44 
HAMLYN'S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
the persons concerned to get all the necessary 
permits in Europe before sailing, which is very 
seldom done at present. 
To take another point : the freight-charges of 
most of the companies are exorbitant, even when 
these companies do not refuse to take this live 
merchandise, which they think dangerous to their 
passengers, on board their steamers. So the deal- 
ers are forced, in order to keep down their ex- 
penses as much as possible, to embark with their 
cargo on coasting trading-vessels, to the great 1 
detriment of the animals, which suffer in condition 
from the length of the voyage and become sickly. 
It is owing to> this fact, in particular, that the 
prices of some species have risen suddenly. Im- 
porters whom we can trust have proved it to> us, 
showing us their figures. It would be a very good 
thing if we could see the shipping companies of 
the Allied countries give up these prejudices once 
for all, and facilitate what constitutes a source of 
profit to their countrymen instead of neglecting it. 
Animal dealers are not capitalists, and more 
than one of them has begun his business with 
nothing at his back but his zeal for the work 
(even among the most famous German dealers, 
there are some who have begun their enterprises 
on a capital of a few marks). When, after a 
modest start, and some disappointments whiqh 
the public generally knows nothing about, they 
can undertake business of a wider scope, what 
pulls them up, hindering them from making head- 
way against the ruinous foreign competitor, is 
almost always the want of ready money, or at any 
rate some financial support which gives them a 
chance to spend money without cutting everything 
down, an indispensable condition of success in 
the countries oversea. Alas ! they are generally 
reduced to borrowing at unreasonable rates, for 
Credit Establishments will not look upon their 
business as a paying one. There is too great a 
tendency to consider an expedition "after ani- 
mals" as an expensive freak, which, if successful, 
has nothing attaching to it of use to the country. 
The result of this was that inferiority in position of 
the importers in the Allied countries to their Ger- 
man confreres which obtained before the war. 
Permit us to say, with regard to this, that they 
were not wanting either in intelligence, in hon- 
esty, or in initiative, and that in the second of 
these qualities they were generally a long way 
ahead of the most noted of their lucky German 
competitors. The only thing one could say 
against some of them was that their knowledge of 
zoology was too slight. 
But how could one expect them to learn, 
when all their time was often taken up with more 
pressing work which they could not afford to hand 
over to employees? An economic revolution does 
not come about in a day. If naturalist's, and in 
particular, keepers of foreign animals, among the 
Allied nations wish henceforth, ^.nd especially 
after the war, as we are sure they do, to be able 
to get the foreign animals they want, which come 
from their colonies, from the dealers of their own 
countries, they ought at once to set about facili- 
tating the importation of these. The support of 
Government, the facilities afforded by shipping 
oompariies and by ldnding establishments, are 
the three cardinal points to be made in order to 
succeed. And, to win in commercial war, let us 
not forget that intelligence and goodwill must — 
just as in war of the other sort — be backed up by 
generously afforded financial support. 
THE ROYAL ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 
OF IRELAND. 
The weekly meeting of th° Council of the 
Royal Zoological Society of Ireland was held at 
the Gardens on the 23rd September, the President, 
Mr. W. E>. Peebles, in the chair. The Secretary 
announced the arrival of a number of interesting 
animals, received yesterday, in exchange for a 
pair of lion cubs. These included six monkeys, a 
Great Anteater, and a pair/ of African Hyrax. The 
anteater may be seen in one of the end cages of 
the Monkey House. This very curious animal 
with long snout, flexible tongue, and great hairy 
tail, has very rarely been exhibited in Dublin. He 
in entirely toothless, and licks up his insect food 
with his worm-like tongue. The hyraxes are in 
one of the open-air cages of the Haughton House. 
Though only the size of small rabbits, they are 
related to the assemblange of the large hoofed 
animals, and should possible be placed, in a classi- 
fication of living beasts, next to the elephant. A 
member of this family that inhabits Palestine and 
the Sinai Peninsula is the "coney" of the Author- 
ised English Bible. Hyraxes are Aery seldom 
to be seen alive in this country. 
On the 2nd October the Council met at the 
weekly breakfast on Saturday morning at the 
Gardens — the President, Mr. Peebles, in the chair. 
Rev. Canon R. McClean, LL.D., Rathkeale, Co. 
Limerick, at present serving as Chaplain to the 
Forces, was elected a member. Mrs. Kenworthy, 
North Frederick Street, was elected a Garden 
Subscriber. 
GIRAFFES IN EAST AFRICA. 
Mr. A. G. Ross, who is serving in the Royal 
Engineers in German East Africa, sends an inter- 
esting letter to the " Postal and Telegraph 
Record." 
