If by Christopher Benfey

Author:Christopher Benfey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2019-07-08T16:00:00+00:00

2.

A popular destination for these leisured aristocrats was the National Zoological Park, established by Congress in 1889 and first opened to the public in 1891. The National Zoo was placed under the administrative auspices of Samuel Langley, director of the Smithsonian Institution. The original conception was double: to amuse and instruct the urban inhabitants while preserving native species threatened by overhunting and the timber industry. The grounds were laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York’s Central Park, on 166 forested acres along Rock Creek in northwest Washington. Here, Kipling and his new friends could talk freely, safely out of public view.

The zoo’s first director was William Temple Hornaday, a taxidermist by trade and a fierce advocate of wildlife preservation. Hornaday had assembled a Noah’s Ark of 185 animals, sheltered in makeshift pens and cages on the Washington Mall, adjoining the Smithsonian’s main building. Hornaday’s menagerie, which he originally used as his taxidermy models, became the first inhabitants of the zoo. These included, according to Smithsonian records, “buffalo, a black bear, woodchucks, a panther, a grizzly bear cub, a Carolina black bear, a bald eagle, turkey vultures, and black snakes.”

The charms of the zoo were not lost on Kipling. He was adding stories to The Jungle Book, and the animals he encountered at the zoo confirmed details in the narrative. The zoo also brought him fresh ideas for further stories. Spring Rice, Phillips, and Roosevelt escorted Kipling to the Smithsonian, where Langley gave him various publications, including one on Inuit culture. One such pamphlet inspired the story “Quiquern,” in The Second Jungle Book, about two sled dogs. The young men then proceeded to the zoo, where Kipling, according to Spring Rice, “was like a child and roared with laughter at the elephants and the bears.” More pilgrimages followed, and the zoo soon became Kipling’s favorite Washington destination. Roosevelt made it clear that he wanted to show off the bears to his new friend. As Kipling recalled in Something of Myself, he and Roosevelt “would go off to the Zoo together,” where Roosevelt “talked about grizzlies that he had met”—presumably on his hunting forays in the Rockies.

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