CHEETAHS OR HUNTING LEOPARDS.
(Photo by Ottomar Anschütz, Berlin.)
The Zoological Garden in Hanover is well worth a visit. It is situated in a shady wood, and contains some very quaint houses. The first house one encounters is devoted to cranes and herons. In the centre of the Garden is a duck-pond with an island in the middle, upon which are placed what look like tiny dog-kennels. In these little houses the water-fowl build their nests. In the monkey house were a hamadrya and a remarkably fine baboon, both animals comparatively rare in collections. There is a substantially built bear castle well filled, and close to it is the concert-hall, in which a fine band was playing when I visited the Garden. From the top of a high arch of rockwork a view of the whole Garden can be obtained, but there are so many trees in it that the view is somewhat disappointing. There is a large and handsome antelope and camel house, with dome and minarets, containing Shetland ponies, camels, zebus, white-tailed gnus, an Oryx leucoryx, black buck, an ostrich, a rhea, some donkeys, a zebra, a roan antelope, and a Cape hartebeest, the last two rarely seen in collections—in fact, the Cape hartebeest is the first I saw on the Continent. He was very nervous and restless, and utterly refused to stand still to be photographed. A lion house contained two remarkably fine lions.
It is curious how wonderfully well lions thrive in captivity and what fine manes they grow. I have seen several lions in the African jungle, but not one had a mane to compare with those carried by menagerie beasts. This is accounted for partly because in a cage there is no thorn-bush to tear the hair, and partly because the food is better and more regular, causing less mange in the skin. Besides lions there were leopards, pumas, cheetahs, a black leopard, and some tiny bear-cubs in the lion house. In a house built just like a church with a steeple was a huge Asiatic elephant, a smaller elephant, and a hippopotamus. Pens of yak and American bison, several deer, dogs, and wolves, and a parrot house brought a very interesting collection to a close.
Crowds of people watched the animals, listened to the band, or drank coffee in the restaurant, the extremely pretty uniforms of numbers of soldiers adding to the picturesqueness of the scene.
CHAPTER XVIII
ZOOLOGISCHER GARTEN, HAMBURG: DIRECTOR, DR. BOLAU
On January 28, 1860, Baron Ernst von Merck, Herr H. Meyer, Consul Schiller, General Consul de Craecket, and others met together and formed a provisional company for the founding of a Zoological Society, the main end and aim of which should be to settle the site of a Zoological Garden in Hamburg. Baron Ernst von Merck was elected President and Herr H. Meyer Vice-president, whilst Consul Schiller was made Treasurer.
On July 10, 1860, the first general meeting of the shareholders took place to consider the construction of the society and the making of regulations. The directors approached the Municipal Council with a view to obtaining a suitable site for a Zoological Garden, and the Council gave a plot of land to the society free of ground-rent for fifty years. The buildings were at once taken in hand by Herr Meuron and Herr Haller, and the landscape-gardening by Herr Jürgens. The capital was taken up by 800 shareholders.
The preparing of the land, which consisted of a large sand-desert, occasioned endless trouble and waste of time and money, especially at the beginning. The Directors, however, were not discouraged, as they were helped not only by large presents of animals, but also of building materials, etc. An otter basin was paid for by Baron von Merck, who, with other gentlemen, gave an important contribution to the bear pit. The main entrance-gate, the wapiti house, the seal enclosure, the tapir house, the antelope house, and the drainage system of the grounds were all given by various individuals. The ladies of Hamburg and Altona opened a subscription, which resulted in the building of an ostrich house.