We are glad to repeat this anecdote, although some may call it "stale and old." The last time we were at the Zoological Gardens, in the Regents Park, London, we saw a lion very kindly come and rub itself against the rails of its den, on seeing a turbaned visitor come up, who addressed it. The man had been kind to it on its passage home. It was by no means a tame lion, nor one that its keeper would have ventured to touch.

SIR GEORGE DAVIS AND THE LION

Steele, in the 146th Guardian,[141] has followed up a paper by Addison, on the subject of lions, and gives an anecdote sent him, he says, by "a worthy merchant and a friend of mine," who had it in the year 1700 from the gentleman to whom it happened.

"About sixty years ago, when the plague raged at Naples, Sir George Davis, consul there for the English nation, retired to Florence. It happened one day he went out of curiosity to see the great duke's lions. At the farther end, in one of the dens, lay a lion, which the keepers in three years' time could not tame, with all the art and gentle usage imaginable. Sir George no sooner appeared at the grates of the den, but the lion ran to him with all the marks of joy and transport he was capable of expressing. He reared himself up, and licked his hand, which this gentleman put in through the grates. The keeper affrighted, took him by the arm and pulled him away, begging him not to hazard his life by going so near the fiercest creature of that kind that ever entered those dens. However, nothing would satisfy Sir George, notwithstanding all that could be said to dissuade him, but he must go into the den to him. The very instant he entered, the lion threw his paws upon his shoulders, and licked his face, and ran to and fro in the den, fawning and full of joy, like a dog at the sight of his master. After several embraces and salutations exchanged on both sides, they parted very good friends. The rumour of this interview between the lion and the stranger rung immediately through the whole city, and Sir George was very near passing for a saint among the people. The great duke, when he heard of it, sent for Sir George, who waited upon his highness, to the den, and to satisfy his curiosity, gave him the following account of what seemed so strange to the duke and his followers:—

"'A captain of a ship from Barbary gave me this lion when he was a young whelp. I brought him up tame, but when I thought him too large to be suffered to run about the house, I built a den for him in my courtyard; from that time he was never permitted to go loose, except when I brought him within doors to show him to my friends. When he was five years old, in his gamesome tricks, he did some mischief by pawing and playing with people. Having griped a man one day a little too hard, I ordered him to be shot, for fear of incurring the guilt of what might happen; upon this a friend who was then at dinner with me begged him: how he came here I know not.'

Here Sir George Davis ended, and thereupon the Duke of Tuscany assured him that he had the lion from that very friend of his."

CANOVA'S LIONS AND THE CHILD.

The mausoleum of Pope Clement XII., whose name was Rezzonico, is one of the greatest works of Antonio Canova, the celebrated Italian sculptor. It is in St Peter's, at Rome, and was erected in 1792. It is only mentioned here on account of two lions, which were faithfully studied from nature.

His biographer, Mr Memes,[142] tells us that these lions were formed "after long and repeated observation on the habits and forms of the living animals. Wherever they were to be seen Canova constantly visited them, at all hours, and under every variety of circumstances, that he might mark their natural expression in different states of action and of repose, of ferocity or gentleness. One of the keepers was even paid to bring information, lest any favourable opportunity should pass unimproved."

One of these lions is sleeping, while the other, which is under the figure of the personification of religion, couches—but is awake, in attitude of guarding inviolate the approach to the sepulchre, and ready with a tremendous roar to spring upon the intruder.

Canova himself was much pleased with these lions. Mr Memes illustrates their wonderful force and truth by a little anecdote.

"One day, while the author (a frequent employment) stood at some distance admiring from different points of view the tomb of Rezzonico, a woman with a child in her arms advanced to the lion, which appears to be watching. The terrified infant began to scream violently, clinging to the nurse's bosom, and exclaiming, 'Mordera, mamma, mordera!' (It will bite, mamma; it will bite.) The mother turned to the opposite one, which seems asleep; her charge was instantly pacified; and smiling through tears, extended its little arm to stroke the shaggy head, whispering in subdued accents, as if afraid to awake the monster, 'O come placido! non mordero quello, mamma.' (How gentle! this one will not bite, mother.")

ADMIRAL NAPIER AND THE LION IN THE TOWER.

Admiral Sir Charles Napier, K.C.B., when a boy in his fourteenth year, visited London on his way to join his first ship at Spithead, the Renown. His biographer tells us he was staying at the house of a relative, who, "after showing the youngster all the London sights, took him to see the lions at the Tower. Amongst them was one which the keeper represented as being so very tame that, said he, 'you might put your hand into his mouth.' Taking him at his word, the young middy, to the horror of the spectators, thrust his hand into the jaws of the animal, who, no doubt, was taken as much by surprise as the lookers-on. It was a daring feat; but providentially he did not suffer for his temerity."[143] This reminds the biographer of Nelson's feat with the polar bear, and of Charles Napier's (the soldier) bold adventure with an eagle in his boyhood, as related by Sir William Napier in the history of his gallant brother's life.

OLD LADY AND THE BEASTS ON THE MOUND.

When the houses were cleared from the head of the Mound in Edinburgh, a travelling menagerie had set up its caravans on that great earthen bridge, just at the time when George Ferguson, the celebrated Scotch advocate, better known by his justiciary title of Lord Hermand, came up, full of Pittite triumph that the ministry of "all the talents" had fallen. "They are out! they are all out! every mother's son of them!" he shouted. A lady, who heard the words, and perceived his excited condition, imagined that he referred to the wild beasts; and seizing the judge by his arm, exclaimed, "Gude heaven! we shall a' be devoored!"[144]

FOOTNOTES:

[136] "Physics and Physicians: a Medical Sketch-Book," vol. i. p. 174. It was published anonymously in 1839.

[137] "Life in the Mission, the Camp, and the Zenana; or, Six Years in India," vol. ii. p. 382.

[138] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 237.

[139] August 20, 1713. Chalmers's edition of "British Essayists," vol. xviii. p. 85.

[140] Up for lost.

[141] August 28, 1713. Chalmers's edition of "British Essayists," vol. xviii p. 116.

[142] "Memoirs of Antonio Canova," by J. S. Memes, A.M. 1825. Pp. 332, 334, 346.

[143] "The Life of Admiral Sir Charles Napier, K.C.B," by Major-General Elers Napier, vol. i. p. 8.



SEALS.

A most intelligent group of creatures, some of which the compiler has watched in Yell Sound, close to Mossbank. He has even seen them once or twice in the Forth, close to the end of the pier. In the Zoological Gardens a specimen of the common seal proved for months a great source of attraction by its mild nature, and its singular form and activity. It soon died, and, had a coroner's jury returned a verdict, it would have been "Death from the hooks swallowed with the fish" daily provided. We have heard seal-fishers describe the great rapidity of the growth of seals in the Arctic seas. They seem in about a fortnight after their birth to attain nearly the size of their mothers. The same has been recorded of the whale order. Both seals and whales have powers of assimilating food and making fat that are unparalleled even by pigs. The intelligence of seals is marvellous. Many who visited the Zoological Gardens in the Regent's Park in May and June 1866 witnessed instances of this in a seal from the South Seas, recently exhibited in London. Persons on the sea-side might readily domesticate these interesting and truly affectionate creatures. Hooker's sea-bear, the species exhibited in London, was at first, so the kind Frenchman told us, very fierce, but soon got reconciled to him, and, when I saw it, great was the mutual attachment. It was a strangely interesting sight to see the great creature walk on its fin-like legs, and clamber up and kiss the genial-bearded French sailor.

DR ADAM CLARKE ON SHETLAND SEALS.

In Shetland, Dr Adam Clarke tells us the popular belief is that the seals, or, as they call them, selkies, are fallen spirits, and that it is dangerous to kill any of them, as evil will assuredly happen to him who does. They think that when the blood of a seal touches the water, the sea begins to rise and swell. Those who shoot them notice that gulls appear to watch carefully over them; and Mr Edmonston assured him that he has known a gull scratch, a seal to warn it of his approach. Dr Clarke, in the second of his voyages to Shetland, had a seal on board, which was caught on the Island of Papa. He says:—"It refuses all nourishment; it is very young, and about three feet long; it roars nearly like a calf, but not so loud, and continually crawls about the deck, seeking to get again to sea. As I cannot bear its cries, I intend to return it to the giver. Several of them have been tamed by the Shetlanders, and these will attend their owners to the place where the cows are milked, in order to get a drink. This was the case with one Mr Henry of Burrastow brought up. When it thought proper it would go to sea and forage there, but was sure to return to land, and to its owner. They tell me that it is a creature of considerable sagacity. The young seal mentioned above made his escape over the gangway, and got to sea. I am glad of it; for its plaintive lowing was painful to me. We saw it afterwards making its way to the ocean."[145]

DR EDMONSTON ON SHETLAND SEALS.

Every one familiar with seals is struck with their plaintive, intelligent faces, and any one who has seen the seals from time to time living in the Zoological Gardens must have been pleased with the marks of attention paid by them to their keepers. Dr Edmonston of Balta Sound has published in the "Memoirs of the Wernerian Society"[146] a graphic and valuable paper on the distinctions, history, and hunting of seals in the Shetland Isles. As that gentleman is a native of Unst, and had, when he wrote the Memoir, been for more than twenty years actively engaged in their pursuit, both as an amusement and as a study, we may extract two or three interesting passages.

