hard pressed it stops, and, seated on its hind-legs, waits for the
aggressor. Its object is to receive him between its fore-legs; and one
has only to look at its arms and claws in order to fancy what a
frightful squeeze it would give. Nothing but death, they say, will make
the creature relax its grasp. It is asserted that the jaguar--the tiger
of South America, and the most formidable beast of the New World--dares
not attack it. This Azara, with good reason, doubts. A single bite from
a jaguar, or the stroke of his paw, would fracture an ant-eater's skull
before it had time to turn round; for the movements of this edentate
quadruped are as sluggish as those of the toothed carnivorous tyrant are
rapid.
As seen in its handsome and roomy cage, the ant-eater gives us an
impression of dulness and stupidity; and always smelling and listening
and looking at the door where its keeper introduces its food, its mind,
when awake, appears to be constantly occupied about "creature comforts."
In the course of the day it laps up with its darting tongue, and sucks
in through its long taper snout a dozen eggs, and almost the whole of a
rabbit, chopped into a fine mince-meat. With such dainty fare, and with
the anxious attention which it receives from its sagacious curators, it
is scarcely surprising that it thrives; and when the warm weather comes,
it will be a fine sight to see these animals enjoying the range of a
paddock, which will doubtless be provided for their use, and exercising
their brawny forelimbs and powerful claws in pulling down conical
mounds, which may remind them of departed joys and balmier climes. Nor
will it be the least charm of the spectacle that it will enable us to
compare this living species with other _Edentata_ of South America--such
as the Megatherium, now only found in the fossil state, but so admirably
restored by Mr Hawkins for the Crystal Palace.
We need not dwell on the admirable adaptation of the ant-eater to its
position and to its few and simple wants. To those who have not studied
"the works of the Lord," it may appear uncouth and unattractive.
Compared with a dog, it is stupid; and alongside of a lion, it is slow.
It has not the symmetry of the horse, nor the beautiful markings of the
zebra and leopard. But its Creator has given it the instincts, the form,
the muscular powers, and the colours which best answer its purpose. And
no one can say that it is plain and ugly, who looks at its legs so
prettily variegated with white and black, and its noble black collar.
Those of our readers who wish further information will find it in the
_Literary Gazette_ for October 8, 1853. In that article it is easy to
recognise the Roman hand of the _facile princeps_ among living
comparative anatomists. Long may it be before either of our new
acquaintances in the Garden afford him a subject for dissection; but
when that day arrives, we hope that he will not delay to publish the
memoir.[187]--_A. White, in "Excelsior" (with additions)._
FOOTNOTES:
[183] Sydney Smith, "Review of Waterton's Wanderings." _Edinburgh
Review_, 1826. Works, vol. ii. p. 145.
[184] From [Greek: myrmex], ant; [Greek: phago], I eat; _jubata_, maned.
[185] "Wanderings in South America" (Third Journey), p. 159, (ed. 1839).
[186] "A Narrative of Travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro," by Alfred R.
Wallace, 1853, p. 452.
RHINOCEROS AND ELEPHANT.
Two genera of the bulkiest among terrestrial beasts. Just imagine the
great rhinoceros at the Zoological Gardens taking it into its head, with
that little eye, target hide, and bulky bones, and other items about it,
to fondle its keeper!--he was nearly crushed to death. How the great
thick-skinned creature enjoys a bath!
As for the elephant, he is a mountain of matter as well as of animal
intelligence. Sir Emerson Tennant in his "Ceylon," but especially in his
"Natural History," volumes, has given some truly readable chapters on
the Asiatic elephant. We could have extracted many an anecdote, even
from recent works, of the intelligent sagacity of the Indian as well as
the African elephants. The account of the shooting of Mr Cross's
well-known elephant _Chunie_, at Exeter Change, has been very curiously
and fully detailed by Hone in his "Every-Day Book." A skull of an
elephant in the British Museum, shows how wonderfully an elephant is at
times able to defend itself from attack. Many a shot that "rogue
elephant" had received, years before the three or four Indian sportsmen,
who presented its skull as a trophy, succeeded in planting a shot in its
brain, or in its heart. Think of the feelings of Lord Clive's relations,
at the prospect of his sending home an elephant for a pet. The good
folks, not without some motive, as the great Indian ruler conceived,
other than mere love for him, had been sending him presents. Samuel
Rogers, who wrote the neatest of hands, records that Clive wrote the
worst and certainly the most illegible of scrawls. Instead of
"elephant," as they read it, their liberal relative had written
"equivalent!"
THE LORD KEEPER GUILFORD AND HIS VISIT TO THE RHINOCEROS IN THE CITY OF
LONDON.[188]
It is strange to read in the life of the Lord Keeper Guilford, that his
lordship's court enemies, "hard put to it to find, or invent, something
tending to the diminution of his character," took advantage of his going
to see a rhinoceros, to circulate a foolish story of him, which much
annoyed him. It was in the reign of James II. his biographer thus
records it. The rhinoceros, referred to, was the first ever brought to
England. Evelyn, in his "Memoirs," says, that it was sold for L2000, a
most enormous sum in those days (1685).
Roger North relates the story:--"It fell out thus--a merchant of Sir
Dudley North's acquaintance had brought over an enormous rhinoceros, to
be sold to showmen for profit. It is a noble beast, wonderfully armed by
nature for offence, but more for defence, being covered with
impenetrable shields, which no weapon would make any impression upon,
and a rarity so great that few men, in our country, have in their whole
lives the opportunity of seeing so singular an animal. This merchant
told Sir Dudley North that if he, with a friend or two, had a mind to
see it, they might take the opportunity at his house before it was sold.
