Tower of London, where our Henrys and Edwards kept their leopards, linxes, and porpentines,' and we used to gaze with the fearful curiosity of childhood at Nero and his imprisoned co-mates, we are by no means sure that the observation is to be confined either to bridges or to other works of a like nature. Who can walk through the spacious garden of the Zoological Society of London, tastefully laid out and well kept'-who can view the immense collection of animals of all kinds, from the elephant and the rhinoceros to rats and mice-without agreeing with Von Raumer, that it is only in the neighbourhood of such a city as London that such an establishment could be maintained by voluntary subscriptions and contributions ?'

And there is yet another thought that may arise in the mind of the visiter. His memory may carry him back to another great nation-the masters of the world-who exhibited hundreds of the rarest animals, where we have only units to show; but for what a different purpose! The conquered provinces were ransacked; herds of lions, thousands of wild beasts were presented to the gaze of the people, and

'Butcher'd to make a Roman holiday.'

Titus, who finished the amphitheatre which his father began, stained the arena with the blood of five thousand beasts at its dedication, while upwards of one hundred thousand Romans looked down upon the slaughter.* Trajan, at the conclusion of the Dacian war, gratified the popular thirst for blood by the destruction of ten thousand. The observances of a birth-day at Rome differed slightly from those of a birth-day at St. James's. Caligula celebrated his by giving four hundred bears and as many other wild beasts to be slain. Otherwhiles,' says the quaint translator of old Montaigne, a great ship was seen to come rolling in, which opened and divided of itself, and having disgorged from the hold four or five hundred beasts for fight, closed again and vanished without help.' But enough of these bloody scenes→→

'My soul turn from them, turn we to survey

Where rougher climes a nobler race display:'

where enormous wealth is expended, not as it was by the son-inlaw of Sylla, but in applying the arts to the comforts and innocent enjoyments of life, in advancing science, and in spreading information among the people. What a contrast is there between the peaceful repose of these Gardens and the ferocious excitement awakened by

Fighting beasts, and men to beasts exposed.'

*It has been calculated that the amphitheatre would accommodate from eighty to ninety thousand persons with seats, and about twenty thousand (excuneati) standing.

For

For with all the profuse waste of animal life to which we have only alluded, natural history made hardly any progress; and though under the later Cæsars there were private collections, the credulity of Pliny, who fondly cherished every Thessalian fable, seems to have outweighed in the great majority of instances all the opportunities of zoological information which such a rich influx of rare creatures might have given him. It is to the menageries of modern times that we must chiefly look for information as to the habits and organization of animals on any extensive scale; though we are far from undervaluing the acute penetration and comprehensive labours of that great Greek observer who, seconded by Alexander, made such admirable use of the materials which the conqueror of the East caused to be submitted to his inspection.

To our French neighbours we owe the first zoological establishment of any importance in our days; and that had its origin in the menagerie founded by Louis XIV. at Versailles. It was to Buffon, however, that the Jardin du Roi owed its value as a collection of animals; and though the political explosion which shook all Europe tore his remains from the tomb with circumstances of the most disgusting and degrading indignity, it spared the avenue of lime-trees with their sweet blossoms, the delight of bees,' which he had planted in the garden, and which still bears his name. But if the avenue was left untouched, the establishment itself was in the most imminent danger in 1792, when every vestige of the monarchy was threatened and how was it saved? Principally because it was believed that it was destined for the culture of medicinal plants, and that the laboratory of chemistry was a manufactory of saltpetre; it was 'respected,' accordingly, by the sovereign people. Here was gunpowder to wound-here were drugs to heal reasons for salvation worthy of the republic one and indivisible.' But though the Jardin des Plantes, as it was then called it now, if we mistake not, again rejoices in a royal title, though the name has been so often changed, that we would not vouch for that of next year-survived the revolution; and though the animals which had been left in a starving state at Versailles were placed, together with others, in the garden in 1794, its prosperity was but very meagre for many years. Thus, in 1800, such was the general distress, that M. Delaunay, then superintendent of the menagerie, was authorized to kill the least valuable animals to provide food for the remainder; nor was it till that extraordinary man, that setter up and puller down of kings,' who cherished science even amid the din of arms, became lord undisputed in all things, that the menagerie began steadily to improve, and finally, under the immediate auspices of Cuvier, to flourish.

We

We well remember the first public meeting for forming such an establishment in England. It seems but yesterday-how the fugaces anni have sped along!-that Davy drew attention to the subject, and Raffles so powerfully seconded the proposition. These great men have since passed away to the house appointed for all living, but the Garden and Museum of the Zoological Society of London are not to be forgotten in the catalogue of their public services. The rapidity with which the institution shot up almost at once into a flourishing condition may be gathered from the statement of one well qualified to speak on the subject—' Within the first two or three years of the existence of the Zoological Society's Garden in the Regent's Park, there were exhibited more species of living animals than are recorded to have been possessed by any similar institution on the continent in ten times the same number of years.'