He remarks (p. 29) on the singular circumstance that so few additions have been made to the list of domestic animals bequeathed to us from remote antiquity, and mentions the practicability of an attempt being made to tame seals; and also says that it is yet to be learned whether they would breed in captivity and remain reclaimed from the wild state. The few instances recorded in books of natural history of tame seals refer to the species called Phoca vitulina, but of the processes of rearing and education we have no details. "The trials," continues Dr Edmonston, "I have made on these points have been equally numerous on the great as on the common seal. By far the most interesting one I ever had was a young male of the barbata species: he was taken by myself from a cave when only a few hours old, and in a day or two became as attached as a dog to me. The varied movements and sounds by which he expressed delight at my presence and regret at my absence were most affecting; these sounds were as like as possible to the inarticulate tones of the human voice. I know no animal capable of displaying more affection than he did, and his temper was the gentlest imaginable. I kept him for four or five weeks, feeding him entirely on warm milk from the cow; in my temporary absence butter-milk was given to him, and he died soon after.

"Another was a female, also of the great seal species, which we captured in a cave when about six weeks old, in October 1830. This individual would never allow herself to be handled but by the person who chiefly had the charge of her, yet even she soon became comparatively familiar.

"It was amusing to see how readily she ascended the stairs, which she often did, intent, as it seemed, on examining every room in the house; on showing towards her signs of displeasure and correction, she descended more rapidly and safely than her awkwardness seemed to promise.

"She was fed from the first on fresh fish alone, and grew and fattened considerably. We had her carried down daily in a hand-barrow to the sea-side, where an old excavation admitting the salt water was abundantly roomy and deep for her recreation and our observation. After sporting and diving for some time she would come ashore, and seemed perfectly to understand the use of the barrow. Often she tried to waddle from the house to the water, or from the latter to her apartment, but finding this fatiguing, and seeing preparations by her chairman, she would of her own accord mount her palanquin, and thus be carried as composedly as any Hindoo princess. By degrees we ventured to let her go fairly into the sea, and she regularly returned after a short interval; but one day during a thick fall of snow she was imprudently let off as usual, and, being decoyed some distance out of sight of the shore by some wild ones which happened to be in the bay at the time, she either could not find her way back or voluntarily decamped.

"She was, we understood, killed very shortly after in a neighbouring inlet. We had kept her about six months, and every moment she was becoming more familiar; we had dubbed her Finna, and she seemed to know her name. Every one that saw her was struck with her appearance.

"The smooth face without external ears—the nose slightly aquiline—the large, dark, and beautiful eye which stood the sternest human gaze, gave to the expression of her countenance such dignity and variety that we all agreed that it really was super-animal. The Scandinavian Scald, with such a mermaid before him, would find in her eye a metaphor so emphatic that he would have no reason to borrow the favourite oriental image of the gazelles from his Caucasian ancestors.

"This remarkable expressiveness and dignity of aspect of the Haff-fish, so superior to all other animals with which the fishermen of Shetland were acquainted, and the human character of his voice, may have procured for him that peculiar respect with which he was regarded by those who lived nearest his domains, and were admitted to most frequent intercourse with him. He was the favourite animal of superstition, and a few tales of him are still current. These, however, are not of much interest or variety, the leading ideas in them being these: That the great seal is a human soul, or a fallen angel in metempsychosis, and that to him who is remarkable for hostility to the phocal race some fatal retribution will ensue. I can easily conceive the feeling of awe with which a fisherman would be impressed when, in the sombre magnificence of some rocky solitude, a great seal suddenly presented himself, for an interview of this kind once occurred to myself.

"I was lying one calm summer day on a rock a little elevated above the water, watching the approach of seals, in a small creek formed by frowning precipices several hundred feet high, near the north point of the Shetland Islands.

"I had patiently waited for two hours, and the scene and the sunshine had thrown me into a kind of reverie, when my companion, who was more awake, arrested my attention. A full-sized female haff-fish was swimming slowly past, within eight yards of my feet, her head askance, and her eyes fixed upon me; the gun, charged with two balls, was immediately pointed. I followed her with the aim for some distance, when she dived without my firing.

"I resolved that this omission should not recur, if she afforded me another opportunity of a shot, which I hardly hoped for, but which actually in a few moments took place. Still I did not fire, until, when at a considerable distance, she was on the eve of diving, and she eluded the shot by springing to a side. Here was really a species of fascination. The wild scene, the near presence and commanding aspect of the splendid animal before me, produced a spellbound impression which, in my sporting experience, I never felt before.

"On reflection, I was delighted that she escaped.

"The younger seals are the more easy to tame, but the more difficult to rear; under a month old they must be fed, and, especially the barbata, almost entirely on milk, and that of the cow seems hardly to agree with them.

"Perhaps their being suckled by a cow fed chiefly on fish, the giving them occasionally a little salt water, and then by degrees inducing them to eat fish, might be the best mode until they attained the age of being sustained on fish alone. In the barbata, to insure rapid taming, it appears to be necessary to capture them before the period of casting the foetal hair, analogous to what I have observed in the case of the young of water-birds before getting up their first feathers, and when they are entirely covered with the egg down.

"These changes seem connected with a great development of the wild habits, and attachment to, and knowledge of, the localities where they have first seen the light. As the barbata is until this period in reality a land animal, the chief difficulty we have to surmount with it is in the quality of the milk to be given it. The vitulina is essentially an inhabitant of the water from its birth, yet the care of the mother is perhaps for weeks necessary to judge how long and how often it should be on land, and this we can hardly expect to imitate. In the young of this species a few days old, which we have tried to rear, a want of knowledge of this kind of management may have led to failure. I have not attempted to rear them at a greater age.

"The Greenland seal is, I have been informed, occasionally kept for a month or two on board the whalers, and thrives sufficiently well on the flesh of sea-birds. This species appears to bring forth in January, and therefore it is subjected to captivity.

"I know but comparatively little of its capability of being easily tamed; but this quality, of itself, is no evidence of superior intelligence.

"Might it not be easy to induce Greenland shipmasters to bring some of these animals to England, where they would be accessible to the observation of zoologists.

"One mode of attempting to tame them might be to take half-grown animals in a net, or surprise them on land, and then keep them in salt-water ponds in a semi-domestic state: if any of them were pregnant when caught, or could be got to breed, the main difficulty would be overcome."

Long as these extracts are, they possess great interest as being derived from observations on living animals made by one who was a friend of the Duke of Wellington, and was always welcomed by him. His northern Island of Unst is a fine field for studying marine animals. The sweeping currents of the Arctic oceans bring creatures to the quiet voes and sounds. Shetland in spring, summer, and autumn is a favoured locality for the naturalist and painter.

THE WALRUS.

There was some likelihood, a few years ago, that a most attractive animal would be added to the collection of the Zoological Society. But, unfortunately for the public gratification, as well as the remuneration of the spirited captain who brought the creature, it reached the gardens in a dying state, and only survived a few days. But it is not the first of its family which has travelled so far to the southward. Nearly 250 years ago a specimen was brought alive by some of the Arctic adventurers, and excited no little surprise, as old Purchas tells us. It was in the year 1608, when "the king and many honourable personages beheld it with admiration, for the strangeness of the same, the like whereof had never before beene seene alive in England. Not long after it fell sicke and died. As the beast in shape is very strange, so is it of strange docilitie, and apt to be taught, as by good experience we often proved."

The figure which accompanies this paper was drawn from our late lamented visitor by Mr Wolf, who sketched it before its removal to the Zoological Gardens. Captain Henry caught it during a whaling expedition, and sent it to London. Though quite young, it was nearly four feet in length; and when the person who used to feed it came into the room, it would give him an affectionate greeting, in a voice somewhat resembling the cry of a calf, but considerably louder. It walked about, but, owing to its weakness, soon grew tired, and lay down. Unlike the seals, to which it is closely allied, the walrus has considerable power with its limbs when out of the water, and can support its bulky body quite clear of the ground. Its mode of progression, however, is awkward when compared with ordinary quadrupeds; its hind-limbs shuffling along, as if inclosed in a sack. In some future season, when a lively specimen reaches the Gardens, and is accommodated with an extensive tank of water, there is no reason why the walrus should not thrive as well as the seal, or his close, though not kind, neighbour of the North, the Polar bear.



The walrus, morse, or sea-horse (Trichechus rosmarus, Linn.[147]), is one of the most characteristic inhabitants of the Arctic regions. There it is widely distributed, and thence it seldom wanders. One or two specimens were killed on the shores of the northern Scottish islands in 1817 and 1825; but these instances seem hardly to admit of its introduction into our fauna, any more than West Indian beans, brought by the currents, are admissible into our flora. It is mentioned by some old Scottish writers[148] among our native animals, and at one time may have been carried to our coasts on some of the bergs, which are occasionally seen in the German Ocean after the periodical disruptions of the Arctic ice. Like the Polar bear, however, the walrus has evidently been formed by its Creator for a life among icy seas, and there it is now found often in large herds. Captain Beechey and other voyagers to the seas around Spitzbergen, describe them as being particularly abundant on the western coast of that inclement island. The captain says that in fine weather they resort to large pieces of ice at the edge of the main body, where herds of them may be seen of sometimes more than a hundred individuals each. "In these situations they appear greatly to enjoy themselves, rolling and sporting about, and frequently making the air resound with their bellowing, which bears some resemblance to that of a bull. These diversions generally end in sleep, during which these wary animals appear always to take the precaution of having a sentinel to warn them of any danger." The only warning, however, which the sentinel gives, is by seeking his own safety; in effecting which, as the herd lie huddled on one another like swine, the motion of one is speedily communicated to the whole, and they instantly tumble, one over the other, into the sea, head-foremost, if possible; but failing that, anyhow.

