Abstract
MR. MAINLAND is already well known as a delightful writer of popular articles on the Zoo, and this book is no less fascinating and amusing than his earlier volumes. In this collection of articles the author takes us behind the scenes at the Zoo and tells of the worries and anxieties of keepers and staff, and of the amusing and sometimes disastrous escapades of some of the animals. Its chief merit is, perhaps, the revelation which it makes of the large amount of careful and valuable research work which has to be done and is done by the staff in their endeavours to secure the best possible results for the animals in captivity, and the care which is constantly exercised in order to obtain the most natural conditions, consistent with confinement, for their charges. The nature of the correct food, the times at which it should be given, the rearing of the young, even the breeding of suitable foster mothers for the young of birds, are all matters demanding close observation and experiment. Mr. Mainland tells how these problems have been faced and solved. The book is charmingly written in humorous vein and is eminently suitable for reading to children. Yet the professional zoologist will find in it all sorts of odd facts of natural history of real scientific interest.
The Hidden Zoo.
Leslie G.
Mainland
By. (The Broadcast Library.) Pp. 205 + 8 plates. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, Ltd., 1925.) 3s. 6d. net.
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The Hidden Zoo . Nature 117, 44 (1926). https://doi.org/10.1038/117044a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/117044a0