The Teaching Value of Menageries

Abstract

SO far as the general public is concerned, there is always a very considerable danger lest menageries should be regarded merely as places of amusement and curiosity, and that their great value as teachers of zoology should be more or less completely ignored. The main object of the volume before us appears to be to emphasise the teaching value of institutions of this nature, and to show what admirable schools for acquiring the rudiments of practical zoology lie ready to our hand, if only we will take advantage of our opportunities; in other words, we have nature-teaching of a unique description awaiting our attention. Mr. Bed-dard treats, indeed, his subject almost exclusively from this point of view, so that his volume forms, in great degree, a sketchy kind of text-book of vertebrate zoology, illustrated by a number of first-class photographs and drawings of the animals under discussion. Such a mode of treatment necessarily prevents the inclusion of any great amount of matter Karea. My new in his work, and from one point a matter for regret that the author, with hililong experience of the establishment in the Regent's Park, has not seen his way to give us more information with o regard to the behaviour and life-history of animals in menageries. One point in this connection on which information is sadly lacking is the duration of life of animals in menageries, and the periods during which individuals of long-lived species have survived in captivity. So far as we have seen, information on this latter point is given only in two cases, namely, in that of the polar bear and that of the pelican. Possibly, however, the author may have in view a companion volume, in which these phases will form the leading theme; and if so, we feel sure that it will supply a marked want.