Scoresby remarks that the front part of the head of the young walrus, without tusks, when seen at a distance, is not unlike the human face. It has the habit of raising its head above the water to look at ships and other passing objects; and when seen in such a position, it may have given rise to some of the stories of mermaids.

There is still a considerable uncertainty as to the food of the walrus. Cook found no traces of aliment in the stomachs of those shot by his party. Crantz says that in Greenland shell-fish and sea-weeds seem to be its only subsistence. Scoresby found shrimps, a kind of craw-fish, and the remains of young seals, in the stomachs of those which he examined. Becchey mentions, that in the inside of several specimens he found numerous granite pebbles larger than walnuts. These may be taken for the same purpose that some birds, especially of the gallinaceous order, swallow bits of gravel. Dr Von Baer concludes, from an analysis of all the published accounts, that the walrus is omnivorous.[149] A specimen that died at St Petersburg was fed on oatmeal mixed with turnips or other vegetables; and the little fellow, who lately died in the Regent's Park, seems to have been fed by the sailors on oatmeal porridge.

One of the chief characteristics of the walrus is the presence of two elongated tusks (the canine teeth) in the upper jaw. According to Crantz, it uses these to scrape mussels and other shell-fish from the rocks and out of the sand, and also to grapple and get along with, for they enable it to raise itself on the ice. They are also powerful weapons of defence against the Polar bear and its other enemies.

The walrus attains a great size. Twelve feet is the length of a fine specimen in the British Museum. Beechey's party found some of them fourteen feet in length and nine feet in girth, and of such prodigious weight that they could scarcely turn them over.

Gratifying accounts are given of the attachment of the female to its young, and the male occasionally assists in their defence when exposed to danger, or at least in revenging the attack. Lord Nelson, when a lad, was coxwain to one of the ships of Phipps's expedition to the Arctic seas, and commanded a boat, which was the means of saving a party belonging to the other ship from imminent danger. "Some of the officers had fired at and wounded a walrus. As no other animal," says Southey, "has so human-like an expression in its countenance, so also is there none that seems to possess more of the passions of humanity. The wounded animal dived immediately, and brought up a number of its companions; and they all joined in an attack upon the boat. They wrested an oar from one of the men; and it was with the utmost difficulty that the crew could prevent them from staving or upsetting her, till the Carcass's boat (commanded by young Horatio Nelson) came up: and the walruses, finding their enemies thus reinforced, dispersed." And Captain Beechey gives the following pleasing picture of maternal affection which he witnessed in the seas around Spitzbergen: "We were greatly amused by the singular and affectionate conduct of a walrus towards its young. In the vast sheet of ice which surrounded the ships, there were occasionally many pools; and when the weather was clear and warm, animals of various kinds would frequently rise and sport about in them, or crawl from thence upon the ice to bask in the warmth of the sun. A walrus rose in one of these pools close to the ship, and, finding everything quiet, dived down and brought up its young, which it held to its breast by pressing it with its flipper. In this manner it moved about the pool, keeping in an erect posture, and always directing the face of the young towards the vessel. On the slightest movement on board, the mother released her flipper, and pushed the young one under water; but, when everything was again quiet, brought it up as before, and for a length of time continued to play about in the pool, to the great amusement of the seamen, who gave her credit for abilities in tuition, which, though possessed of considerable sagacity, she hardly merited."

The walrus has two great enemies in its icy home—the Polar bear and the Esquimaux. Captain Beechey thus graphically describes the manoeuvres of that king of the Bruin race, which must often be attended with success. The bears, when hungry, are always on the watch for animals sleeping upon the ice, and try to come on them unawares, as their prey darts through holes in the ice. "One sunshiny day a walrus, of nine or ten feet length, rose in a pool of water not very far from us; and after looking around, drew his greasy carcase upon the ice, where he rolled about for a time, and at length laid himself down to sleep. A bear, which had probably been observing his movements, crawled carefully upon the ice on the opposite side of the pool, and began to roll about also, but apparently more with design than amusement, as he progressively lessened the distance that intervened between him and his prey. The walrus, suspicious of his advances, drew himself up preparatory to a precipitate retreat into the water in case of a nearer acquaintance with his playful but treacherous visitor; on which the bear was instantly motionless, as if in the act of sleep; but after a time began to lick his paws, and clean himself, occasionally encroaching a little more upon his intended prey. But even this artifice did not succeed; the wary walrus was far too cunning to allow himself to be entrapped, and suddenly plunged into the pool; which the bear no sooner observed than he threw off all disguise, rushed towards the spot, and followed him in an instant into the water, where, I fear, he was as much disappointed in his meal, as we were of the pleasure of witnessing a very interesting encounter."

The meat of the walrus is not despised by Europeans, and its heart is reckoned a delicacy. To the Esquimaux there is no greater treat than a kettle well filled with walrus-blubber; and to the natives along Behring's Straits this quadruped is as valuable as is the palm to the sons of the desert. Their canoes are covered with its skin; their weapons and sledge-runners, and many useful articles, are formed from its tusks; their lamps are filled with its oil; and they themselves are fed with its fat and its fibre. So thick is the skin, that a bayonet is almost the only weapon which can pierce it. Cut into shreds, it makes excellent cordage, being especially adapted for wheel-ropes. The tusks bear a high commercial value, and are extensively employed by dentists in the manufacture of artificial teeth. The fat of a good-sized specimen yields thirty gallons of oil.—A. White, from "Excelsior."

FOOTNOTES:

[144] "A Tour in Tartan-Land," by Cuthbert Bede.

[145] "Life," vol. iii. p. 188.

[146] Vol. viii. pp. 1-16.

[147] Trichechus, from the Greek [Greek: trichas echon], "having hairs:" walrus, the German wallross, "whale-horse."

[148] See Fleming's "British Animals," p. 19.

[149] Mem. Acad. Imp. Sc. St. Petersb., 1838, p. 232. Professor Owen has communicated to the Zoological Society the anatomy of the young walrus; and much valuable information will be found in Dr Gray's "Catalogue of Mammalia in the British Museum."



KANGAROOS.

What dissertation on the strange outward form, or stranger mode of reproduction to which this famed member of the Marsupialia belongs, could contain as much in little space as Charles Lamb's happy description in his letter to Baron Field, his "distant correspondent" in New South Wales? When that was written, and for long after, it may be necessary to tell some, Australia was chiefly known as the land of the convict.

"Tell me," writes Elia, "what your Sidneyites do? Are they th-v-ng all day long? Merciful heaven! what property can stand against such a depredation? The kangaroos—your aborigines—do they keep their primitive simplicity un-Europe-tainted, with those little short forepuds, looking like a lesson framed by nature to the pickpocket! Marry, for diving into fobs they are rather lamely provided a priori; but if the hue and cry were once up, they would show as fair a pair of hind-shifters as the expertest locomotor in the colony."[150]

In one of his letters to another of his favoured correspondents he alludes to his friend Field having gone to a country where there are so many thieves that even the kangaroos have to wear their pockets in front, lest they be picked!

KANGAROO COOKE.

Major-General Henry Frederick Cooke, C.B. and K.C.H., commonly called Kang-Cooke, was a captain in the Coldstream Guards, and aide-de-camp to the Duke of York. He was called the kangaroo by his intimate associates. It is said that this arose from his once having let loose a cageful of these animals at Pidcock's Menagerie, or from his answer to the Duke of York, who, inquiring how he fared in the Peninsula, replied that he "could get nothing to eat but kangaroo."[151] Moore, in his Diary,[152] December 13, 1820, records that he dined with him and others at Lord Granard's. Cooke told of Admiral Cotton once (at Lisbon, I think) saying during dinner, "Make signals for the Kangaroo to get under way;" and Cooke, who had just been expressing his anxiety to leave Lisbon, thought the speech alluded to his nickname, and considered it an extraordinary liberty for one who knew so little of him as Admiral Cotton to take. He found out afterwards, however, that his namesake was a sloop-of-war.

FOOTNOTES:

[150] "Distant Correspondents," in the Essays of Elia, first series ed. 1841, p. 67.

[151] Jesse's "Life of Beau Brummell," vol. i. p. 288.

[152] "Memoirs, Correspondence," &c., edited by Lord John Russell, vol. iii. p. 179.



THE TIGER-WOLF.

(Thylacinus cynocephalus.)

The great order, or rather division, of mammalia, the Marsupialia,[153] is furnished with a pouch, into which the young are received and nourished at a very early period of their existence. The first species of the group, known to voyagers and naturalists, was the celebrated opossum of North America, whose instinctive care to defend itself from danger causes it to feign the appearance of death. As the great continent of Australia became known, it was found that the great mass of its mammalia, from the gigantic kangaroo to the pigmy, mouse-like potoroo, belonged to this singular order. The order contains a most anomalous set of animals, some being exclusively carnivorous, some chiefly subsisting on insects, while others browse on grass; and many live on fruits and leaves, which they climb trees to procure; a smaller portion subsisting on roots, for which they burrow in the ground. The gentle and deer-faced kangaroo belongs to this order; the curious bandicoots, the tree-frequenting phalangers and petauri, the savage "native devil,"[154] and the voracious subject of this notice.

