The origin of Menageries dates from the most remote antiquity. Their existence may be traced even in the obscure traditions of the fabulous ages, when the contests of the barbarian leader with his fellow-men were relieved by exploits in the chase scarcely less adventurous, and when the monster-queller was held in equal estimation with the warrior-chief. The spoils of the chase were treasured up in common with the trophies of the fight; and the captive brute occupied his station by the side of the vanquished hero. It was soon discovered that the den and the dungeon were not the only places in which this link of connexion might be advantageously preserved, and the strength and ferocity of the forest beast were found to be available as useful auxiliaries even in the battle-field. The only difficulty to be surmounted in the application of this new species of brute force to the rude conflicts of the times consisted in giving to it the wished-for direction; and for this purpose it was necessary that the animals to be so employed should be confined in what may be considered as a kind of Menagerie, there to be rendered subservient to the control, and obedient to the commands, of their masters.

In the theology too of these dark ages many animals occupied a distinguished place, and were not only venerated in their own proper persons, on account of their size, their power, their uncouth figure, their resemblance to man, or their supposed qualities and influence, but were also looked upon as sacred to one or other of the interminable catalogue of divinities, to whose service they were devoted, and on whose altars they were sacrificed. For these also Menageries must have been constructed, in which not only their physical peculiarities but even their moral qualities must have been to a certain extent studied; although the passions and prejudices of the multitude would naturally corrupt the sources of information thus opened to them, by the intermixture of exaggerated perversions of ill observed facts and by the addition of altogether imaginary fables.

If to these two kinds of Menageries we add that which has every where and under all circumstances accompanied the first dawn of civilization, and which constitutes the distinguishing characteristic of man emerging from a state of barbarism and entering upon a new and social state of existence, the possession of flocks and herds, of animals useful in his domestic economy, serviceable in the chase, and capable of sharing in his daily toils, a tolerable idea may be formed of the collections which were brought together in the earliest ages, and were more or less the subjects of study to a race of men who were careless of every thing that had no immediate bearing upon their feelings, their passions, or their interests.

But as civilization advanced, and the progress of society favoured the developement of mind, when those who were no longer compelled by necessity to labour for their daily bread found leisure to look abroad with expanded views upon the wonders of the creation, the animal kingdom presented new attractions and awakened ideas which had before lain dormant. What was at first a mere sentiment of curiosity became speedily a love of science; known objects were examined with more minute attention; and whatever was rare or novel was no longer regarded with a stupid stare of astonishment and an exaggerated expression of wonder, but became the object of careful investigation and philosophic meditation. Such was the state of things in civilized Greece when the Macedonian conqueror carried his victorious arms to the banks of the Indus, and penetrated into countries, not altogether unknown to Europeans, but the natural productions of which were almost entirely new to the philosophers of the West. With the true spirit of a man of genius, whose sagacity nothing could escape, and whose views of policy were as profound as the success of his arms was splendid, Alexander omitted no opportunity of proving his devotion to the cause of science; and the extensive collections of rare and unknown animals which he transmitted to his old tutor and friend, in other words the Menagerie which he formed, laid the foundation of the greatest, the most extensive, and the most original work on zoology that has ever been given to the world. The first of moral philosophers did not disdain to become the historian of the brute creation, and Aristotle’s History of Animals remains a splendid and imperishable record of his qualifications for the task.

Very different were the feelings by which the Roman generals and people were swayed even in their most civilized times and at the height of their unequalled power. Through all the gloss which history has thrown over the character of these masters of the universe there appears a spirit of unreclaimed barbarity which was never entirely shaken off. From the scenes of their distant conquests their prÆtors sent to the metropolis of the world bears and lions and leopards and tigers; but a love of science had no share in the motives for the gratification of which they were transmitted, and the chief curiosity manifested on such occasions by the people of Rome was to ascertain how speedily hundreds or thousands, as the case might happen, of these ferocious beasts would destroy each other when turned out half-famished into the public amphitheatre, or how long a band of African slaves, of condemned criminals, or of hired gladiators, would be able to maintain the unequal contest against them. The consul or emperor who exhibited at one time the greatest number of animals to be thus tortured before the eyes of equally brutal spectators was held in the highest esteem among a people who regarded themselves as civilized, and whose chief delight was in witnessing these wanton effusions of blood. It was only under the later CÆsars that a few private individuals brought together in their vivaria a considerable number of rare and curious animals; and the Natural History of Pliny derives most of its zoological value from the opportunities which he had of consulting these collections. But the monstrous fables and the innumerable errors, which the most superficial examination would have taught him to correct, with which every page of this vast compilation absolutely teems, speak volumes with regard to the wretched state of natural science in the most splendid days of Roman greatness.

