1888.] 525 [Special Meeting. 



ing dependent upon a great water supply ; while, by establishing 

 the aquaria at the very edge of the harbor, there are very obvious 

 advantages, especially when it is pointed out that it is proposed 

 to utilize an artificial arm of the sea under construction, inclosing 

 a huge basin in which it would be possible (what has never before 

 been attempted) to see some of the larger marine animals sporting 

 at pleasure. But the prime advantage of this distribution is in 

 the fact that all our citizens are brought into near proximity to 

 some part of the ground occupied. 



Probably no large gardens have ever been successfully carried 

 on in any city which is practically so far north as Boston, that is, 

 one in which the winters are so rigorous. It became, therefore, a 

 question of importance for the committee to decide as to the pre- 

 cise nature of the proposed garden. It was pretty evident that 

 the attempt to display such a collection of animals as may be seen, 

 for instance, in the largest cities of the Old World, and especially 

 in London, would here be attended with a far greater expense than 

 there ; inasmuch as the artificial requirements of heat would not only 

 be greater but more prolonged than in a more temperate climate. 

 It was deemed also essential to the value of any such scheme, espec- 

 ially if carried on under our own organization, which is founded 

 for the advancement of science and has the education of the people 

 at heart, that the garden should be established upon such a basis 

 as would enable it to become an important educational factor, and 

 prove its own right to exist by its value to our children. How many 

 of our citizens, — rather I ma} T ask, how many even of those present 

 here at this Natural History Society this evening are acquainted 

 with all the native quadrupeds of New England? To become fa- 

 miliarized with the animals of our own land, of our own home, is 

 the one point which should be emphasized in the attempt to organ- 

 ize any garden in our own immediate vicinity. It is this side of 

 the question which the committee has emphasized in its letters to 

 the Park Commissioners ; and to carry out this plan it would be 

 essential above all other things that the collection should be emi- 

 nently an American one, and preeminently one in which the fauna 

 of New England should find a place. The support of such an es- 

 tablishment, carrying through the year such animals as are ac- 

 customed to endure the rigors of our native climate, would prove 

 a vastly different undertaking from any attempt to introduce a col- 

 lection of purely tropical animals and carry them successfully through 