The "tiger-wolf" is a native of Van Diemen's Land, and is strictly confined to that island. It was first described in the ninth volume of the "Linnean Transactions," under the name of Didelphis cynocephalus, or "dog-headed opossum," the English name being an exact translation of its Latin one. Its non-prehensile tail, peculiar feet, and different arrangement of teeth, pointed out to naturalists that it entered into a genus distinct from the American opossums; and to this genus the name of Thylacinus[155] has been applied; its specific name cynocephalus being still retained in conformity with zoological nomenclature, although M. Temminck, the founder of the genus, honoured the species with the name of its first describer, and called it Thylacinus Harrisii.

Mr Gould has given a short account of this quadruped in his great work, "The Mammals of Australia," accompanied with two plates, one showing the head of the male, of the natural size, in such a point of view as to exhibit the applicability of one of the names applied to it by the colonists, that of "zebra-wolf." He justly remarks that it must be regarded as by far the most formidable of all the marsupial animals, as it certainly is the most savage indigenous quadruped belonging to the Australian continent. Although it is too feeble to make a successful attack on man, it commits great havoc among the smaller quadrupeds of the country; and to the settler it is a great object of dread, as his poultry and other domestic animals are never safe from its attacks. His sheep are, especially, an object of the colonist's anxious care, as he can house his poultry, and thus secure them from the prowler; but his flocks, wandering about over the country, are liable to be attacked at night by the tiger-wolf, whose habits are strictly nocturnal. Mr Gunn has seen some so large and powerful that a number of dogs would not face one of them. It has become an object with the settler to destroy every specimen he can fall in with, so that it is much rarer than it was at the time Mr Harris, its first describer, wrote its history, at least in the cultivated districts. Much, however, of Van Diemen's Land is still in a state of nature, and as large tracts of forest-land remain yet uncleared, there is abundance of covert for it still in the more remote parts of the colony, and it is even now often seen at Woolnoth and among the Hampshire hills. In such places it feeds on the smaller species of kangaroos and other marsupials,—bandicoots, and kangaroo-rats, while even the prickle-covered echidna—a much more formidable mouthful than any hedgehog—supplies the tiger-wolf with a portion of its sustenance. The specimen described by Mr Harris was caught in a trap baited with the flesh of the kangaroo. When opened, the remains of a half-digested echidna[156] were found in its stomach.

The tiger-wolf has a certain amount of daintiness in its appetite when in a state of nature. From the observations of Mr Gunn it would seem that nothing will induce it to prey on the wombat,[157] a fat, sluggish, marsupial quadruped, abundant in the districts which it frequents, and whose flesh would seem to be very edible, seeing that it lives on fruits and roots. No sooner, however, was the sheep introduced than the tiger-wolf began to attack the flocks, and has ever since shown a most unmistakable appetite for mutton, preferring the flesh of that most useful and easily-mastered quadruped to that of any kangaroo however venison-like, or bandicoot however savoury. The colonists of Van Diemen's land have applied various names to this animal, according as its resemblance to other ferocious quadrupeds of different climates struck their fancy. The names of "tiger," "hyena," and "zebra-wolf," are partly acquired from its ferocity, somewhat corresponding with that of these well-known carnivorous denizens of other lands, and partly from the black bands which commence behind the shoulders, and which extend in length on the haunches, and resemble in some faint measure those on the barred tyrant of the Indian jungles, and the other somewhat similarly ornamented mammalia implied in the names. These bars are well relieved by the general grayish-brown colour of the fur, which is somewhat woolly in its texture, from each of the hairs of which it is composed being waved.

The specimens in the Zoological Gardens are very shy and restless; when alarmed they dash and leap about their dens and utter a short guttural cry somewhat resembling a bark. This shyness is partly to be attributed to their imperfect vision by day, and partly to their resemblance in character to the wolf, whose treachery and suspicious manners in confinement must have struck every one who has gazed on this "gaunt savage" in his den in the Regent's Park. The specimens exhibited are the first living members of the species first brought to Europe. The male was taken in November 1849, and the female at an earlier period in the same year, on the upper part of St Patrick's River, about thirty miles north-east of Launceston. After being gradually accustomed to confinement by Mr Gunn, they were shipped for this country, and reached the Gardens in the spring of 1850. It is very seldom, indeed, that they are caught alive; and when so caught they are generally at once killed, so that it was with some difficulty and by offering a considerable pecuniary inducement to the shepherds, that they were at last secured for the Zoological Society.[158] In their den they show great activity, and can bound upwards nearly to the roof of the place where they are confined.—A. White, from "Excelsior."

FOOTNOTES:

[153] So called from the Latin word marsupium, a pouch.

[154] Diabolus ursinus, the ursine opossum of Van Diemen's Land, a great destroyer of young lambs.

[155] From the Greek words for a pouch and a dog, [Greek: thylakos] and [Greek: kuon]. Dr Gray had previously named it Peracyon, from [Greek: pera], a bag, and [Greek: kuon], a dog.

[156] Echidna aculeata, or E. hystrix, the porcupine ant-eater, a curious edentate, spine-covered quadruped, closely allied to the still stranger Ornithorhynchus, the duck-bill.

[157] Phascolomys Vombatus, a curious, broad-backed, and large-headed marsupial, two specimens of which are in the Zoological Gardens. It is a burrower, and in the teeth it resembles the rodent animals; hence its name, from [Greek: phaskolon], a pouch, and [Greek: mus], a mouse.



SQUIRREL: ARCTIC LEMMING.

The one with its long plume-like tail, organised for a life among trees, the other with its home in the arctic regions, belong to an order not generally distinguished for intelligence, although, the beaver, once reputed a miracle of mind, belongs to it. The glirine or rodent animals are generally of small or moderate size, though some, like the water-loving capybara, are of considerable dimensions.

The squirrel is a fine subject for a painter. There is a picture by Sir Edwin Landseer, of a squirrel and bullfinch. On an engraving of it, published in 1865, is inscribed "a pair of nut-crackers,"—a happy title, and very apposite.

Jekyll saw in Colman's chambers a squirrel in the usual round cage. "Ah! poor devil," said Jekyll, "he's going the home circuit."[159]

If you come upon a squirrel on the ground, he is not long in getting to the topmost branch of the highest tree, so perfectly is he adapted for "rising" at a "bar"!

PETS OF SOME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY BUTCHERS. A SQUIRREL.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., in his novel, "Zanoni,"[160] pictures Citizen Couthon fondling a little spaniel "that he invariably carried in his bosom, even to the Convention, as a vent for the exuberant sensibilities which overflowed his affectionate heart."

In a note the novelist remarks—

"This tenderness for some pet animal was by no means peculiar to Couthon; it seems rather a common fashion with the gentle butchers of the Revolution. M. George Duval informs us ('Souvenirs de la Terreur,' iii. p. 183), that Chaumette had an aviary, to which he devoted his harmless leisure; the murderous Fournier carried, on his shoulders, a pretty little squirrel attached by a silver chain; Panis bestowed the superfluity of his affections upon two gold pheasants; and Marat, who would not abate one of the three hundred thousand heads he demanded, reared doves! Apropos of the spaniel of Couthon, Duval gives us a characteristic anecdote of Sergent, not one of the least relentless agents of the massacre of September. A lady came to implore his protection for one of her relations confined in the Abbaye. He scarcely deigned to speak to her. As she retired in despair, she trod by accident on the paw of his favourite spaniel. Sergent, turning round, enraged and furious, exclaimed, 'Madam, have you no humanity?'"

ARCTIC VOYAGER AND THE LEMMING.

Captain Back, on his arctic land expedition, when returning in September 1835, encountered a severe gale, which forced them to land their boat, and as the water rose they had three times to haul it higher on the bank. He introduces an affecting little incident: "So completely cold and drenched was everything outside, that a poor little lemming, unable to contend with the floods, which had driven it successively from all its retreats, crept silently under the tent, and snuggled away in precarious security within a few paces of a sleeping terrier. Unconscious of its danger, it licked its fur coat, and darted its bright eyes from object to object, as if pleased and surprised with its new quarters; but soon the pricked ears of the awakened dog announced its fate, and in another instant the poor little stranger was quivering in his jaws!"[161]

* * * * *

Mr McDougall?][162] records several amusing anecdotes of the little arctic lemming, named Arctomys Spermophilus Parryi, after the great arctic voyager. He says,—"My own experience of those industrious little warriors tended to prove that they possessed a strange combination of sociality and combativeness. Industrious they most certainly are, as is shown by the complicated excavation of their subterranean cities; besides which, every feather and hair of bird and animal found in the vicinity of their dwellings, is made to contribute its iota of warmth and comfort to the interior of their winter quarters.

"I had," continues the master of the Resolute, "many opportunities of watching their movements during my detention at Winter Harbour. My tent happened to be pitched immediately over one of their large towns, causing its inhabitants to issue forth from its thousand gates to catch a view of the strangers. Frequently on waking we have found the little animals, rolled up in a ball, snugly ensconced within the folds of our blanket-bags; nor would they be expelled from such a warm and desirable position without showing fight. On several occasions I observed Naps, the dog, fast asleep with one or two lemmings huddled away between its legs, like so many pups."

