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
The Large Bird-House is an L-shaped building, with an all-glass house in
its angle. The main hall extends east and west, and it is 60 feet long
by 50 feet wide. This great room contains the foreign song-birds, many
tropical doves and pigeons, and such tropical varieties and oddities as
the great crowned pigeons, tinamous, toucans, giant king-fishers and
hornbills. In the great central flying cage there is perhaps the most
remarkable _omnium-gatherum_ of small tropical birds—swimmers, waders,
upland game birds and perchers—ever brought together in one cage. The
bottom of the L is the Parrots’ Hall, 65×30 feet. It contains the
parrots, macaws, cockatoos, and a few other species.
[Illustration: SERIEMA.]
[Illustration: SECRETARY BIRD.]
In the angle of the main building stands a structure almost wholly
composed of metal and glass, which is known as the Glass Court. It was
designed especially for North American song-birds. The visitor should
not overlook the fact that there are cages filled with birds all along
both the eastern and western sides of the Large Bird House.
Nearly all the cages of both the exterior and interior of the Main and
Parrots’ Halls, are accessible from the back by passage-ways; a
convenience that greatly facilitates the work of the keepers in caring
for their various charges.
The capacity of this installation as a whole may be judged from the
following memorandum of cages:
APPROXIMATE SIZES OF CAGES OF THE LARGE BIRD-HOUSE
_INDOORS._
Main Hall Central Flying Cage 15×36×20 feet high 1
Side Cages 5×5×9 35
End Cages 5×12×9 2
Parrot Hall Side Cages 6×8×9 21
Glass Court West Cages 8×9×9 6
East & North Cages 5×6×8 16
_OUTDOORS._
Northeast Cages 7×12×10 2
East Cages 6×8×10 10
Southeast Circular Flight Cage 20×20×2 1
South Cages 6×8×10 3
Large Western Cages 15×15×15 3
Smaller Western Cages 6×9×10 14
Total number of cages 114
Regarding the state of health and spirits of the birds in this building,
the visitor must be left to judge for himself. It is only fair to state,
however, that the death rate here and indeed amongst the birds of the
Park generally, is _very low_.
In view of the great number of avian species inhabiting the Large
Bird-House, it is a practical impossibility to give more than a general
outline of the groups and leading features of the collection.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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