CHAPTER XV
ZOOLOGISCHER GARTEN, DÜSSELDORF: DIRECTOR, INSPECTOR GOFFART
The Zoological Garden at Düsseldorf is owned by a company with a capital of 35,000 shares. The opening of the Garden took place on May 31, 1896. The portion laid aside for animals (not including plantations, greenhouses, pasture-land, etc.) is about twenty-seven and a half acres. Taking into consideration that Düsseldorf is not a town which is much resorted to by visitors, and that it is so close to Cologne, where it has a powerful rival, the stock of animals in the Garden is not a bad one. There is a good collection of monkeys, bears, and carnivorous animals generally. There are a fair number of rodents, a large number of deer, six bison, and a large herd of Barbary sheep. There is also a number of horses and asses for children to ride and drive.
The birds are numerous, especially the birds of prey, singing-birds, parrots, poultry, pigeons, ostriches, and cassowaries. There are some fine ponds for the ducks, and a gigantic aviary 6,000 cubic yards in extent. An artistic-looking ruin, like the Castle of Heidelburg, cost £2,700.
The yearly cost of food, which is about £1,600, gives an idea of the large number of animals and birds in the Garden.
After passing the entrance-gate (entrance fee fifty pfennig), the first pen on the left contains pheasants. We next come to a pretty garden of flower-beds, with a fountain in the middle, and close to a long line of domestic-fowl pens and a rose-garden is the concert-hall; close by is a bird-of-prey aviary, and in front of it a large Kinderspielplatz, or children’s playground, replete with swings of all sorts. Crossing a bridge over a duck-pond, we come to a most amusing little house of guinea-pigs. The house is in two stories, and you can see the guinea-pigs looking out of the windows upstairs. It looks just like a large dolls’ house. We then come to what appears to be an ancient castle in ruins, and among these ruins capers a huge flock of Barbary sheep. I should say that this is the largest herd ever brought together in captivity. I counted over sixty, including a large number of kids. Next in order is a lion house, with outside summer cages, containing lions, tigers, leopards, and pumas, as well as a handsome civet from West Africa, and a striped hyæna.
Backed by an elaborate rockwork is a sculptured lioness with cubs, very life-like. Opposite the lion house is a large lake crowded with ducks and swans. Next come foxes and wolves and two polar bears. In the American bison enclosure young ones were born in 1890, 1892, 1894, 1896, 1898, and 1899. In the next pen is a Shetland pony, and then comes a pen of yak. Deer pens follow, with a small brook running through each. Then comes one of the largest flying aviaries I have seen in any Zoological Garden. It is some 50 feet high, and has quite large trees growing in it, upon which herons build their nests. The cage was presented by Herr Oskar Aders in 1897, and it contains gulls, ducks, ruffs, oyster-catchers, and other waders.
A BARBARY RAM, DÜSSELDORF.
A curious Egyptian building, with outside paddocks, contains camels (two kinds), pigmy cattle, and an Indian elephant. This house is followed by others containing roe deer, axis deer, rabbits, kangaroos, and monkeys. I must not omit to mention a baby Bactrian camel born in the Garden.
This is quite one of the most picturesque of the many beautiful Gardens on the Continent.
I next journeyed to Krefeld by a most circuitous route, and found that the Thiergarten (wild-beast garden) contained not a single beast, but only a man, who asked me about a dozen questions in German, none of which I could answer.