He says that Lieutenant Mecham noticed an Esquimaux dog, named Buffer, trudging along, nose to the ground, quite unconscious of danger, when a lemming, suddenly starting from its cavern, seized poor Buffer by the nose, inflicting a severe wound. The dog, astounded at such an unsuspected assault, gave a dismal howl, and at length shook the enemy off, after which he became the attacking party, and in less than a minute the presumptuous assailant disappeared between the jaws of the Tartar he had attempted to catch.

FOOTNOTES:

[158] Mitchell's "Popular Guide to the Zoological Gardens," p. 9. (1852.)

[159] Mark Lemon's "Jest Book," p. 180.

[160] Ed. 1845, p. 339.

[161] P. 441. Sir John Richardson told me that the species was Spermophilus Parryi.

[162] The Eventful Voyage of H.M. Discovery Ship Resolute to the Arctic Regions, in Search of Sir John Franklin, in 1852-3-4, pp. 314, 315.



RATS AND MICE.

Why should we not, like Grainger, begin this section as the writer of "The Sugar-Cane" does one of his paragraphs—

"Come muse! let's sing of rats."

The "restless rottens" and mice need little introduction. They are a most fertile race, and some species of them seem only to be in human habitations. They are terrible nuisances, and yet rat-skins are said to be manufactured in Paris into gloves.

Sydney Smith's comparison of some one dying like a poisoned rat in a ditch is a powerful one. The same writer, in hunting down an unworthy man, with his cutting criticism, says, that he did it not on account of his power, but to put down what might prove noisome if not settled, much as a Dutch burgomaster might hunt a rat, not for its value, but because by its boring it might cause the water to break through his dikes, and thus flood his native land.

Robert Browning, in one of his poems, "The Pied Piper of Hamelin," has powerfully described an incursion of rats. A few lines may be quoted:—

"Almost five hundred years ago, To see the townsfolk suffer so From vermin, was a pity. "Rats! They fought the dogs and killed the cats, And bit the babies in their cradles, And ate the cheeses out of the vats, And licked the soup from the cook's own ladles, Split open the kegs of salted sprats, Made nests inside men's Sunday hats, And even spoiled the women's chats, By drowning their speaking With shrieking and squeaking In fifty different sharps and flats.

* * * * *

"And ere three shrill notes the pipes had uttered, You heard as if an army muttered; And the muttering grew to a grumbling; And the grumbling grew to a mighty rumbling; And out of the houses the rats came tumbling— Great rats, small rats, lean rats, brawny rats, Brown rats, black rats, grey rats, tawny rats; Grave old plodders, gay young friskers, Fathers, mothers, uncles, cousins, Cocking tails, and pricking whiskers, Families by tens and dozens, Brothers, sisters, husbands, wives— Followed the Piper for their lives. From street to street he piped, advancing, And step for step they followed dancing, Until they came to the river Weser Wherein all plunged and perished, Save one."

THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON AND THE MUSK-RAT.

Mr Taylor, in his notes to the artist Haydon's Autobiography, tells us that a favourite expression of the Duke of Wellington, when people tried to coax him to do what he had resolved not to do, was, "The rat has got into the bottle." This not very intelligible expression may refer to an anecdote I have heard of the Duke's once telling, in his later days, how the musk-rats in India got into bottles, which ever after retained the odour of musk. "Either the rats must be very small," said a lady who heard him, "or the bottles very large." "On the contrary, madam," was the Duke's reply, "very small bottles and very large rats." "That is the style of logic we have to deal with at the Horse Guards," whispered Lord ——.

LADY EGLINTOUN AND THE RATS.

Mr Robert Chambers, in his "Traditions of Edinburgh" (p. 191), gives an interesting account of the elegant Susanna, Countess of Eglintoun, who was in her eighty-fifth year when Johnson and Boswell visited her. She died in 1780, at the age of ninety-one, having preserved to the last her stately mien and fine complexion. She is said to have washed her face periodically with sow's milk.

"This venerable woman amused herself latterly in taming and patronising rats. She kept a vast number of these animals in her pay at Auchans, and they succeeded in her affections the poets and artists she had loved in early life. It does not reflect much credit upon the latter, that her ladyship used to complain of never having met with true gratitude except from four-footed animals. She had a panel in the oak wainscot of her dining-room, which she tapped upon and opened at meal times, when ten or twelve jolly rats came tripping forth, and joined her at table. At the word of command or a signal from her ladyship, they retired again to their native obscurity—a trait of good sense in the character and habits of the animals which, it is hardly necessary to remark, patrons do not always find in two-legged proteges."

GENERAL DOUGLAS AND THE RATS.

The biographer of this highly-distinguished military engineer-officer relates an anecdote of him when a lieutenant at Tynemouth. The future author of well-known works on Gunnery and Military Bridges, early began to show ability in mechanics. "Lieutenant Douglas occupied a room barely habitable, and had to contest the tenancy with rats, which asserted their claim with such tenacity, that he went to sleep at the risk of being devoured. Their incursions compelled him to furnish himself with loaded pistols and a tinder-box, and he kept watch one night, remaining quiet till there was an irruption, when he started up and struck a light. But his vigilance proved of no avail, for the clink of the flint and steel caused a stampede, and not a rat remained by the time he had kindled the tinder. Their flight suggested to him another device. He looked out all the holes, and covered them with slides, connected with each other by wires, and these he fastened to a string, which enabled him to draw them all with one pull, and thus close the outlets. The contrivance claims to be mentioned as his first success in mechanics, foreshadowing his future expertness. It came into use the same night: he pulled the string without rising from bed, then struck a light, while the rats flew off to the holes to find them blocked, and he shot them at leisure. Two or three such massacres cleared off the intruders, and left him undisturbed in his quarters."[163]

HANOVER RATS.

How amusingly does Mr Waterton show his attachment to the extinct Stuarts in his essays. Go where he may, "a Hanover rat" pops up before him. In his charming autobiography appended to the three series of his graphic essays, whether he be in Rome or Cologne, in York or London, at a farm-house, or on board a steamer on the Rhine, "a Hanover rat" is sure to be encountered. We could cite many amusing illustrations.

Earl Stanhope[164] speaks of the Jacobites after the death of Anne reviling all adherents of the court as "a parcel of Roundheads and Hanover rats." This is the phrase used by Squire Western in Fielding's novel of "Tom Jones." He tells us that the former of these titles was the by-word first applied to the Calvinistic preachers in the civil wars, from the close cropped hair which they affected as distinguished from the flowing curls of the cavaliers. The second phrase was of far more recent origin. It so chanced that not long after the accession of the House of Hanover, some of the brown, that is, the German or Norway rats, were first brought over to this country in some timber, as is said; and being much stronger than the black, or till then, the common rats, they in many places quite extirpated the latter. The word, both the noun and the verb "to rat," was first levelled at the converts to the government of George the First, but has by degrees obtained a wider meaning, and come to be applied to any sudden and mercenary change in politics. The ravages of rats might form the subject of a curious volume. They are not at all literary in their tastes, though they are known to eat through bales of books, should they be placed in the way of their runs. The booksellers in the Row always leave room between the wall and the books in their cellars, to allow room for this predacious vermin.

Mr Cole, when examined before the Committee of the House on the condition of the depositories of the Records some time ago, stated that "six or seven perfect skeletons of rats were found imbedded (in the Rolls); bones of these vermin were generally distributed throughout the mass, and a dog was employed in hunting the live ones."

IRISHMAN EMPLOYED SHOOTING RATS.

Luttrell visited Sydney Smith at his parsonage in Somersetshire. The London wit told some amusing Irish stories, and his manner of telling them was so good. "One: 'Is your master at home, Paddy?' 'No, your honour.' 'Why, I saw him go in five minutes ago.' 'Faith, your honour, he's not exactly at home; he's only there in the back yard a-shooting rats with cannon, your honour, for his devarsion.'"[165]

JAMES WATT AND THE RAT'S WHISKERS.

Mrs Schimmelpenninck in her youth lived at Birmingham, where she often met James Watt. In her autobiography (p. 34), she says, "Everybody practically knew the infinite variety of his talents and stores of knowledge. When Mr Watt entered a room, men of letters, men of science, nay, military men, artists, ladies, even little children thronged round him. I remember a celebrated Swedish artist having been instructed by him that rats' whiskers made the most pliant and elastic painting-brush; ladies would appeal to him on the best means of devising grates, curing smoky chimneys, warming their houses, and obtaining fast colours. I can speak from experience of his teaching me how to make a dulcimer, and improve a Jew's harp."

THE POET GRAY COMPARES THE POET-LAUREATE TO A RAT-CATCHER.

The poet Gray very much despised such offices as that of the poet-laureate, or that held by Elkanah Settle, the last of the city poets whose name is held up to ridicule by Pope in the "Dunciad." In a letter to the Rev. Wm. Mason,[166] he puts this very strikingly:—

"Though I very well know the bland emolient saponaceous qualities both of sack and silver, yet if any great man would say to me, 'I make you rat-catcher to his Majesty, with a salary of L300 a year, and two butts of the best Malaga; and though it has been usual to catch a mouse or two, for form's sake, in public once a year, yet to you, sir, we shall not stand upon these things,' I cannot say I should jump at it; nay, if they would drop the very name of the office, and call me Sinecure to the King's Majesty, I should still feel a little awkward, and think everybody I saw smelt a rat about me: but I do not pretend to blame any one else that has not the same sensations. For my part, I would rather be serjeant-trumpeter or pinmaker to the palace."

JEREMY BENTHAM AND THE MICE.

