was derived from a story plate from 
the " Avicultural Magaine" of about a dozen years 
ago; for the explanatory article of this plate, when 
I came to look it up, only told of a single pair im- 
ported here by that fine old naturalist dealer, 
Abrahams. 
THE FIRST ENGLISH MENAGERIE. 
By F. J. Stubbs. 
221, St. George's Street, is, in the usual 
sense of the phrase under the shadow of the Tower 
of London, a place that was for centuries the home 
of our greatest menagerie. When it commenced 
we do not know, and probably ever since the Tower 
was built, right up to a hundred years ago, wild 
animals of one kind or another were kept within 
its walls. Seven centuries ago the Emperor 
Frederick sent our own Henry III. a present of 
three leopards, a graceful compliment to the royal 
armorial bearings. Then, and for years after, the 
lion of England was by heralds supposed to be a 
leopard. The same king added a polar bear to the 
collection, with a daily pension of fourpence a day 
for his keep (food was cheap in the 13th century), 
and orders to provide a muzzle and " unam longam 
et fortem cordam, ad tenendum eum ursum, pis- 
cantem in aqua Tamisiae." One imagines the 
keeper hanging on by this long and strong rope 
while his charge went a-fishing in the Thames ! 
Most kings were proud of their menageries, 
and glad to receive donations; but sometimes a 
neighbour could be too kind — even for the third 
Henry, who certainly did not share that failing. 
So when in 12;56 Louis IX. of France sent our 
monarch a huge elephant ("sith most seldom or 
never any of that kind had been seene in Englond 
before that tyme") he very kindly presented it 
to the Corporation of London; and shortly after 
they were the recipients of the following note : — 
"The King to the Sheriffs of London, greeting : 
We command you, that ye cause to be built, with- 
out delay, at our Tower of London, one house of 
forty feet long and twenty feet deep, for our Ele- 
phant." On October 11th, 1257, it is recorded 
that the Sheriffs got a further command "to find 
for the said Elephant and his keeper such neces- 
saries as should be reasonable needful." 
Later on we learn that a royal lion was al- 
lowed a quarter of mutton per day, and a keeper 
got lOJd. per week; but in 1490 the collection had 
so grown in importance that the Earl of Ox lord 
was not above accepting the post of keeper of 
"the lions, lionesses, and the leopard" in His 
Majesty's Tower. 
From scattered records in ancient books we 
can glean many particulars relating to the inmates 
of this Royal Menagerie. In 1609 there were 
several "lustie young lions" bred on the premises; 
and I have encountered records of a litter of cubs 
born on 13th August, 1731, from a lioness and a 
lion born in the Tower six years previously; a lit- 
ter whelped in 1794; and three cubs born on the 
20th October, 1827. \*o doubt a special search 
would discover further records, but the above 
show pretty clearly that our ancestors knew all 
about the art of lion keeping. 
