14 
HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
A GREAT NATURALIST. 
Dr. Robert Ball, a distinguished naturalist, 
was appointed honorary secretary in 1837. Sir 
Robert Ball, the Astronomer Royal, was elected 
member in 1861, and President in January, 1890. 
His call to Cambridge in 1892i cut short his five 
years of office. Professor Valentine Ball, C.B*, 
F.R.S., was secretary in 1889, and' Sir Charles 
Ball was President in 1909. Improvements were 
vigorously pushed forward by Dr. Robert Ball, 
who was responsible for many lasting develop- 
ments. It was he who established the weekly 
Saturday morning breakfasts, which are still con- 
tinued. These delightful functions drew together 
in social intercourse most of the notable men of 
the period — scientists, scholars, clergymen, physi- 
cians, soldiers, and wits, and precious memories 
of these morning meetings lingered in the minds 
of those who took part. After breakfast plans 
were discussed, and business transacted. Sir 
Robert Ball tells how much he enjoyed walking 
over from Dunsink to discuss "whether lion cubs 
are old enough to be sold; how rats can best be 
excluded from the aviary; to sign an order for a 
new pole in the bear pit; or a new tub for the 
elephant." In 1904, General Sir Tohn Maxwell 
was a member of the Council, and at a meeting 
described the wonders of the Cairo Zoological 
Gardens, one of the finest in the world, which cost 
two millions of money, and also spoke of the Pre- 
toria Gardens, and Kruger"s objections to lions. 
Dr. Robert Ball also introduced lectures on zoo- 
logical subjects, which were delivered by the most 
distinguished scientists of the period, and finan- 
cially benefited the Society. He also introduced 
penny admission to the Gardens for the working 
classes. The penny admission on Sunday after 
two o'clock was first instituted! in 1840, and fif- 
teen years later the same privilege was extended 
to visitors to the Gardens after six o'clock in the 
summer evenings. 
His biographer has written : "To whom do 
we mainly owe the existence of this garden and 
the penny admission which makes it available to 
us? Let some simple inscription answer the in- 
quirer, and tell to him and his children that the 
name of their benefactor was Sir Robert Ball." 
In 1847 Sir Robert Ball tells us he bought a sloth 
for £15. He writes : " I am afraid it is a bad bar- 
gain, as he has a cold and is sick already. I also 
bought a great snake nine feet long. He was very 
weak, so Cullen got a jug full of calf's blood, and 
we poured it down its throat." In the early days 
when funds were limited, the Council adopted the 
svstem of hiring for a few weeks any of the rare 
or more costly animals which were beyond their 
reach. For instance, we find them exhibiting a 
rhinoceros in the year 1835, which had been 
shipped from Calcutta, and purchased by the 
Iaiverpool Zoo for a thousand pounds. In the year 
1838, when Queen Victoria became patron, the 
name of the Society was changed to the "Royal 
Zoological Society of Ireland." Perhaps the rar- 
est of all animals and the most difficult to keep, 
as far as zoological collections are concerned, is 
the giraffe, and the Dublin Society was lucky in 
securing a very lne specimen — a gift from the 
London Zoological Society. 
THE FIRST GIRAFFE. 
Sir Robert Ball records : "The giraffe arrived 
in Dublin on June 19, 1844. I remember this 
quite well, although I was only four years old at 
the time." A conspicuous house was built in 1846, 
and is known as Albert House, as the giraffe was 
named after the Prince Consort. It is now used 
as an Elephant House. From 1904 to 1909 two 
young giraffes were exhibited in the gardens, the 
property of the Sirdar Sir Reginald Windgate. 
The gorilla shares with the giraffe the distinction 
of rarity, and experience the same difficulty of ac- 
cl'imisation. In February, 1914, the Society ac- 
quired a healthy young gorilla named Empress. 
It is stated that at the time it was the only live 
specimen in Europe. It is only a gorilla in minia- 
ture, but a s.ight of one even in childhood is a 
curiosity. To get an idea of the ponderous bulk 
and savage aspects of these huge anthropoids, we 
must go to the Museum in Merrion Square, where 
there is a fine example. Buried in the gloomv 
depths of equatorial Ofrica, its discovery was long- 
delayed. In 1819 it was first described, about 1847 
it was officially named gorilla, and Du Chaillu, 
who visited Africa in 1855, was the first European 
who killed a gorilla and saw the animal in its 
native haunts. He writes : "I never kill one with- 
out having a sickening realisation of the horrid 
human likeness of the beast." 
(To be continued.) 
THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF 
SCOTLAND. 
A CARNEGIE AQUARIUM. 
The annual meeting of this Society was held 
in the City Chambers, Edinbugh, on the 29th May. 
Lord Salvesen presided, and submitted the report, 
which has been already published. They had had 
a period of very considerable anxiety on account 
of their finances during the past year. The early 
summer was not favourable, and there was a large 
drop in the drawings. In addition they had had 
to meet increased expeniiture upon animals' food. 