The biographer of Jeremy Bentham[167] tells us that among the animals he was fond of were mice. They were encouraged "to play" about in his workshop. I remember, when one got among his papers, that he exclaimed, "Ho! ho! here's a mouse at work; why won't he come into my lap?—but then I ought to be writing legislation, and that would not do."

One day, while we were at dinner, mice had got, as they frequently did, into the drawers of the dinner-table, and were making no small noise. "O you rascals," exclaimed Bentham, "there's an uproar among you. I'll tell puss of you;" and then added, "I became once very intimate with a colony of mice. They used to run up my legs, and eat crumbs from my lap. I love everything that has four legs; so did George Wilson. We were fond of mice, and fond of cats; but it was difficult to reconcile the two affections."

Jeremy Bentham records: "George Wilson had a disorder which kept him two months to his couch. The mouses used to run up his back and eat the powder and pomatum from his hair. They used also to run up my knees when I went to see him. I remember they did so to Lord Glenbervie, who thought it odd."[168]

BURNS AND THE FIELD MOUSE.

The history of the origin of this well-known piece of the Scottish poet is thus given by Mr Chambers in that edition of the Life and Works of Robert Burns,[169] which will ever be regarded, by Scotchmen at least, as the most complete and carefully-edited of the numerous editions of that most popular poet.

"We have the testimony of Gilbert Burns that this beautiful poem was composed while the author was following the plough. Burns ploughed with four horses, being twice the amount of power now required on most of the soils of Scotland. He required an assistant, called a gaudsman, to drive the horses, his own duty being to hold and guide the plough. John Blane, who had acted as gaudsman to Burns, and who lived sixty years afterwards, had a distinct recollection of the turning-up of the mouse. Like a thoughtless youth as he was, he ran after the creature to kill it, but was checked and recalled by his master, who, he observed, became thereafter thoughtful and abstracted. Burns, who treated his servants with the familiarity of fellow-labourers, soon after read the poem to Blane.

TO A MOUSE, ON TURNING UP HER NEST WITH THE PLOUGH, NOVEMBER 1785.

"Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie, Oh, what a panic's in thy breastie! Thou needna start awa sae hasty Wi' bickering brattle! I wad be laith to rin and chase thee Wi' murd'ring pattle.[170]

"I'm truly sorry man's dominion Has broken nature's social union, And justifies that ill opinion, Which makes thee startle At me, thy poor earth-born companion, And fellow-mortal!

"I doubt na whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen icker in a thrave[171] 'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin' wi' the laive, And never miss't.

"Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin! Its silly wa's the win's are strewin"! And naething now to big a new ane O, foggage green, And bleak December's winds ensuin' Baith snell and keen!

"Thou saw the fields laid bare and waste, And weary winter coming fast, And cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter passed Out through thy cell.

"That wee bit heap o' leaves and stibble, Has cost thee mony a weary nibble! Now thou's turned out for a' thy trouble, But house or hald, To thole the winter's sleety dribble, And cranreuch cauld!

"But, mousie, thou art no thy lane; Improving foresight may be vain; The best-laid schemes o' mice and men Gang aft a-gley, And lea'e us nought but grief and pain For promised joy.

"Still thou art blest, compared wi' me! The present only toucheth thee; But, och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear! And forward, though I canna see, I guess and fear."

It was on the farm of Mossgiel, in the parish of Mauchline, where he resided nearly nine years, that the occurrence took place so pathetically recorded and gloriously commented on in this piece.

DESTRUCTIVE FIELD MICE.

Thomas Fuller, in "The Farewell" to his description of the "Worthies of Essex," says, "I wish the sad casualties may never return which lately have happened in this county; the one, 1581, in the Hundred of Dengy, the other, 1648, in the Hundred of Rochford and Isle of Foulness (rented in part by two of my credible parishioners, who attested it, having paid dear for the truth thereof); when an army of mice, nesting in ant-hills, as conies in burrows, shaved off the grass at the bare roots, which, withering to dung, was infectious to cattle. The March following, numberless flocks of owls from all parts flew thither, and destroyed them, which otherwise had ruined the country, if continuing another year. Thus, though great the distance betwixt a man and a mouse, the meanest may become formidable to the mightiest creature by their multitudes; and this may render the punishment of the Philistines more clearly to our apprehensions, at the same time pestered with mice in their barns and pained with emerods in their bodies."[172]

THE BARON VON TRENCK AND THE TAME MOUSE IN PRISON.

The unfortunate Baron Von Trenck was a Prussian officer, whose adventures, imprisonments, and escape form the subject of memoirs which he wrote in Hungary. He at last settled in France, and there, in 1794, perished by the guillotine.

Before he obtained his liberty, he lost a companion which had for two years helped to beguile the solitude of his captivity. This was a mouse, which he had tamed so perfectly, that the little creature was continually playing with him, and would eat out of his mouth. "One night it skipped about so much that the sentinels heard a noise and reported it to the officer of the guard. As the garrison had been changed at the peace (between Austria and Prussia), and as Trenck had not been able to form at once so close a connexion with the officers of the regular troops as he had done with those of the militia, one of the former, after ascertaining the truth of the report with his own ears, sent to inform the commandant that something extraordinary was going on in the prison. The town-major arrived in consequence early in the morning, accompanied by locksmiths and masons. The floor, the walls, the baron's chains, his body, everything in short, were strictly examined. Finding all in order, they asked the cause of the last evening's bustle. Trenck had heard the mouse, and told them frankly by what it had been occasioned. They desired him to call his little favourite; he whistled, and the mouse immediately leaped upon his shoulder. He solicited that its life might be spared; but the officer of the guard took it into his possession, promising, however, on his word of honour, to give it to a lady who would take great care of it. Turning it afterwards loose in his chamber, the mouse, who knew nobody but Trenck, soon disappeared, and hid himself in a hole. At the usual hour of visiting his prison, when the officers were just going away, the poor little animal darted in, climbed up his legs, seated itself on his shoulder, and played a thousand tricks to express the joy it felt on seeing him again. Every one was astonished, and wished to have it. The major, to terminate the dispute, carried it away, gave it to his wife, who had a light cage made for it; but the mouse refused to eat, and a few days after was found dead."[173]

ALEXANDER WILSON AND THE MOUSE.

About the time when Alexander Wilson formed the design of drawing the American birds, and writing those descriptions which, when published, gave him that name which has clung to him, "the American Ornithologist" he had a school within a few miles of Philadelphia. He was then a keen student of the animal life around him. In 1802 he wrote to his friend Bertram, and tells him of his having had "live crows, hawks, and owls; opossums, squirrels, snakes, lizards," &c. He tells him that his room sometimes reminded him of Noah's ark, and comically adds, "but Noah had a wife in one corner of it, and in this particular our parallel does not altogether tally. I receive every subject of natural history that is brought to me; and, though they do not march into my ark from all quarters, as they did into that of our great ancestor, yet I find means, by the distribution of a few fivepenny bits, to make them find the way fast enough. A boy, not long ago, brought me a large basketful of crows. I expect his next load will be bull-frogs, if I don't soon issue orders to the contrary. One of my boys caught a mouse in school a few days ago, and directly marched up to me with his prisoner. I set about drawing it the same evening, and all the while the pantings of its little heart showed it to be in the most extreme agonies of fear. I had intended to kill it, in order to fix it in the claws of a stuffed owl; but, happening to spill a few drops of water near where it was tied, it lapped it up with such eagerness, and looked in my face with such an eye of supplicating terror, as perfectly overcame me. I immediately restored it to life and liberty. The agonies of a prisoner at the stake, while the fire and instruments of torture are preparing, could not be more severe than the sufferings of that poor mouse; and, insignificant as the object was, I felt at that moment the sweet sensation that mercy leaves in the mind when she triumphs over cruelty."[174]

FOOTNOTES:

[163] "The Life of General Sir Howard Douglas, Bart., G.C.B., F.R.S., D.C.L., from his Notes, Conversations, and Correspondence," by S. W. Fullom. 1863. P. 28.

[164] "History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht," by Lord Mahon, vol. vii. p. 465.

[165] Life of Sydney Smith, by his daughter, Lady Holland, vol. i. 374.

[166] "Correspondence of Thomas Gray and Mason, edited from the originals," by the Rev. John Mitford, p. 112.

[167] Dr Bowring's "Life of Jeremy Bentham," Works, vol. xi. p. 80, 81.

[168] "Bowring's Life," vol. x., Works, p. 186.

[169] By Robert Chambers, Edinburgh, 1851, 4 vols., vol. i., p. 146.

[170] The stick used for clearing away the clods from the plough.

[171] An occasional ear of corn in a thrave,—that is, twenty-four sheaves.

[172] "Worthies of England," vol. i. p. 545.

[173] "Wilson's Life," p. 28.



HARES, RABBITS, GUINEA-PIG.

All gnawing creatures, belonging to the Glirine or Rodentia order. Charles Lamb has written on the hare, in one view of that finely-flavoured beast, as only Elia could write. But the poet Cowper has made the hare's history peculiarly pleasing and familiar. How often in his letters he alludes to his hares! Mrs E. B. Browning, in her exquisitely delicate and pathetic poem, "Cowper's Grave," thus alludes to Cowper's pets—

"Wild, timid hares were drawn from woods to share his home caresses, Uplooking to his human eyes with sylvan tendernesses; The very world, by God's constraint, from falsehood's ways removing, Its women and its men became, beside him, true and loving."

