Popular Official Guide to the New York Zoological Park (September 1915): Thirteenth EditionHornaday, William T. (William Temple)
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Popular Official Guide to the New York Zoological Park (September 1915): Thirteenth Edition
Hornaday, William T. (William Temple)
New York Zoological Park
Of the Lynxes, we have two well-defined species, and one subspecies. The
Canada Lynx, (_Lynx canadensis_), is well represented in the southern
compartment of the Puma House, where a fine adult pair has become
acclimatized. This is the _Loup Cervier_ of the French Canadians, and it
is truly the Lynx of Canada and the subarctic North. It has _no spots on
its body_, and its pelage is a cold pepper-and-salt gray color. Its feet
are large and heavily furred, and it has a long, black hair-pencil on
the tip of each ear. A large specimen stands 18 inches high, and weighs
22 pounds. The food of the American Lynxes generally consists of hares
and rabbits, ground birds of all kinds, and anything else that can be
caught and killed, except porcupine. To man they are not “dangerous
animals.”
THE BURROWING MAMMALS, AND OTHERS, No. 42.
North America is wonderfully rich in species of gnawing animals, and the
end is not yet. The investigations of our mammalogists are adding new
species with a degree of rapidity and parallelism that is fairly
bewildering.
It is the duty of the Zoological Society to do its utmost to increase as
much as possible the sum total of knowledge of our largest Order of
Mammals. Manifestly, however, it is impracticable to do more than place
before visitors a reasonable number of well-chosen types, which shall
represent as many as possible of the twelve Families, and also the
genera most worth knowing.
The most serious obstacle in the way of anyone who attempts to exhibit
collections of living rodents lies in the natural propensity of so many
species to keep out of sight during the daytime. This is particularly
true of the members of the Mouse, Pocket Gopher, and Pouched Rat
Families, comprising about three hundred species in all. With very few
exceptions, the whole matter of the exhibition of collections of living
rodents is something new, and every step is an experiment. In the belief
that even the most shy burrowing animals will appreciate abundant room,
perfectly natural surroundings, plenty of food, and immunity from
annoyance, and eventually fall into the habit of spending many of the
daylight hours above ground, as do prairie-dogs, the Society has
constructed a series of fifteen small yards, each 10×20 feet, bounded by
walls going down to bedrock, and enclosed above by a box-like
arrangement of very light wire-netting 5 feet high. The ground is
chiefly undisturbed soil of a firm and gravelly nature, thoroughly
drained, and all earth filling has been tightly rammed into place to
prevent caving in the burrows. Above ground, each yard contains
weathered rocks, stumps, and hollow logs in abundance.
In these fifteen yards, each of which will hold specimens of at least
two or three species, will be placed strongly marked types of those
families whose representatives are most numerous in North America, and
also the least known, only a few of which may be mentioned here.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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