ZOOLOGISCHER GARTEN, DÜSSELDORF: DIRECTOR, INSPECTOR GOFFART
The Zoological Garden at Düsseldorf is owned by a company with a
capital of 35,000 shares. The opening of the Garden took place on
May 31, 1896. The portion laid aside for animals (not including
plantations, greenhouses, pasture-land, etc.) is about twenty-seven
and a half acres. Taking into consideration that Düsseldorf is not a
town which is much resorted to by visitors, and that it is so close to
Cologne, where it has a powerful rival, the stock of animals in the
Garden is not a bad one. There is a good collection of monkeys, bears,
and carnivorous animals generally. There are a fair number of rodents,
a large number of deer, six bison, and a large herd of Barbary sheep.
There is also a number of horses and asses for children to ride and
drive.
The birds are numerous, especially the birds of prey, singing-birds,
parrots, poultry, pigeons, ostriches, and cassowaries. There are some
fine ponds for the ducks, and a gigantic aviary 6,000 cubic yards in
extent. An artistic-looking ruin, like the Castle of Heidelburg, cost
£2,700.
The yearly cost of food, which is about £1,600, gives an idea of the
large number of animals and birds in the Garden.
* * * * *
After passing the entrance-gate (entrance fee fifty pfennig), the first
pen on the left contains pheasants. We next come to a pretty garden of
flower-beds, with a fountain in the middle, and close to a long line of
domestic-fowl pens and a rose-garden is the concert-hall; close by is
a bird-of-prey aviary, and in front of it a large _Kinderspielplatz_,
or children’s playground, replete with swings of all sorts. Crossing
a bridge over a duck-pond, we come to a most amusing little house
of guinea-pigs. The house is in two stories, and you can see the
guinea-pigs looking out of the windows upstairs. It looks just like
a large dolls’ house. We then come to what appears to be an ancient
castle in ruins, and among these ruins capers a huge flock of Barbary
sheep. I should say that this is the largest herd ever brought together
in captivity. I counted over sixty, including a large number of kids.
Next in order is a lion house, with outside summer cages, containing
lions, tigers, leopards, and pumas, as well as a handsome civet from
West Africa, and a striped hyæna.
Backed by an elaborate rockwork is a sculptured lioness with cubs,
very life-like. Opposite the lion house is a large lake crowded with
ducks and swans. Next come foxes and wolves and two polar bears. In
the American bison enclosure young ones were born in 1890, 1892,
1894, 1896, 1898, and 1899. In the next pen is a Shetland pony, and
then comes a pen of yak. Deer pens follow, with a small brook running
through each. Then comes one of the largest flying aviaries I have
seen in any Zoological Garden. It is some 50 feet high, and has quite
large trees growing in it, upon which herons build their nests. The
cage was presented by Herr Oskar Aders in 1897, and it contains gulls,
ducks, ruffs, oyster-catchers, and other waders.
[Illustration: A BARBARY RAM, DÜSSELDORF.]
A curious Egyptian building, with outside paddocks, contains camels
(two kinds), pigmy cattle, and an Indian elephant. This house is
followed by others containing roe deer, axis deer, rabbits, kangaroos,
and monkeys. I must not omit to mention a baby Bactrian camel born in
the Garden.
This is quite one of the most picturesque of the many beautiful Gardens
on the Continent.
I next journeyed to Krefeld by a most circuitous route, and found that
the _Thiergarten_ (wild-beast garden) contained not a single beast, but
only a man, who asked me about a dozen questions in German, none of
which I could answer.