Life at the Zoo. 1894

It may be said that some of the subjects of these notes are not obviously part of life at the Zoo, and this remark would be well founded. They have in the writer’s mind a connection with the Zoo, which perhaps is not obvious, and might not appeal to the majority of readers, and would certainly take more time to set out than its value warrants. So that if any reader or critic cares to press the point, he is prepared to say at once, mea culpa.

The chapters on Animal Æsthetics, dealing with the sensibility of the inmates of the Zoo to music, will be found under the title of “Orpheus at the Zoo,” by which they originally appeared in the Spectator, to the editors of which paper the author owes his thanks for suggesting many subjects of interest at the Zoo which would not have occurred to him, and for their kind permission to publish these, as well as other chapters in an extended form. He hopes that both these, and the unpublished chapters which are now added, present a fair picture of the many-sided present, as well as some glimpses of the past, of the famous menagerie in Regent’s Park.

For the insertion of animal drawings by Japanese artists, in addition to Mr. Gambier Bolton’s photographs, the writer must plead the conviction, which he has long maintained, that their truth to Nature is of its kind unrivalled.

C. J. Cornish.

Orford House, Chiswick Mall,

September 28, 1894.


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