ever, the entire quarterly report, as in it also will appear the engravings and descriptions of hitherto unfigured animals, and a general account of the quarterly proceedings of the entire establishment, and other matters of interest.
Thus it will be seen that the prosectorial department is one of the most important connected with the institution, and in due time will contribute to the common stock of scientific knowledge a mass of information of a peculiarly valuable character, and of a kind, as a rule, not easily obtainable in any other way.
Taken, then, in its entirety, a zoölogical garden, such as I have attempted to outline in this paper, has within its means to powerfully aid, encourage, and stimulate human progress, education, and science in an infinite variety of ways; and such an institution stands among the very best of investments to be made either on the part of State or city. Here are library, lecture, art, design, and interest for the multitude, and yet how rarely does it occur to the mind of the philanthropist to make an endowment in such a direction! Moneys diverted into such channels not only are given to the cause of education and learning and art, but to the embellishment of the city where the garden is founded, to the interest of its people, and the perpetuation of the name of the donor. Zoölogical gardens, again, even exert a far more powerful influence toward luring those of certain classes and conditions away from the vices of a city than does the museum or the library; while, with others, it leads to a greater interest and appreciation of the other establishments and their advantages.
With respect to a nation as a whole that has arrived at a certain height of civilization, and can boast of a well-filled treasury, it almost, if not quite, becomes her bounden duty to her people, and to the common good, to endow such an institution at her national capital, in connection with other scientific departments, of which she is the supporter in chief. And it should be the pride of every intelligent citizen of such a nation to see to it, as far as he is individually able, that the capital of his country is not backward in such matters, especially when he comes to look about him and sees that the most distinguished and influential nations of the earth are characterized by possessing just such institutions at the seat of their national governments.
