"My father," said he, "who started in life as a fish dealer in this very town, never dreamed that he would one day be the founder of the greatest menagerie in the world. But it chanced that, in the year 1848, some fishermen, who usually traded with him, brought him some seals which they had caught in their sturgeon nets. They were fine animals, and he could not help being delighted with them, and straightway resolved to take them to Berlin. There he opened a small exhibition in Kroll's Gardens, charging an admission fee. But there came a revolution; business was at a standstill, and he was glad enough to get rid of the seals for a small sum of money, and to return to his fish-dealer's shop in Hamburg. But he was bitten with the wild-beast fever; live animals had more attractions for him than dead fish, and so he told the fishermen that he would always be ready to buy any queer animals they might choose to bring him. A short time after that a sailor from a whaling vessel brought him a polar bear; this he exhibited here in Hamburg. It was a great novelty, and the people flocked in crowds to see it. From that time forward, sailors from all parts of the world would bring him animals for sale--monkeys, parrots, deer, snakes, and so on; once a young lion. Gradually he got together quite a small menagerie, but I am bound to say that at first there was not much profit in the business. When I left school in 1859, at the age of fifteen, father asked me which of his two callings I would rather choose as mine. Of course, being a boy, I chose the wild beasts. He gave me a hundred and fifty pounds to spend as best I could in buying animals. Fortune favored me from the start. I made some capital bargains, increased the business rapidly, and in 1866 father handed the whole business over to me." HAGENBECK AND BARNUM. At this moment my eye fell upon a large photograph of the celebrated Mr. P. T. Barnum, which hung upon the wall. Mr. Hagenbeck, noting the direction of my gaze, said: "I suppose you know who that is?" I replied, "Why, it's P. T. Barnum." "Exactly," said he. "I was walking about the menagerie one day in 1872, when Mr. Barnum was announced. He said: 'I've just come to have a look round. I've got an hour or two to spare, and I thought I might as well spend it here as anywhere else.' Well, sir," continued Mr. Hagenbeck, smiling at the recollection of his first momentous interview with the great showman, "he stayed fourteen days, and he filled two big note-books before he left me. He was delighted with all he saw, and still more so with all I told him. I spoke about ostrich riding, suggested that it would be a splendid thing if he got up a regular wild-beast hunt in his hippodrome. He was immensely taken with the idea, and wanted me to join him as partner, but this I was not able to do. For many years I supplied him with his animals." "Why," I said, "Mr. Hagenbeck, that opened up quite a new field."