*

It is our intention to take a cursory view of this Garden; but, before we enter its precincts, we must not omit to notice the Museum and the publications of the Society, now in the eleventh year of its existence. The former, thanks to a host of contributors, among whose names those of Sir Stamford Raffles and Mr. Vigors stand distinguished, is now very rich, especially in the department of ornithology. This noble collection, we are happy to observe, is now placed in a building worthy of it. The council have secured the spacious premises in Leicester Square which once held the museum of the celebrated John Hunter; and they have done well. It is classical ground. There is the very room wherein he wrote those physiological papers which have spread his name over civilized Europe; and, if the spirits of the departed be permitted to cast a lingering look at the scene of their former probation, how must his be soothed at the sight of his own grand and greatly increased physiological treasures enshrined in the temple which the President and Fellows of the Royal College of Surgeons have dedicated to them; while the locality where that museum formerly stood is enriched by one of the finest zoological collections in existence. That we do not say too much of the latter, will be readily granted by those who are conversant with the subject; and we refer those who may be disposed to think that we look upon it with too favourable an eye, to the testimony of witnesses who are beyond the reach of prejudices which we, as Englishmen, might be supposed to entertain. By the Annales des Sciences for November, 1835, it will be seen that the Museum of the Zoological Society possesses many specimens which are wanting in the French collections, and are so described in the instructions

*Mr. Gray, in his evidence given before the select committee on the condition, management, and affairs of the British Museum.

of

of M. de Blainville for the Voyage de circumnavigation de la Bonite.' That these materials have not been neglected is proved by the five volumes of Proceedings' already published, containing the descriptions of hundreds of new species, and a vast miscellany of zoological and physiological information set forth by some of our ablest pens. Of the quarto volume of "Transactions,' which owe so much to the superintendence of Mr. Bennett, the secretary, we leave our generous rivals the French to speak. They characterize the Premier volume des Transactions de la Société Zoologique de Londres' as a 'recueil également remarquable par l'intérêt des mémoires qui s'y publient et par le luxe avec lequel il est imprimé ; and, indeed, if it contained nothing besides Mr. Owen's papers on the osteology of the chimpanzee, on the Ornithorhynchus, and on the comparative anatomy of the Brachiopoda, it would deserve this praise.

But the Garden.-As we walk along the terrace commanding one of the finest suburban views to be anywhere seen, let us pause for a moment while the sweet south' is wafted over the flowery bank musical with bees, whose hum is mingled with the distant roar of the great city. Look at the richness and beauty of the scene. We do not set ourselves up as eulogists of Nash, who had his faults; but let his enemies-aye, and his friends too, for there are many that worshipped him when living who do not spare his memory now that he is laid in the narrow house-say what they will, if Nash had never done anything beyond laying out St. James's Park and the picturesque ground before us, he would, in our opinion, have atoned for a multitude of sins.

We must not, however, forget the bears. There they are, with their uncouth gestures and clumsy activity, living together amicably enough, save when an occasional growl proclaims a difference of opinion, arising from the monopoly by some crafty aspirant more ambitious than his neighbours of the head of the pole-a monopoly the more irritating, inasmuch as that elevation generally leads to the acquisition of the good things in the power of a generous public to bestow. Even the cunning chisel of the Baron of Bradwardine's sculptor could not have represented a greater variety of attitudes; their postures,' indeed, are stranger' and 'more than ever Herald drew 'em.' Mark, too, the shrewd expression of their pinky eyes,' justifying the assertion repeated from the days of Aristotle down to those of Washington Irving's ranger, that the bears is the knowingest varmint for finding out a bee tree in the world. They'll gnaw for a day together at the trunk, till they make a hole big enough to get in their paws, and then they'll haul out honey, bees and all.' We have heard some

* Annales des Sciences, Juin, 1835.

complain

complain that the grisly bear* in the den below has no pole to climb; but if he had one he would not climb, if all tales be true, for that accomplishment, it is asserted, leaves him with his early youth. The gigantic species here confined has been known in its native wilds to kill and drag away a full grown bison bull,† weighing upwards of a thousand pounds.

**

Descending the slope that skirts the lawn on which the black swan, no longer a rara avis, has twice made her nest, and now rejoices in her two cygnets; and where the New Holland goose § has hatched and brought up her young; let us—after a glance at the wild fowl with which its green carpet is dotted, and the little lake where they float at rest, enjoying the artificial fountain rain that rolls like pearl from their water-proof plumage-pause at the aviary fronting it. For among these are the lordly crowned cranes, the graceful demoiselles,¶ the elegant Stanley cranes, the comely Curassow birds, the melancholy-looking herons and bitterns that seem to pine for the whispering of reeds, the grotesque spoonbills,†† the solitary storks, both black and white, the Marabou stork,§§ with his adjutant-like stalk, and the secretary.'¶¶ This last is a character; and his official air, with his velvet shorts and slender legs, brings reminiscences of the tenant of some bureau in la vieille France. There is an air of dignity and diplomacy about him; and, though not without courage after his kind, he evidently considers discretion to be the better part of valour. Observe him when a common snake is introduced into his inclosure. Though in a state of the greatest excitement he is collected. His bright eye, terrible as Vathek's, never quits the serpent; but he keeps aloof, till, watching his opportunity, he darts at it, his foot strikes it near the neck, and with his beak he deals a murderous blow on the head of the writhing reptile, which is very often the coup de grace. But whether it be so or no, the bird recoils-still keeping his eye on the snake, whose least motion, if it be still alive, causes a renewal of the attack, retreat, and watching-till no doubt exists as to the death of the victim: the bird then cautiously approaches, and begins to devour it. Such is the secretary's mode of dealing with a common snake in captivity; and his caution evidently arises from the instinct implanted in him against those poisonous serpents which are his appointed prey in the south of Africa. His form is admirably adapted to

Ursus ferox.

†Bison Americanus, the buffalo of the Americans.
Cygnus atratus.

Balearica Pavonina.

§ Cereopsis Novæ Hollandiæ.
Anthropoïdes Virgo.

**Anthropoïdes paradisæus, Bechstein. Anthropoïdes Stanleyanus, Vigors.

tt Platalea leucorodia.

§§ Ciconia Marabou.

Ciconia alba, and C. nigra. ¶¶ Gypogeranus serpentarius.