Abstract
I. THE sagacious founders of the Zoological Society of London made it a special rule that no dividends or gifts of any kind should be distributed amongst the members. On the contrary, every Fellow has to contribute an annual sum towards the maintenance of the Society's establishment, unless he prefers to pay a life-composition in lieu thereof. Moreover, the Society are so fortunate as to be unencumbered by borrowed capital. They have consequently no burden in the shape of interest to be provided for. It follows that after putting aside from their income a sum sufficient to meet the annual expenditure, they are able to devote the surplus to new buildings in the Gardens, and to the acquisition of new and rare subjects for the menagerie. While the supply of lions, tigers, elephants, and other well-known animals must always be kept up for the delectation of the ordinary public, and for the maintenance of the best possible living series of animals, it is also thus in their power to acquire animals of specially scientific value, in which the casual observer would take little interest, and which would, therefore, be quite ineligible except in a scientific point of view. This course of action has been adopted for many years, more especially since the foundation of the office of “Prosector” to the Society. For these special acquisitions not only delight the eyes of the intellectual observer while they live, but furnish the prosector with subjects for his studies when dead. Those who are acquainted with the Proceedings and Transactions of the Zoological Society of London will be well aware of the amount of work that has thus been accomplished as regards the anatomy of many of the rarer birds and mammals.
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Illustrations of New or Rare Animals in the Zoological Society's Living Collection . Nature 23, 35–38 (1880). https://doi.org/10.1038/023035e0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/023035e0