Not many years ago the compiler saw traces of the holes the poet had cut in the skirting-boards of the room for their ingress and egress, that they might have ampler room for wandering. His epitaphs on two of them are often quoted. Rabbits are peculiarly the pets of boys, and though, when wild, often great vermin, from their destructive habits and their mining operations, are yet said to contribute much to the revenue of one European monarch.

How Mr Malthus ought to have hated guinea-pigs, those fertile little lumps of blotched fur! Few creatures can be more productive.

WILLIAM COWPER ON HIS HARES.

What a model description of the habits of an animal we have in the gentle Cowper's account of his hares! Would that he had made pets of other animals, and written descriptions of them, like that which follows, and which is here copied from the original place to which he contributed it.[175]

"May 28.

"MR URBAN,—Convinced that you despise no communications that may gratify curiosity, amuse rationally, or add, though but a little, to the stock of public knowledge, I send you a circumstantial account of an animal, which, though its general properties are pretty well known, is for the most part such a stranger to man, that we are but little aware of its peculiarities. We know indeed that the hare is good to hunt and good to eat; but in all other respects poor Puss is a neglected subject. In the year 1774, being much indisposed, both in mind and body, incapable of diverting myself either with company or books, and yet in a condition that made some diversion necessary, I was glad of anything that would engage my attention without fatiguing it. The children of a neighbour of mine had a leveret given them for a plaything; it was at that time about three months old. Understanding better how to tease the poor creature than to feed it, and soon becoming weary of their charge, they readily consented that their father, who saw it pining and growing leaner every day, should offer it to my acceptance. I was willing enough to take the prisoner under my protection, perceiving that in the management of such an animal, and in the attempt to tame it, I should find just that sort of employment which my case required. It was soon known among the neighbours that I was pleased with the present; and the consequence was, that in a short time, I had as many leverets offered to me as would have stocked a paddock. I undertook the care of three, which it is necessary that I should here distinguish by the names I gave them—Puss, Tiney, and Bess. Notwithstanding the two feminine appellatives, I must inform you that they were all males. Immediately commencing carpenter, I built them houses to sleep in. Each had a separate apartment, so contrived that their ordure would pass through the bottom of it; an earthen pan placed under each received whatsoever fell, which being duly emptied and washed, they were thus kept perfectly sweet and clean. In the daytime they had the range of a hall, and at night retired each to his own bed, never intruding into that of another.

"Puss grew presently familiar, would leap into my lap, raise himself upon his hinder feet, and bite the hair from my temples. He would suffer me to take him up, and to carry him about in my arms, and has more than once fallen fast asleep upon my knee. He was ill three days, during which time I nursed him, kept him apart from his fellows that they might not molest him (for, like many other wild animals, they persecute one of their own species that is sick), and by constant care, and trying him with a variety of herbs, restored him to perfect health. No creature could be more grateful than my patient after his recovery,—a sentiment which he most significantly expressed by licking my hand, first the back of it, then the palm, then every finger separately; then between all the fingers, as if anxious to leave no part of it unsaluted,—a ceremony which he never performed but once again upon a similar occasion. Finding him extremely tractable, I made it my custom to carry him always after breakfast into the garden, where he hid himself generally under the leaves of a cucumber vine, sleeping or chewing the cud till evening; in the leaves also of that vine he found a favourite repast. I had not long habituated him to this taste of liberty, before he began to be impatient for the return of the time when he might enjoy it. He would invite me to the garden by drumming upon my knee, and by a look of such expression as it was not possible to misinterpret. If this rhetoric did not immediately succeed, he would take the skirt of my coat between his teeth, and pull at it with all his force. Thus Puss might be said to be perfectly tamed; the shyness of his nature was done away, and on the whole it was visible, by many symptoms which I have not room to enumerate, that he was happier in human society than when shut up with his natural companions.

"Not so Tiney. Upon him the kindest treatment had not the least effect. He, too, was sick, and in his sickness, had an equal share of my attention; but if, after his recovery, I took the liberty to stroke him, he would grunt, strike with his fore-feet, spring forward, and bite. He was, however, very entertaining in his way, even his surliness was matter of mirth, and in his play he preserved such an air of gravity, and performed his feats with such a solemnity of manner, that in him, too, I had an agreeable companion.

"Bess, who died soon after he was full grown, and whose death was occasioned by his being turned into his box, which had been washed, while it was yet damp, was a hare of great humour and drollery. Puss was tamed by gentle usage; Tiney was not to be tamed at all; and Bess had a courage and confidence that made him tame from the beginning. I always admitted them into the parlour after supper, where the carpet affording their feet a firm hold, they would frisk, and bound, and play a thousand gambols, in which Bess, being remarkably strong and fearless, was always superior to the rest, and proved himself the Vestris of the party. One evening, the cat, being in the room, had the hardiness to pat Bess upon the cheek, an indignity which he resented by drumming upon her back with such violence, that the cat was happy to escape from under his paws and hide herself.

"You observe, sir, that I describe these animals as having each a character of his own. Such they were in fact, and their countenances were so expressive of that character, that, when I looked only on the face of either, I immediately knew which it was. It is said that a shepherd, however numerous his flock, soon becomes so familiar with their features, that he can by that indication only distinguish each from all the rest, and yet to a common observer the difference is hardly perceptible. I doubt not that the same discrimination in the cast of countenances would be discoverable in hares, and am persuaded that among a thousand of them no two could be found exactly similar; a circumstance little suspected by those who have not had opportunity to observe it. These creatures have a singular sagacity in discovering the minutest alteration that is made in the place to which they are accustomed, and instantly apply their nose to the examination of a new object. A small hole being burnt in the carpet, it was mended with a patch, and that patch in a moment underwent the strictest scrutiny. They seem, too, to be very much directed by the smell in the choice of their favourites; to some persons, though they saw them daily, they could never be reconciled, and would even scream when they attempted to touch them; but a miller coming in, engaged their affections at once—his powdered coat had charms that were irresistible. You will not wonder, sir, that my intimate acquaintance with these specimens of the kind has taught me to hold the sportsman's amusement in abhorrence. He little knows what amiable creatures he persecutes, of what gratitude they are capable, how cheerful they are in their spirits, what enjoyment they have of life, and that, impressed as they seem with a peculiar dread of man, it is only because man gives them peculiar cause for it.

"That I may not be tedious, I will just give you a short summary of those articles of diet that suit them best, and then retire to make room for some more important correspondent.

"I take it to be a general opinion that they graze, but it is an erroneous one, at least grass is not their staple; they seem rather to use it medicinally, soon quitting it for leaves of almost any kind. Sowthistle, dent-de-lion, and lettuce are their favourite vegetables, especially the last. I discovered, by accident, that fine white sand is in great estimation with them, I suppose as a digestive. It happened that I was cleaning a bird cage while the hares were with me; I placed a pot filled with such sand upon the floor, to which being at once directed by a strong instinct, they devoured it voraciously; since that time I have generally taken care to see them well supplied with it. They account green corn a delicacy, both blade and stalk, but the ear they seldom eat; straw of any kind, especially wheat-straw, is another of their dainties; they will feed greedily upon oats, but if furnished with clean straw, never want them; it serves them also for a bed, and, if shaken up daily, will be kept sweet and dry for a considerable time. They do not indeed require aromatic herbs, but will eat a small quantity of them with great relish, and are particularly fond of the plant called musk; they seem to resemble sheep in this, that if their pastures be too succulent, they are very subject to the rot; to prevent which, I always made bread their principal nourishment; and, filling a pan with it cut into small squares, placed it every evening in their chambers, for they feed only at evening and in the night; during the winter, when vegetables are not to be got, I mingled this mess of bread with shreds of carrot, adding to it the rind of apples cut extremely thin; for, though they are fond of the paring, the apple itself disgusts them. These, however, not being a sufficient substitute for the juice of summer herbs, they must at this time be supplied with water; but so placed that they cannot overset it into their beds. I must not omit, that occasionally they are much pleased with twigs of hawthorn and of the common briar, eating even the very wood when it is of considerable thickness.

"Bess, I have said, died young; Tiney lived to be nine years old, and died at last, I have reason to think, of some hurt in his loins by a fall. Puss is still living, and has just completed his tenth year, discovering no signs of decay nor even of age, except that he is grown more discreet and less frolicsome than he was. I cannot conclude, sir, without informing you that I have lately introduced a dog to his acquaintance, a spaniel that had never seen a hare, to a hare that had never seen a spaniel. I did it with great caution, but there was no real need of it. Puss discovered no token of fear, nor Marquis the least symptom of hostility. There is, therefore, it should seem, no natural antipathy between dog and hare, but the pursuit of the one occasions the flight of the other, and the dog pursues because he is trained to it; they eat bread at the same time out of the same hand, and are in all respects sociable and friendly.—Yours &c.,

W. C.

"P.S.—I should not do complete justice to my subject, did I not add, that they have no ill scent belonging to them, that they are indefatigably nice in keeping themselves clean, for which purpose nature has furnished them with a brush under each foot; and that they are never infested by any vermin."

