GARDENS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY, REGENT'S PARK.


[Illustration: GARDENS OF THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY, REGENT'S PARK.]

We are again in the _Regents Park_; but we must leave its architectural
splendour for the present, and request our readers to accompany us
towards the eastern verge of the Park, to the Gardens of the Zoological
Society, established in 1826, and whose members now amount to _eleven
hundred_! The grounds are daily filled with fashionable company,
notwithstanding the great migrations which usually take place at this
season of the year, and almost depopulate the western hemisphere of
fashion. The gardens, independent of their zoological attractions, are a
delightful promenade, being laid out with great taste, and the parterres
boasting a beautiful display of flowers. The animals, too, are seen to
much greater advantage than when shut up in a menagerie, and have the
luxury of fresh air, instead of unwholesome respiration in a room or
caravan.[2]

[2] It should, however, be noticed, that the object of the
_Zoological Society_ is not the mere exhibition of animals. In
the original prospectus it is observed, that "Animals brought
from every part of the globe to be applied to some _useful_
purpose as objects of scientific research, not of vulgar
admiration; and upon such an institution, a philosophy of
zoology founded, pointing out the comparative anatomy, the
habits of life, the improvement and the methods of multiplying
those races of animals which are most useful to man, and thus
fixing a most beautiful and important branch of knowledge on the
permanent basis of direct utility." The Secretary of the Society