A Walk Through the Zoological Gardens

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IT is not by any means abundantly clear that a guide to the Zoological Society's Gardens is needed, inasmuch as there already exists the well-known and accurate guide to the Society's collection by Mr. Sclater. Although it is true that the author does not call his book a “guide” in the title, he nevertheless observes in the preface that it is his object “to conduct the reader from house to house and from paddock to paddock, pointing out the chief features of interest” on the way. We must, therefore, consider the book as intended to be a guide. As such it does not appear to us to be at all informing; it would have been well, too, to avoid positive error. The author alls a sea-lion a seal, which—seeing that true seals are often exhibited—is confusing. The African Mudfish, Protopterus, often on view in the Reptile house, is dubbed Lepidosiren, which we need scarcely explain, is a South American Dipnoan. There are other errors of fact, and certain statements which are so loose and confused that they are practically erroneous. It is naturally impossible in a small book like the present to give an exhaustive account of all the animals to be seen in the course of a year or two in the Gardens. But the author leaves out so many important beasts that he fails to convey a real notion of the extent and variety of the collection. By cutting out the tale of how he rescued a blue pencil from a cormorant, which afterwards swallowed a lady's parasol, and by forbearing to mention that porcupines “pare their teeth on elephants’ tusks” (!), and generally by avoiding gossip of a totally uninteresting and equally uninstructive kind, Mr. Aflalo might have grappled more successfully with the immense amount of material at his disposal.