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COMPRISING THE NATURAL HISTORY OF THE ANIMALS CONTAINED IN THAT ESTABLISHMENT;
WITH Anecdotes of their Characters and History.
ILLUSTRATED BY PORTRAITS OF EACH, TAKEN FROM LIFE, BY WILLIAM HARVEY; AND ENGRAVED ON WOOD BY BRANSTON AND WRIGHT.
LONDON: PRINTED FOR ROBERT JENNINGS, POULTRY; AND SOLD BY W. F. WAKEMAN, DUBLIN. M DCCC XXIX.
CHISWICK: PRINTED BY CHARLES WHITTINGHAM COLLEGE HOUSE.
TO HIS MOST EXCELLENT MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE FOURTH, THE MUNIFICENT PATRON OF THE ARTS AND SCIENCES,
IN WHICH IT IS ATTEMPTED TO COMBINE BOTH ART AND SCIENCE IN THE ILLUSTRATION OF HIS ROYAL MENAGERIE,
IS, BY HIS MAJESTY’S MOST GRACIOUS PERMISSION, HUMBLY INSCRIBED.
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.