Three Photographs of the Sporting Library of William T. Hornaday, director of the New York Zoological Park, showing his library shelves, woth mounted trophies of American Bison, Big Horn Sheep, Pronghorn Antelope, and Elk, as well as the wraparound mural of American outdoor scenes above the shelves, and paintings of Western scenes by (Hornaday, William T) - 1896

[New York, 1896. Three photographs, mounted on card, showing approx 270º of the library room. Fine in quarter green morocco dropbox. Three photographs, mounted on card, showing approx 270º of the library room. Photographs of the private library of sportsman, conservationist and naturalist William Temple Hornaday, ca. 1896, when he had just assumed the post of director of the New York Zoolological Park. Hornaday was one of the great sportsman naturalists of late nineteenth-century America who raised his voice against the wanton destruction of wildlife. "In 1886 Hornaday led an expedition to Montana to kill and collect specimens for display in the museum. This western expedition led not only to elaborately mounted habitat groups of bison but also to Hornaday's lifelong interest in the American bison and his significant 1887 study of their fate, The Extermination of the American Bison. ... Deeply committed to museums, taxidermy, and zoological collecting and to displaying the wealth and variety of the animal world to the American public, Hornaday eagerly accepted in 1896 the position of director of the New York Zoological Park, a post he held for the next three decades. As director he had the opportunity to plan, build, and supervise the development of a zoo where the public could view animals safely maintained in ingeniously created natural environments. Even as his family habitat groups became the standard for museum displays of mounted animals, so the 261 acres of the New York Zoological Society's Bronx Zoo became the world's exemplar for the exhibition of living wildlife." (ANB).