LONDON ZOO’S 4000 ANIMALS

Dominion, Volume 32, Issue 156, 28 March 1939, Page 5

LONDON ZOO’S 4000 ANIMALS

Valued At £45,000 GORILLA AND RHINOCEROS EACH WORTH £2OOO The number of visitors to the Zoo in 1.938 amounted to a little more than 1,814,000, against 1,947,000 in the previous year, states the London “Observer.” Taking into account the loss sustained during the period of the crisis, the Zoological .Society is to be congratulated on the result. There have, in fact, been only 11 more nourishing years in its history. • A recent week was stock-taking week at the Zoo, wlren the curators were occupied in taking a census of their charges and in valuing the animals. The total numbers of Zoo boarders, excluding the fish and invertebrata, is about 4000. They are worth, approximately, £45,000 —a figure which, of course, does not represent the full value of the exhibits to the Zoological Society. The figure is merely an estimate required for tlie annual accounts representing the sum the society might be expected to realize on its stock in the very unlikely event of a forced sale. Gorilla Worth £2OOO.

Moina, the gorilla, and the Indian rhinoceros share the distinction of being the Zoo’s most valuable animals, each being worth £2OOO. The giant pandas are valued at £l5OO each, and .the okapi at £lOOO. The estimation of the values is a somewhat complicated matter, since various items, such as tire animal’s age, potential longevity, its general condition, and its value as a show piece must be taken into consideration. A trained elephant, for instance, that comes to the Zoo with a good character, is worth about £BOO, but the value of an untrained specimen is not more than £2OO. Lions Are Cheap. Lions, which 20 years ago were worth £l5O each, are a drug on the market and are considered worth no more than £2O. Among the birds, certain birds of paradise head the list at £BO each. A number of praying mantis have been hatched in the Insect House. These belong to a species which though indigenous to China, has, by some accident, become naturalized in California from which locality the parents were received.

Mantis are highly predaceous tropic and sub-tropic insects famed for the devotional attitude they assume when lying in wait for their prey. The spiny fore limbs are drawn up under the head and shoot forth with lightning speed at passing insects which they transfix. They have been the subject of many legends from earliest antiquity, certain Oriental . species, for instance, being reputed always to be facing Mecca when “praying.”