WILD ANIMALS IN CAPTIVITY 
tigers, elephants, or any other wild beasts, simply because I 
was almost from my birth among them. Since then I have had 
the good fortune to have the management of the extensive col- 
lection of the Zoological Society, and the familiarity with wild 
beasts in my infancy has been of invaluable service to me. 
“During the early period of my life, Mr. Cross, noticing how 
fond I was of living birds and other animals, kindly offered me 
the dead bodies of some of the birds which I was so fond of 
feeding. This led me to endeavour to save their beautiful 
feathers and skins from decay. I was not long in being able to 
take off and prepare their skins so as to preserve them for future 
use. The result of this was that I became a successful taxidermist. 
“It was from about 1820 to 1826 that I was allowed to walk 
about the beast-room, as it was then called, at Exeter ’Change. 
My next seven or eight years were less agreeable, having been 
apprenticed in 1826 to my father John Bartlett, hairdresser and 
brush-maker of 83 Drury Lane, a business I most heartily de- 
tested, although I used to amuse myself by preserving birds, 
etc., in my own private room in the house. Somewhere about 
1833 or 1834 I determined again to seek the society of wild 
animals ; but as I could not offer myself as a keeper, and as I 
had no means of becoming a proprietor, what was I to do ? It 
then occurred to me that I could become a taxidermist ; having 
so early taken to wild animals, it was obvious to me that I 
must live among them without being one myself, and tliis I could 
do by preserving specimens of Nature’s most beautiful works. 
“My introduction to the Zoological Society was through a 
very able physician, Mr. Anthony White of Parliament Street. 
I thus became acquainted with Mr. Yarrell, W. Ogilby, John 
Gould, W. Gillett, and otliers (the Society’s Museum was in 
Bruton Street at this period), and I was a correspondent of 
Mr. D. W. Mitchell, who then resided in Cornwall. Now Mr. 
Mitchell came to London, and learned from me much about the 
affairs of the Society. 
“ This resulted in his obtaining the Secretaryship, greatly to 
my astonishment. He did not fail, however, to consult me upon 
the subject of the future prosperity of the Society, and this led 
to the opening of the Gardens to the public on payment of six- 
pence, on Mondays. The success of this concession to the public 
lias undoubtedly brought about the popularity of the collection 
and its advancement to its present condition. 
“ My introduction to the authorities of the British Museum 
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