In this Garden are to be seen specimens of the Russian bison (_Bos bonassus_); a herd, now reduced to 500, is protected by the Czar in Lithuania, Russia. When I asked an official if it was possible to get permission to shoot one, he said it would be cheaper to kill a man. ‘It would cost you,’ he added, ‘three years’ hard labour, with a fine of 800 roubles to kill a bison; whereas, if you kill a man, it costs you only three years in Siberia, without any fine whatever.’ There were the usual concert-houses and restaurants. The Garden contains some quaintly built houses, and there are plenty of duck-ponds, trees, and grass to help to make it pretty. As I had to await permission from the police (I was not ‘wanted’) to leave Russia, I was enabled to spend a second day in this curious and out-of-the-corner Garden. Here could be seen people out of every country in Europe, mixed up with natives of China, Thibet, Mongolia, Russian Turkestan, Russian Siberia, and other Asiatic races. I chanced upon the younger son of Herr Carl Hagenbeck, the great animal importer of Hamburg, who had just arrived with some American racoons, some Shetland ponies, and other animals. I was delighted to meet someone who could speak English, and we lunched together in the Garden. Hagenbeck told me he was awaiting from Siberia a number of roe-deer, ibex, and other animals. He said that a gorilla, one of the rarest animals in captivity, and some chimpanzees were on their way to Hamburg from West Africa. [Illustration: TOWER, MOSCOW.] A fine band plays in the Garden in the afternoon, and altogether the place is quite worth a visit. CHAPTER XXX ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN, BUDA-PESTH: DIRECTOR, M. CARL SERAK This Garden is one of the youngest in Europe. The first impulse was given to the foundation by the naturalists, Joseph Gerenday and August Rubinyi, who had returned from a visit to Vienna in 1856. In 1861 a committee was formed, shares were issued, and plans were prepared. Joseph Gerenday had brought together seventy kinds of animals, and it was found difficult to house them. In 1865 the Society was at last founded, and in 1866 the town sold the company a site, but made them pay a ground-rent for it.