In 1901 the expenses amounted to 169,300 guilders 90 cents, and the receipts were 170,847 guilders 94 cents, giving a surplus of 1,547 guilders 4 cents.
The concerts during the summer months take place every Tuesday and Friday at 8 p.m., and on Sundays at 2.30 or 8 p.m. The lions are fed at 2.30.
These are fine Gardens, and contain a magnificent concert-hall. The first house encountered contains, in separate pens, an oryx antelope, a gnu, nylgai, yaks, zebus, Indian buffaloes and American bison. Near a bear house, containing black, brown, European and grizzly bears, and striped hyænas, is a very fine bird-of-prey aviary.
One of the prettiest sights in the Gardens was a family of water-buck—two female, one male, and a baby. The wild-sheep grotto, surmounted by a tower, was extremely picturesque, and up and down the rockwork jumped guanacos, alpacas, llamas, wild goats, Barbary sheep, moufflons, ibex and chamois. There was a pretty duck-pond and lake, crossed by two wooden bridges. The airy lion house, with seventeen dens, contained a jaguar, lions, leopards, cheetah, two black leopards and pumas. Close by was a camel house, a monkey house with outdoor summer cages, and a very good collection of pheasants.
Crowds of children proved a great nuisance whilst I was attempting to take photographs. There was a large open-air cage, in which herons, storks and gulls flew about at will. There was a pigeon house, with a picturesque tower, two polar bears, a number of Indian muntjac, and a fine lot of red deer and wapiti. In all there are no less than fifty-four different animal enclosures, and the buildings also include a large restaurant, with great hall, reading-room, ladies’-room, dining-room, zoological museum (upstairs), ethnological museum, director’s house, office, library, workshop and officials’ houses.
CHAPTER VIII
ZOOLOGISK HAVE, COPENHAGEN
The Zoological Garden in Copenhagen was founded in 1859 by Dr. Kjaerblling. It is a quaint Garden, situated by the side of a large park. On paying fifty ore to a pretty girl (the first pretty girl I had seen in Denmark) at the entrance, I found myself opposite a large duck-pond with little islands in it, upon which were placed boxes for the birds to build their nests in. Close by the side of the pond was a model in plaster of the huge Dinosaurus iguanodon, a kangaroo-like reptile long ago extinct, a skeleton of which is to be seen in the Brussels Museum.
Near a large restaurant was placed an ingeniously constructed seal tank, like an aquarium, with a thick plate-glass front to enable one to see the creature swimming about below the surface of the water. It was amusing to watch it sitting bolt upright, with its tail resting on the bottom of the tank, and its nose and eyes just above the surface of the water.
Next came a pair of water-buffalo and their baby, and an American bison. In the centre of the Garden was a pheasant pen, and a very large aviary with trees growing in it, upon the top of which herons built their nests. There were many duck and fowl aviaries, some of the latter having curious little houses with ponds in front of them. There was a small cats’ house, which smelt abominably. This, however, is unavoidable, containing as it does foxes, civets, polecats, wild cats, servals, porcupines, wolves, jackals and two sorts of hyænas. There was a lion house with outside cages, containing a pair of lions, a pair of tigers, leopards, jaguars and a puma (the latter always growling). Another house contained a very miscellaneous collection—some goats, a pair of Shetland ponies, a magnificent cassowary (very tame), a tapir, some Brahma cattle, some wild boars, a lot of guinea-pigs, a crane, two dorcas gazelle, two muntjacs, an enormous zebra, and a tiny donkey.