Beyond the lake and water-fowl pond stands the monkey house, a large white building of Moorish design, 800 square yards in area, the boast of the Gardens and the finest in Europe. There is a central large cage (90 by 18 feet), replete with amusements, such as the village pump and well, the great wheel, aerial flight, rocking-horse, and automatic running donkeys, that never fail to please the animals and cause endless fun to the spectators. The side cages usually contain specimens of the larger baboons and the more delicate monkeys and lemurs. The house is lofty and well lighted. Ventilation is amply provided by the removal of all the windows at one end, as experience has proved that the monkeys live much better in the fresh air. Formerly, with the house kept hot and close, the mortality was high. Now, with free access to the open air, it is much lower, and every morning the whole troop can be seen sitting in the sunshine even when the ground is snow-covered. But even these animals suffer much more severely than those that are made to endure all the rigour and changes of our climate with no artificial heat whatever. The baboons, Rhesus, Bonnet, and Ringtail, all seem to improve under this régime; two drills, turned out as babies six years ago, are now perhaps the finest of their kind in Europe, and the tonic is so efficacious that ailing monkeys removed from indoors often recover with surprising rapidity. Such success suggested a similar open-air cage for the chimpanzees, but with a heated inner chamber. These delicate animals can often be seen enjoying the fresh air even in winter. It is the custom here to educate these anthropoids, two of which, named respectively Consul I. and II., developed quite extraordinary intelligence, so great in one case as to merit and receive in life a biography that had a much larger circulation than such books usually obtain, and in death the honour of an obituary verse, which we give below, from the pen of Ben Brierley, one of Lancashire’s most honoured poets (‘Consul I.,’ 1892-93): ‘“Hadst thou a soul”?’ I’ve pondered o’er thy fate Full many a time: Yet cannot truly state The result of my ponderings. Thou hadst ways In many things like ours. Then who says Thou’rt not immortal? That no mortal knows, Not e’en the wisest--he can but _suppose_. ‘’Tis God alone knows where the “Missing Link” Is hidden from our sight; but, on the brink Of that Eternal line where we must part For ever, sundering heart from heart, The truth shall be revealed; but not till then-- The curtain, raised by the Almighty, when Mankind must answer for the deeds of men.’ BEN BRIERLEY.