3-011-825 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Recent additions to the Zoological Society's Collection, Regent's Park, [London], 1864. 'The blue tanager (Orchesticus ater)...[is] from the forests of Brazil. The tanager belongs to a large group of fruit-eating birds, which forms one of the most characteristic families of these regions...The woodpecker, on the other hand, is from the more northern forests of the New World. In the backwoods of the United States this bird is one of the best-known and most widely-distributed species of its tribe. It is generally known as the "Flicker," from its peculiar flight, or the "Golden-shafted" woodpecker, from the brilliant golden colouring of the stems of its wing-feathers...[Specimens from a group of animals] ...imported from various parts of the American continent, and the greater part of them represent species which had previously been brought alive to this country.... the society's [collection] of living animals...now embraces upwards of 1700 individuals from all parts of the world'. From "Illustrated London News", 1864.