Zoological gardens for Philadelphia have been a dream for many years, and spasmodic efforts have been made from time to time to produce the reality, but as yet nothing tangible has resulted. The idea has been too inchoate to develop much enthusiasm, and year after year our citizens have returned from enjoying the delights of foreign gardens, and mildly wondered, in the true Philadelphia style, why we should not have them. Nor is this marvelous when we consider the present condition of the proposed Centennial Exhibition, which, it is mortifying to confess, languishes for want of proper support. It cannot be denied that in this undertaking an opportunity is presented that would be eagerly seized, with all its attendant labor and expense, by any one of the States, and that it was with great difficulty, and only because of the self-evident incongruity of holding it elsewhere, that we were permitted by the national authorities to celebrate the anniversary in Philadelphia. It is in connection with this, and as a part thereof, that the Zoological Gardens deserve immediate attention, as an additional, and next to the grand exhibition itself the principal, attraction to the hundreds of thousands who will visit the City of Brotherly Love on the Fourth of July, 1876. The plan on the next page shows the ground which has been granted by the Commissioners of the Fairmount Park to the Philadelphia Zoological Society. The gentlemen who have taken the matter in hand are well known for their energy and breadth of view, and if sustained in their endeavors will carry out the scheme in a manner worthy of this great and growing city.