Jan. 2, 1S99.] 
THE TROPICAL AGEICULTURIST. 
471 
THE HENERATGODA GAPIDENS 
Ai e entered by a long avenue of arecas; and jiisb 
now as you aiJiiroaeli the bungalow a deliciou 
scent of cloves meets one. A little bungalow i.s 
now put up (as at Hakgala) for visitors who bring 
their breakf 'st or lunch, and we can think of no 
plea'^anter way of spending an ofl-day than by ex- 
ploring these gardens, which abound in shady trees 
and great varieties of palms and shrubs. 
The t>00 rubhor Iree.s are .'specially interesting, 
and they gave tlie Gari'ens a handsome profit last 
year. A handsome flowering tree witii large crim- 
son blossom, the Spathodia, is now flowering. —Cor. 
PLANTING liN TKAVANCOIIE. 
GENEKOSITY OF THE BIBBY LINE. 
Tiie ss. "Cheshire" brought to our siiore.s re- 
cently Mr. W. Hendry, formerly a cofl'ee plan- 
ter in CeyloU; bnt who of late years has been 
fTrming in Scotland. He lias accepted an engage- 
ment under Messrs. Finlay Muir & Co., and 
left by tiie M. M. ss. " Duploix" for Madras, en 
route to tiie estate of which he is to take charge. 
Mr. Hendry was one of the passengers, wlio 
unfortunately contracted typhoiil fever while on 
boaid ihe ss. "Cheshire" and has been for 
.several weeks in the (,'oionibo General Hosjiital. 
Since he left the hospital he h;is beea upeountry 
and has derived much benefit from his renewed 
acquaintance with our hill scenery and hill cli- 
mate. He speaks very highly of the liberal spirit 
in which Messrs. Carson & Co., the local agei:is 
of the fc'ihby line of steamers, have met iiim 
and his fellow-passeners w ith regard to their de- 
tention, &c , in consequence of illness. He ini- 
jjutes no blame to the Company. 
MINOR PRODUCTS REPORT. 
London, November 3. 
CjUiD.iMOM^;. — During the period, January 1st to 
Septtmber 27th ISOS ,3G7,G3.5 lb were exportc-d from 
Ceylon, of whi'di 23.S.244 lb were shipped to the 
United Kingdom, 69,68.5 lb to Germany, and 43,298 
lb to India. A good jobbing business has been 
doing since the auctions at 3d advance. 
Bioken Ceylon partly scented with coconut oil, sold 
at S^d at this week's auctions ; coarse broken bark 
sold a': 41A to SJd. 
Kola Nuts. — Goods Grenada nuts sold at this week's 
spice f.uctions at 3d to 3jd. 
CiTROMiiLL.Y OiL, — Steady. The c.i.f quotation is 
now lljd. Little or no business appears to be doing 
in the oil. 
Le.monobass Oir,. — Quiet, as it has been for some 
lime, interest appearing to have dropped out altogther 
in this substance. The c.i.f. price is2Jd. 
Quinine. — This week has been similar in tone to 
the two preceding ones, but there h^a been an idea 
in one or two quarters that make^^ would ad- 
vance prices if t day's Amsterdam auctions went off 
well. Tlic Amsterdam f.ictory, however, has not 
waited till the result of these bark auctions was 
made known, for it has already advanced its price to 
lid for the sulphate in bulk. Other German makes 
aie unchanged, and Howards price for l.OOO-ounce lots 
in ItO-ounce tins is Is — British and Colonial Drnriyist, 
Nov 4. 
COKFEE IN QUKENSLAND.— We have a letter in our 
T A. from a (ineensland settk-r cnquii ing about our 
"Coll'ee Manual' and telling us lliat " having taken 
a farm'' (in theNortli of Queensland) he intends 
to try Codce planting ! It will, of course, be 
on a small garden scale. 
TRAVANCORE ZOOLOGICAL G.\UDENS. 
The public gardens at Trivandrum, and espe- 
cially their Zooloo-ieal section, form the subject 
of a lecture recently delivered at the Travancore 
capital by Mr. H. S. Ferguson, one of the autho- 
rities. Mr. Ferguson, after dealing with the 
history of the gardens, which Avere begun early 
in tiie sixties, gives a very full account of the 
Zoological Department. 1 he nucleus of the collec- 
tion consisted in 1863 of a few aniujals — two 
marabous, two Arabian sheep, and one monkey 
— all taken from the jirivate menagerie of the 
Maharajah of Travancore who became the patron 
of the new scheme. In 18G7, on the construction 
of cages for the accommodation of more creatures, 
tigers and leopards were transferied from tlie 
disreputably kept menagerie to the newer and 
cleaner abodes. One old tiger was overpowered 
by the unwonted lu.Nury, pined away and oied 
in a few months. Between 1871 and 1880, thanks 
to liberal Government grants, the Committee en- 
trusted with the care of the Department, was 
enabled to add largely both to the buildings and 
to the colllection ; and subsequent additions 
have rendered these Zoological Gardens represen- 
tative, not only of Travancore, but also to a con- 
sideralde extent of the Indian Empire. We can 
only give a brief enumeration of the more inter- 
esting animals of which Mr. J?erguson speaks. 
They include : the lion-tailed and bonnet mon- 
keys, the long-tailed black Nilgiri Langur and 
two (foreign) stump-tailed macaques, obtained 
from Bombay in exchange for leopards ; numer- 
ous specimens of the cat tribe, the peculiarity 
of which (the cheetah alone excepted) is that 
they cm sheathe their claws when not in use • 
lions, descendants of a pair which came, the 
male from a Liverpool dealer and the female 
from the Clifton Gardens ; one surviving tiger, a 
somewhat nervous animal compared with its once 
fearless mate, now deceased. The cats include 
the fishing cat, the civet or musk cat, the rusty- 
spotted, and the leopard cat. Amongst the mon- 
gooses is the Ceylon brown species, one considered 
(leculiar to the island. Mr. Ferguson mentions 
also : two of the so called wild dogs that hunt in 
packs, !i\e on deer, and belong to a genus en- 
tirely dilTt-rent from that of the domestic do" : 
the Himalayan bear and the sloth : the European 
and the smooth Indian otter ; a great one-horned 
Rhinoceros from Bantralore, the largest beast in 
the gardens ; tapirs, which are among the oldest 
living mammals, as proved by their atiatomical 
resemblance to extinct fossil forms; specimens of 
all deer foriud in Travancore "from the lordly 
sambur to the tiny little moose deer hardly 
biif^er tiian a rabbit;" of the antelope tribe, 
the black bude, tiie blue Nilgiri bull, and a 
female example of the Nilgiri wild goat tlie 
only goat living south ot the noitli temperate 
zone, excepting only the mountain Ibex of Abys- 
sinia. Beside the Indian animals the "aidens 
have also a fail sele('tion of African and Austra- 
lian ones, the most remarkable being the red 
kangaroo and the African crowned < rane, which 
has a loud trumpet-like call and a peculiar fond- 
ness for dancing, so that it often indulges in a 
ims sen! Ijtfoie breakfast. Mr. Feigiison's lecture 
contains much further information on the habits 
of many of the anin^als to which wc have 
merely relened. — It is a disgrace to Ceylon that 
no Zoological collection has yet been e.'^tablishecl 
in its capital. 
