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New Worlds, New Animals edited by R. J. Hoage and William Deiss (Johns
Hopkins University Press, £13/$15.95, ISBN 0 8018 5373 7) deals
with the 19th-century passion for zoos. The contemporary illustrations are
something of a shock. To modern eyes, the buildings designed to house the
animals, in surroundings grimly different from their natural ones, are as
inhumane as they are absurd. Nevertheless, the period also showed the stirrings
of better ideas and methods.