Foreign News: Man Out of Zoo

Julian Huxley, dull scientist brother of sprightly Novelist Aldous, was reminded last week of the old nursery rhyme, “While the cat’s away the mice will play.” His Government-sponsored lecture tour of the U.S. finished, Scientist Huxley was awaiting a ship to take him back to England when word came that he had been fired as director of the London Zoo.

The Zoo’s Council averred that Julian was junked because of “financial stringency owing to the war.” But London’s scientific circles, knowing that Huxley had already accepted a 50% cut in his $6,800-a-year salary, had even offered to work for nothing if necessary, sniffed a more rooted reason. The Council headed by Lord Halifax’s brother-in-law, the Earl of Onslow, has long disapproved of Huxley’s liberal politics (frequently propounded in newspaper articles), his outside activities (weekly appearances on the BBC’s popular Brain Trust program) and his blasphemous innovations in the Zoo (modernistic penguin pool, Children’s Corner).

Said Scientist J. B. S. Haldane, one of the Council members who opposed the ouster: “Huxley is in America with the backing of the British Council. . . . His dismissal will spread considerable alarm and despondency among professional workers because it discourages people from doing work for the Government.”

During Biologist Huxley’s absence, practical biology in London’s Zoo has carried on. Five white male goats were born to the Royal herd. The bear cages are crowded with the addition of seven brown cubs. Five baby Bactrian camels of Russian descent are expected to arrive sometime next month.