ZOOLOGISCHER GARTEN, POSEN, FOUNDED IN 1881: DIRECTOR, HERR JÄCKEL
After entering this Garden, I passed rows and rows of chairs and little tables in front of a large restaurant, but for a long time I was unable to find any animals. However, at length I saw a small gate, through which I passed, carefully refusing to look at a notice about photographs, lest I might be able to understand what I read. The first set of cages contained jackals and an amusing pair of Himalayan bears. The next house, a very old and dilapidated one, held black, brown, and polar bears, after which came the lion house, with large outdoor cages, containing a good collection. I had just succeeded in taking photographs of a few of the inmates, when a man appeared, and, by a good deal of talk and gesticulation made me to understand that photographing the animals was not allowed; so for the third time I was obliged to close the camera shutters.
There was an aquarium in a dark rockwork dungeon, but the number of fish in the tanks with cracked glass fronts was small. This dungeon seemed to contain a very miscellaneous collection; there was a stuffed ant-eater in a dark corner and some living mice in glass cases. In another glass case was a stuffed monkey, from the fur of which a tiny little mouse was busily engaged in making its nest. There were several cases of stuffed fish, a child’s perambulator, and an empty beer-bottle. That aquarium may be reckoned as one of the good old ‘has beens.’
In front of a duck-pond was a large house containing an Indian elephant, which consumed bags of bread, paper and all, with trumpets of immense delight; there was a black buck antelope with a broken horn, an inyala, also with a broken horn, an Indian tapir, a cassowary, a rhea, a pair of zebras, some kangaroos and donkeys. Opposite were wild-swine sheds, deer sheds, with a very good collection, and buffalo sheds. Next to these was a really good seal tank. There was a bird-of-prey aviary, and a monkey house, containing, amongst other animals, a beautiful black-and-white lemur. There were llama and camel sheds, a parrot and tropical small-birds’ aviary, and a burrowing-rodents’ house. Some dog-kennels contained pointers, Esquimaux dogs, a Russian wolf-hound, foxes, and wolves. In an open-air pen was a sedate marabou stork, which would catch bread thrown to it from a distance of ten yards, never allowing a single piece to touch the ground.
This Garden, although not large, has a remarkably good collection of animals. It seems a pity that the comparatively harmless photographer is barred, as every photograph taken in the Garden is a free advertisement.
CHAPTER XXV
ZOOLOGISCHER GARTEN, KÖNIGSBERG: DIRECTOR, HERR H. CLAASS
On March 23, 1897, the regular general meeting of the Zoological Society took place in Königsberg, during which a business report of the Society was presented. From the report brought before them by Dr. Braun I take the following extract:
The interest caused by the Arts and Crafts Exhibition of 1895 suggested the institution of a permanent zoological and pleasure garden in Königsberg. In the spring of 1896 the Garden was opened to the public; the statutes were settled upon in 1895 at the first general meeting.
The interest of the public in the Garden from the beginning was very keen. Many presents were received of plants, animals, cages, buildings, land, and materials.