From the unsuspecting credulity with which this textbook of the naturalists of the middle ages continued to be received, it is evident that the science remained stationary, if it did not actually retrograde, during the lapse of fourteen or fifteen centuries. The want of opportunities of investigation may be regarded as the principal cause of this lamentable deficiency. Some of the rarer animals, it is true, were occasionally to be seen in Europe; but Menageries constructed upon a broad and comprehensive plan were as yet unknown. The first establishment of modern days, in which such a plan can fairly be said to have been realised, was the Menagerie founded at Versailles by Louis the Fourteenth. It is to this institution that we owe the Natural History of Buffon and his coadjutor Daubenton; the one as eloquent as Pliny, with little of his credulity, but with a greater share of imagination; and the other a worthy follower of Aristotle in his habits of minute research and patient investigation, but making no pretensions to the powerful and comprehensive mind and the admirable facility of generalising his ideas which so preeminently distinguished that great philosopher.

Of the characters of most of the institutions which we have noticed the Tower Menagerie has at various times partaken in a greater or less degree. Originally intended merely for the safe-keeping of those ferocious beasts, which were until within the last century considered as appertaining exclusively to the royal prerogative, it has occasionally been converted into a theatre for their contests, and has terminated by adapting itself to the present condition of society as a source of rational amusement and a school of zoological science.

The first notice of a Royal Menagerie in England places this establishment at Woodstock, where King Henry the First had a collection of lions, leopards, and other strange beasts. Three leopards were presented to Henry the Third by the Emperor Frederic the Second, himself a zoologist of no mean rank. From Woodstock they were transferred to the Tower; and numerous orders issued in this and the succeeding reigns to the sheriffs of London and of the counties of Bedford and Buckingham to provide for the maintenance of the animals and their keepers are extant among the Records. Thus in the year 1252 the sheriffs of London were commanded to pay four pence a day for the maintenance of a white bear; and in the following year to provide a muzzle and chain to hold the said bear while fishing, or washing himself, in the river Thames. In 1255 they were directed to build a house in the Tower for an elephant which had been presented to the king by Louis king of France; and a second writ occurs in which they were ordered to provide necessaries for him and his keepers.

From various orders during the reigns of Edward the First, Second, and Third, we learn that the allowance for each lion or leopard was six pence a day, and the wages of their keeper three halfpence. At later periods the office of keeper of the lions was held by some person of quality about the king, with a fee of six pence a day for himself, and the same for every lion or leopard under his charge. On these terms it was granted by King Henry the Sixth, first to Robert Mansfield, Esq. marshal of his hall, and afterwards to Thomas Rookes, his dapifer. It was not unfrequently held by the lieutenant or constable of the Tower himself, on the condition of his providing a sufficient deputy. There was also another office in the royal household somewhat resembling this in name, that of master, guider, and ruler of the king’s bears and apes; but the latter animals appear to have been kept solely for the royal “game and pleasure.”

During all this period, and even almost down to our own times, the common phrase of “seeing the lions” in the Tower appears to have been almost literally correct, for we seldom hear of any other animals confined there than lions or leopards. Howel tells us in his Londinopolis, published in 1657, that there were then six lions in the Tower, and makes no allusion to any other animals as being at that time contained in it. In 1708 some improvement had taken place; for there were then, according to Strype, no fewer than eleven lions, two leopards or tigers (the worthy historian, it seems, knew not which), three eagles, two owls, two cats of the mountain, and a jackal. Maitland gives a much longer catalogue as existing there in 1754; and this is still further extended in a little pamphlet entitled “An Historical Description of the Tower of London and its Curiosities,” published in 1774. After this time, however, the collection had been so greatly diminished both in value and extent, that in the year 1822, when Mr. Alfred Cops, the present keeper, succeeded to the office, the whole stock of the Menagerie consisted of the grizzly bear, an elephant, and one or two birds. How rapidly and how extensively the collection has increased under his superintendence will best be seen by a reference to the numerous and interesting animals whose natural history forms the subject of the present work. By his spirited and judicious exertions the empty dens have been filled, and new ones have been constructed; and the whole of them being now kept constantly tenanted, the Menagerie affords a really interesting and attractive spectacle to the numerous visiters who are drawn thither either from motives of curiosity or by a love of science.

