Evelyn, in 1664, went to "the Physique Garden in St. James's," where
he first saw "orange trees and other fine trees." He enumerates in
the menagerie, "an ornocratylus, or pelican; a fowle between a storke
and a swan; a melancholy water-fowl, brought from Astracan by the
Russian ambassador; a milk-white raven; two Balearian cranes," one of
which, had a wooden leg "made by a soulder:" there were also "deere of
severall countries, white, spotted like leopards; antelopes, an elk,
red deer, roebucks, staggs, Guinea goates, Arabian sheepe, &c." There
were "withy-potts, or nests, for the wild fowle to lay their eggs in, a
little above y^e surface of y^e water."
"25 Feb. 1664. This night I walk'd into St. James his Parke, where I saw
many strange creatures, as divers sorts of outlandish deer, Guiny sheep,
a white raven, a great parrot, a storke.... Here are very stately walkes
set with lime trees on both sides, and a fine pallmall."[3]
Upon the eastern island is the Swiss Cottage of the Ornithological
Society, built in 1841 with a grant of 300l. from the Lords of
the Treasury: it contains a council-room, keepers' apartments,
steam-hatching apparatus; contiguous are feeding-places and decoys; and
the aquatic fowl breed on the island, making their own nests among the
shrubs and grasses.
The majority of Zoological Gardens now in existence have been founded
in this century, with the exception of the Jardin des Plantes, which,
although founded in 1626, did not receive its first living animals until
the year 1793-1794. Hitherto, it had been a Garden of Plants exclusively.
We shall not be expected to enumerate the great Continental gardens,
of which that at Berlin, half an hour's drive beyond the Brandenburg
gates, contains the Royal Menagerie; it is open upon the payment of
an admission fee, and generally resembles our garden at the Regent's
Park. Berlin has also its Zoological Collection in its Museum of Natural
History. This collection is one of the richest and most extensive in
Europe, especially in the department of Ornithology: it includes the
birds collected by Pallas and Wildenow, and the fishes of Bloch. The
best specimens are those from Mexico, the Red Sea, and the Cape. The
whole is exceedingly well arranged, and _named_ for the convenience of
students. Still, our Zoological Collection in the British Museum (to be
hereafter removed to South Kensington) is allowed to be the finest in
Europe.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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