Our readers know his fine verses or epitaphs on his hares. We may quote from the biographer to whom Sir Robert Peel and the Duke of Wellington left all their papers and memoirs, a sentence or two on Cowper's hares, and on the other pets of that lovable man. Earl Stanhope[176] says of this poet and "best letter-writer in the English language—"Such, indeed, were his powers of description and felicity of language, that even the most trivial objects drew life and colour from his touch. In his pages, the training of three tame hares, or the building of a frame for cucumbers, excite a warmer interest than many accounts compiled by other writers, of great battles deciding the fate of empires. In his pages, the sluggish waters of the Ouse,—the floating lilies which he stooped to gather from them,—the poplars, in whose shade he sat, and over whose fall he mourned, rise before us as though we had known and loved them too. As Cowper himself declares, 'My descriptions are all from nature, not one of them second-handed; my delineations of the heart are from my own experience, not one of them borrowed from books.'"

HAIRS OR HARES!

A gentleman on circuit, narrating to Lord Norbury some extravagant feat in sporting, mentioned that he had lately shot thirty-three hares before breakfast. "Thirty-three hairs!" exclaimed Lord Norbury; "zounds, sir! then you must have been firing at a wig."[177]

Sportsmen are very apt to exaggerate. They did so at least in Horace's days. We have heard of a man of rank, who actually made a gamekeeper, who was a first-rate marksman, fire whenever he discharged his piece. The story goes, that that man was regarded as having shot everything that fell.

The Duke of L.'s reply, when it was observed to him that the gentlemen bordering on his estates were continually hunting upon them, and that he ought not to suffer it, is worthy of imitation. "I had much rather," said he, "have friends than hares."[178]

The time must be coming, when every farmer or peasant will be allowed to shoot hares. It is surely cruel to imprison or fine a man for shooting and shouldering a hare. Having lately traversed a goodly part of the Perthshire Highlands, we were struck with the numbers of Arctic hares that scudded away out of our path. What a fine help one of them would be to a poor family.

S. BISSET AND HIS TRAINED HARE AND TURTLE.

S. Bisset, whose training of other animals is elsewhere recorded, like the poet Cowper, procured a leveret, and reared it to beat several marches on the drum with its hind legs, until it became a good stout hare. This creature, which is always set down as the most timid, he declared to be as mischievous and bold an animal, to the extent of its power, as any with which he was acquainted. He taught canary-birds, linnets, and sparrows, to spell the name of any person in company, to distinguish the hour and minute of time, and play many other surprising tricks. He trained six turkey-cocks to go through a regular country dance; but in doing this he confessed he adopted the eastern method, by which camels are made to dance, by heating the floor. In the course of six months' teaching, he made a turtle fetch and carry like a dog; and having chalked the floor, and blackened its claws, could direct it to trace out any given name of the company.[179]

A FAMILY OF RABBITS ALL BLIND OF ONE EYE.

Lady Anne Barnard, in her Cape Journal,[180] referring to Dessin or Rabbit Island at the Cape of Good Hope, says that it is "dreadfully exposed to the south-east winds. A gentleman told me of a natural phenomenon he had met with when shooting there; his dog pointed at a rabbit's hole, where the company within were placed so near the opening that he could see Mynheer, Madame, and the whole rabbit family. Pompey, encouraged, brought out the old coney, his wife, and seven young ones,—all, like the callenders in the 'Arabian Nights' Entertainments,' blind of one eye, and that the same eye. The question was, on which side of the island was the rabbit's hole? With a very little reasoning and comparing, it was found that from its position, the keen blast must have produced this effect. The oddest part of this story is, that it is true, but I do not expect you to believe it."

THOMAS FULLER ON NORFOLK RABBITS.

"These are an army of natural pioneers whence men have learned cuniculos agere, the art of undermining. They thrive best on barren ground, and grow fattest in the hardest frosts. Their flesh is fine and wholesome. If Scottish men tax our language as improper, and smile at our wing of a rabbit, let us laugh at their shoulder of a capon.

Their skins were formerly much used, when furs were in fashion; till of late our citizens, of Romans are turned Grecians, have laid down their grave gowns and taken up their light cloaks; men generally disliking all habits, though emblems of honour, if also badges of age.

Their rich or silver-hair skins, formerly so dear, are now levelled in prices with other colours; yea, are lower than black in estimation, because their wool is most used in making of hats, commonly (for the more credit) called half-beavers, though many of them hardly amount to the proportion of semi-demi castors."[181]

DR CHALMERS AND THE GUINEA-PIG.

Mr Aitken alludes in a pleasing manner to an instance of Dr Chalmers's fondness for animals. He had just been appointed the head-master of one of the Glasgow parish schools (St John's). "Early in the week following my appointment, I received my first private call. One circumstance occurred during the visit which I still remember most vividly. One of my children had been presented with a pair of guinea-pigs. These had found their way into the apartment where we were sitting, and ran about in all directions. I could have wished to turn them out, but had not the power to rise from my chair. He soon observed them, followed them with his eye as they now retreated under his chair and again ventured out into his presence—he even changed the position of his feet to give them scope. That same kindly eye, one glance of which we all loved so much to catch in after-life, beamed only the more warmly as the creatures frisked in greater confidence around him. It was to me an omen for good. He who could enjoy thus the innocent gamble of these guinea-pigs could not fail to be accessible for good when occasion required. It was the first flush of that largeness of heart which afterwards appeared in all I ever heard him say or saw him do."[182]

FOOTNOTES:

[174] "Memoir of Wilson," p. 27, prefixed to his poetical works. Belfast, 1844.

[175] Gentleman's Magazine, for June 1784, being the sixth number of vol. liv., pp. 412-414, "Unnoticed Properties of that little animal the Hare."

[176] "History of England," vol. vi. p. 486.

[177] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 59.

[178] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 182.

[179] Biography of S. Bisset in G. H. Wilson's "Eccentric Mirror," vol. i., No. 3, p. 29.

[180] Published by Lord Lindsay in vol. iii. of his "Lives of the Lindsays," p. 387.

[181] "Worthies of England," vol. ii. p. 445 (ed. 1840).



SLOTH.

REVEREND SYDNEY SMITH ON THE SLOTH.

Few anecdotes can be published of this curious creature, though Waterton and Burchell, or Dr Buckland, for him and his friend Bates, have recorded much that is interesting of its habits. The following bit is peculiarly happy: "The sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in trees, and never leaves them but from force or accident. The eagle to the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree; but what is most extraordinary, he lives not upon the branches, but under them. He moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended, and passes his life in suspense—like a young clergyman distantly related to a bishop."[183]



FOOTNOTES:

[182] Dr Hannah's "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers, D.D., L.L.D.," vol. ii. p. 237.



THE GREAT ANT-EATER.

(Myrmecophaga jubata, L.[184])

A few months ago a handbill was distributed in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials, inviting the public to visit a "wonderful animal fed with ants, and possessing strength to kill the lion, tiger, or any other animal under its claws." We entered the miserable apartment where it was exhibited, and any spectator must at once have been struck with the creature's want of resemblance to any other he had ever seen. Its head so small, so long and slender; the straight, wiry, dry hair with which it was covered, and its singularly large and bushy tail, first attracted notice. A second glance showed its enormously thick fore-legs, and the claws of its feet turned in, so that it walked on the sides of its soles. Oken and St Hilaire would have said that it was "all extremity." A cup, with the contents of one or two eggs, was brought, and it sucked them with great avidity, every now and then darting from its small mouth a very long tongue, which looked like a great, black worm, whisking about in the custard. One of its showmen told us that it had attacked the woman of the house the preceding day, and had scratched her arm. Whether this was true or grossly exaggerated, we know not; but if so, we suspect that the woman herself must have been in fault, and not the inoffensive stranger.

On the payment of a handsome consideration to her owners, the poor captive was transferred from her unwholesome lodging in St Giles's, to the Gardens of the Zoological Society in the Regent's Park. And within the last few weeks her solitude has been cheered by the arrival of a companion from her native forests. The new-comer is in beautiful condition, though not nearly so large. He has a head decidedly shorter and stronger, and is probably not yet fully grown.

The great ant-eater seems to be scattered over a wide extent of South America—Guiana, Brazil, and Paraguay, being its places of abode. It is a stout animal, measuring from the end of the snout to the tip of the long tail six or seven feet, of which the tail takes nearly the half; so that the actual size of its body is much reduced. In Paraguay it is named Nurumi or Yogui. The former name is altered from the native word for small mouth, and indicates a striking peculiarity in its structure. The Portuguese call it Tamandua; the Spaniards, Osa hormiguero (i.e., ant-hill bear). In Paraguay it prefers sides of lakes where ants, at least termites or white ants, are abundant; but it also frequents woods. In Guiana, Mr Waterton found it chiefly "in the inmost recesses of the forest," where it "seems partial to the low and swampy parts near creeks, where the troely tree grows."[185] It sleeps a great deal, reclining on its side, as the visitor to the Gardens may frequently see it do, with its head between its fore-legs, joining its fore and hindfeet, and spreading the tail so as to cover the whole body. Huddled up under this thatch, it might almost be taken for a bundle of coarse and badly dried hay. The tail is thickly covered with long hairs, placed vertically, the hairs draggling on the ground. When the creature is irritated, the tail is shaken straight and elevated. The natives of Paraguay, like other persecutors of harmlessness, kill every specimen they meet, so that the ant-eater gets rare, and so rare is it on the Amazon that Mr Wallace, who travelled there from 1848 to 1852, honestly tells us he never saw one. He heard, however, that during rain it turns its bushy tail over its head and stands still. The Indians, knowing this habit, when they meet an ant-eater, make a rustling noise among the leaves. The creature instantly turns up its tail, and is easily killed by the stroke of a stick on its little head.[186]