Such is a brief outline of the history up to the present period of the establishment known as the Tower Menagerie. Of the animals contained in it during the summer of 1828, and of two others which had then recently died, the succeeding pages offer delineations, descriptions, and anecdotes. Among so numerous a collection of inhabitants, of such dissimilar habits, and brought together into one spot from such distant and various climes, some changes have almost necessarily taken place even while our work has been passing through the press; yet so excellent is the management of Mr. Cops, especially as regards cleanliness, that essential security of animal health, that not a single death has occurred from disease, and one only from an accidental cause: the secretary bird, having incautiously introduced its long neck into the den of the hyÆna, was deprived of it and of its head at one bite. Other removals are owing to the spirit of commerce. The Cape lion, the chetahs, the Thibet bear, and the deep-blue macaw, have passed into foreign hands, and are now on the continent of Europe. Two of the wolves and one of the Javanese civets have been transferred to the Zoological Society; and the white antelope has also exchanged its habitation in the Tower for the delightful Garden created by that Society in the Regent’s Park.

With the exceptions which have just been enumerated the whole of the animals which are here figured and described are actually living in the Tower Menagerie. Their continuance there affords a test of the fidelity of our work which could not be applied to any production on zoology that has yet appeared in this country, nor, to an equal extent, in any other. As a visit to the Menagerie will enable the reader at once to compare our representations and descriptions with their living prototypes, the imperative necessity of scrupulous accuracy has been deeply impressed throughout the whole undertaking on the minds of those who have been engaged in its completion. In this, it is trusted, they have fully succeeded. To explain the share which each has taken in the work, and to record a debt of gratitude to those kind friends who have assisted in it, is the pleasing duty which it now remains to fulfil.

The whole of the drawings are from the pencil of Mr. William Harvey, who, in seizing faithful and characteristic portraits of animals in restless and almost incessant motion, has succeeded in overcoming difficulties which can only be appreciated by those who have attempted similar delineations. In the portraits he has strictly confined himself to the chastity of truth; but in the vignettes, which have always some reference to the subject of the article which they conclude, he has occasionally held himself at liberty to give full scope to his imagination.

The engravings have been executed throughout by Messrs. Branston and Wright. Determined on securing the accuracy of the representations, they have in every instance compared the proofs with the animals, and have made corrections where necessary until the resemblance has been rendered perfect. In one case alone has a deviation from the original been indulged in: the tail of the ocelot has been figured of the length usual in the species, instead of the truncated state in which it exists in the specimen; the markings of the animal are, however, as noticed in its article, accurately represented.

The literary department has been superintended by E. T. Bennett, Esq. F.L.S., an active member of the Zoological Society, who has arranged for the press the whole of the materials collected from various and authentic sources. To John Bayley, Esq. F.R. and A.S. M.R.I.A. &c. he is indebted for several suggestions in addition to the information contained in that gentleman’s valuable work, “The History and Antiquities of the Tower of London.” To Mr. Alfred Cops, the present Keeper of the Lions, whose meritorious exertions for the increase and improvement of the Menagerie have been already adverted to, he has also to tender his thanks and those of his coadjutors for the facilities constantly afforded to them in the most ready and obliging manner, and for much valuable information relative to the history and habits of the animals.

But especially are his best thanks due for numerous suggestions and much valuable assistance to his friend N. A. Vigors, Esq. A.M. F.R. and L.S., the zealous and talented Secretary of the Zoological Society. To that distinguished zoologist, whose extensive and intimate acquaintance with the animal kingdom at large, and particularly with its feathered tribes, is universally acknowledged, and to other leading Members of the Society to which he devotes his talents and his time, a work like the present appeared not ill adapted to advance the good cause in which they are engaged, the diffusion of knowledge. Under their auspices it was commenced, by their countenance it has been fostered, and it is with the sanction of their approval that it is now submitted to the public eye.

London, Nov. 1828.