Wombwell's collection comprised at this time four lions and a lioness, two leopardesses, with cubs, a hyena, a bitch wolf and cubs, a polar bear, a pair of zebras, two onagers or wild asses, and a large assortment of monkeys and exotic birds. The bills announced "a remarkably fine tigress in the same den with a noble British lion;" but Hone notes that this conjunction, the announcement of which was probably suggested by the attractiveness of the lion-tiger cubs and their parents in Atkins's menagerie, was not to be seen in reality. The combats at Warwick produced a strong desire on the part of the public to see the lions who had figured in them, and the menagerie was crowded each day from morn till night. "Manchester Jack" entered Nero's cage, and invited the visitors to follow, which many ventured to do, paying sixpence for the privilege, on his assurance that they might do so with perfect safety. Hone complains of the confusion and disorder which prevailed, and which are inseparable from a crowd, and may be not uncharitably suspected of being exaggerated in some degree by the evident prejudice which had been created in his mind by the lion-baitings at Warwick. It is certain, however, that gardens like those of the Zoological Society afford conditions for the health and comfort of the animals, and for their exhibition to the public, much more favourable than can be obtained in the best regulated travelling caravan, or in buildings such as the Tower menagerie and Exeter Change. It is impossible to do justice to animals which are cooped within the narrow limits of a travelling show, or in any place which does not admit of thorough ventilation. Apart from the impracticability of allowing sufficient space and a due supply of air, a considerable amount of discomfort to the animals is inseparable from continuous jolting about the country in caravans, and from the braying of brass bands and the glare of gas at evening exhibitions. It took even the Zoological Society some time to learn the conditions most favourable to the maintenance of the mammal tribes of tropical countries in a state of health, while subject to the restraint necessary for their safe keeping. Too much importance was at first attached to warming the cages in which the monkeys and carnivora of India and Africa were kept, and too little to ventilating them. I remember the time when the carnivora-house in the Society's gardens was a long, narrow building, with double folding-doors at each end, and a range of cages on each side. The cages were less than half the size of the light and lofty apartments now appropriated to the same species, and were artificially heated to such a degree that the atmosphere resembled that of the small glass-house in Kew Gardens in which the paper-reed and other examples of the aquatic vegetation of tropical countries are grown, and was rendered more stifling by the strong ammoniacal odour which constantly prevaded it.