[THYLACINE] Official Guide to the Gardens and Aquarium of the Zoological Society of London

Cover title: The Zoological Society of London. Guide to the Gardens and Aquarium, Regents Park. London : The Zoological Society, 1930. 27th edition. Royal octavo, original pictorial stiff wrappers, light edge wear, pp i-xvi, 1-121, [3], with 67 photographic illustrations, folding map; a very good copy.

On page 105 of this guide is a photograph of the London Zoo’s “Thylacine, or Tasmanian wolf”, taken by D. Seth Smith. This was the last living specimen outside Australia. A female, she had been purchased for £150 in 1925, and was the last of numerous thylacines exported – with varying degrees of success – to zoos in London, Paris, Antwerp, Cologne, Berlin and New York between the 1850s and 1920s. She died at London Zoo on 9 August 1931. The last known captive specimen of Thylacinus cynocephalus died in the Hobart Zoo in 1936.

Monash University Library holds the only copy of the 27th edition in Australian collections.