22 HAMLYN’S MENAGERIE MAGAZINE. 
suitable for the accommodation of wild animals 
at Hazlemere Farm, High Wycombe. Ex-officers 
and others who reply to the advertisements receive 
a leaflet descriptive of methods of catching and 
handling wild animals for sale to zoological socie- 
ties, exhibition companies, and private collectors; 
but there is no information whatever in regard to 
the financial and commercial side of the enterprise. 
Viewed from that standpoint—which should, of 
course, be the standpoint of anyone who thinks 
that the putting of £500 into the business will 
be a very good investment—it is literally, as well 
as figuratively, a wild-cat company. Three of the 
original directors appear to have retired, and the 
board now consists of Mr. Jordan, Mr. Leadbet- 
ter, Major J. Seafield Grant, Brigadier-General R. 
Pigot, and Mr. H. E. Osborne. As it is stated 
that the whole busness is to be worked on the 
co-operative principle, I venture to suggest that 
particulars now lacking should be furnished for 
the guidance of persons who are asked to co- 
operate with cash. The company’ own commen- 
dation of the shares as a very good investment is 
hardly sufficient.” 
The “Weekly Telegraph” comes next :— 
A £2,000,000 TRADE IN WILD BEASTS. 
“There are, I learn, 150 national and civic 
_zcos crying out for stock. Even the famous Lon- 
don “Gardens” lost many of their finest speci- 
mens during the tight time of the war, when food 
was hard to get for these huge animals. I could 
only see one giraffe at the London Zoo when I 
was there, and the big lion cages were almost 
empty. The little known trade in wild beasts 
and birds, for public and private collections, runs 
into £2,000,000 a year. And thest new trading 
companies will adopt unique methods of trapping 
their specimens, and keeping them in African cap- 
tivity until they are ready for shipment in the 
pink of condition. Captain Fred Selous, the 
mightiest hunter of them all, fell in the East Afri- 
can jungles to a German bullet. But Mr. John 
A. Jordan succeeds him, and has established a 
5,000 acre ‘“‘paddock” in the Belgian Congo for 
his harvest of savage creatures.”’ 
Then the “Evening News” :— 
CARGOES OF WILD BEASTS. 
Ex-Officers Beating the Jungles to Re-stock the 
World’s Zoos. 
Re-stocking the zoos is one of the firs fas- 
cinating jobs of reconstruction, and “The Even- 
ing News” was informed to-day that within the 
next few weeks a shipload of wild beasts of 
species will arrive—the first cargo of its type’ 
the middle of 1914. 
Se 
Hunting parties organised by the World’s i. 
Zoological Trading Company are now treking the _ 
jungles of French Senegal, Liberia, the Congo, 
British East Africa, and other parts. is 
‘Ex-officers are by far the most suitable for _ 
the hunting work,’ said an official, ‘but our great 
di culty is in choosing men who have the hunt- 
ing instinct and knowledge of the natives, and 
who also have a certain amount of business know- 
ledge. f 
‘Our managing director is a well-known and 
much-decorated General, who knows the hunting 
district backwards. 
‘Before the war nearly all the animal markets 
were controlled by a German, who had agencies 
throughout the world. We are out to capture 
that trade. “a 
‘We have got big contracts from different — 
countries, one of our largest being from America.’ 
On arrival of the first cargo the animals will 
be taken charge of by Mr. Leadbetter, the well- 
known zoologist, at his zoo at Hazlemere, Buck- 
inghamshire.”’ : 
THE PRESS AND THE WORLD’S 
ZOOLOGICAL TRADING, COj Ei 
In connection with our remarks last month 
that Mr. Harold J. Shepstone continues to issue 
matter concerning the Trade in Wild Beasts on 
behalf of the World’s Zoological Trading Co., © 
Ltd., we have received from him the following 
letter which he asks us to publish :— 
Sir,—My attention has been called to the 
statement in your journal that the articles I have 
published in the Press on the Trade in Wild 
Beasts on behalf of the World’s Zoological Trad- __ 
ing Co., Ltd., “is most interesting and amusing.” 
I fully agree that it is interesting, but how __ 
“amusing”? For a period of 15 years I acted as 
Press Representative for Carl Hagenbeck, of 
Hamburg, and all I have published describing how 
animal are caught, tamed, fed, doctored, and 
transported fromth eir homes in the wilds to 
Europe is based on the experiences of his trap- 
pers and hunters, men who devoted their life to 
this work. It was only natural that I should | 
conclude that the methods of catching and tr. 
porting, say a hippo, zebra, or the rarer sp 
of antelope, or any other creature, would be 