Hereupon Sir Dudley North proposed to his brother, the Lord Keeper, to
go with him upon this exhibition, which he did, and came away
exceedingly satisfied with the curiosity he had seen. But whether he was
dogged to find out where he and his brother housed in the city, or
flying fame carried an account of the voyage to court, I know not; but
it is certain that the very next morning a bruit went from thence all
over the town, and (as factious reports used to run) in a very short
time, viz., that his lordship rode upon the rhinoceros, than which a
more infantine exploit could not have been fastened upon him. And most
people were struck with amazement at it, and divers ran here and there
to find out whether it was true or no. And soon after dinner some lords
and others came to his lordship to know the truth from himself, for the
setters of the lie affirmed it positively as of their own knowledge.
That did not give his lordship much disturbance, for he expected no
better from his adversaries. But that his friends, intelligent persons,
who must know him to be far from guilty of any childish levity, should
believe it, was what roiled him extremely, and much more when they had
the face to come to him to know if it were true. I never saw him in such
a rage, and to lay about him with affronts (which he keenly bestowed
upon the minor courtiers that came on that errand) as then; for he sent
them away with fleas in their ear. And he was seriously angry with his
own brother, Sir Dudley North, because he did not contradict the lie in
sudden and direct terms, but laughed as taking the question put to him
for a banter, till, by iteration, he was brought to it. For some lords
came, and because they seemed to attribute somewhat to the avowed
positiveness of the reporters, he rather chose to send for his brother
to attest than to impose his bare denial, and so it passed; and the
noble earl (of Sunderland), with Jeffries, and others of that crew, made
merry, and never blushed at the lie of their own making, but valued
themselves upon it as a very good jest."
And so it passed. What a sensation would have been caused by the sudden
apparition in that age of a few numbers of _Punch_. What a subject for a
cartoon, some John Leech of 1685 would have made of the stately Lord
Keeper on the back of a rhinoceros, and the infamous Judge Jeffries
leering at him from a window.
THE ELEPHANT AND HIS TRUNK.
Canning and another gentleman were looking at a picture of the deluge;
the ark was seen in the middle distance, while in the fore-sea an
elephant was struggling with his fate. "I wonder," said the gentleman,
"that the elephant did not secure _an inside_ place!"--"He was too late,
my friend," replied Canning; "he was detained _packing up his
trunk_."[189]
SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS AND JELLY MADE OF IVORY DUST.--A VEGETARIAN TAKEN
IN.
The biographers of James Montgomery[190] relate an amusing anecdote of
Sir Richard Phillips, the eccentric London bookseller and author. He
visited Sheffield in October 1828. "He had lived too long amidst the
bustle and business of the great world, and was too little conscious of
any feeling at all like diffidence, to allow him to hesitate about
calling upon any person, whether of rank, genius, or eccentricity, when
the success of his project was likely to be thereby promoted. The time
selected by the free and easy knight for his unannounced visitation of
Montgomery was _Sunday at dinner time_. He was at once asked to sit down
and partake of the chickens and bacon which had just been placed on the
table, but here was a dilemma; Sir Richard, although neither a Brahmin
nor a Jew, avowed himself a staunch Pythagorean--he could eat no flesh!
Luckily there was a plentiful supply of carrots and turnips, and--jelly.
But was the latter made from calves' feet? Montgomery assured his guest
that it was _not_; but, added he, with a conscientious regard for his
visitor's scruples, from _ivory dust_. We believe the poet fancied the
hypothesis of an animal origin of this viand could not be very obscure;
it was, however, swallowed; the clever bibliopole perhaps believing,
with some of the Sheffield ivory-cutters, that elephants, instead of
being hunted and killed for their tusks, _shed them_ when fully grown,
as bucks do their antlers!"
J. T. SMITH AND THE ELEPHANT.
That gossiping man, J. T. Smith, once Keeper of the Prints in the
British Museum, and author of "Nollekens and his Times," relates, that
when he and a friend were returning late from a club, and were
approaching Temple Bar, "about one o'clock, a most unaccountable
appearance claimed our attention,--it was no less than an elephant,
whose keepers were coaxing it to pass through the gateway. He had been
accompanied with several persons from the Tower wharf with tall poles,
but was principally guided by two men with ropes, each walking on either
side of the street, to keep him as much as possible in the middle, on
his way to the menagerie, Exeter Change, to which destination, after
passing St Clement's Church, he steadily trudged on, with strict
obedience to the command of his keepers.[191]
"I had the honour afterwards of partaking of a pot of Barclay's entire
with this same elephant, which high mark of his condescension was
bestowed when I accompanied my friend, the late Sir James Wintel Lake,
Bart., to view the rare animals in Exeter Change,--that gentleman being
assured by the elephant's keeper that, if he would offer the beast a
shilling, he would see the noble animal nod his head and drink a pot of
porter. The elephant had no sooner taken the shilling, which he did in
the mildest manner from the palm of Sir James's hand, than he gave it to
the keeper, and eagerly watched his return with the beer. The elephant
then, after placing his proboscis to the top of the tankard, drew up
nearly the whole of the beverage. The keeper observed, 'You will hardly
believe, gentlemen, but the little he has left is quite warm;' upon this
we were tempted to taste it, and it really was so. This animal was
afterwards disposed of for the sum of one thousand guineas."
THE ELEPHANT AND THE TAILOR.
This old story has been often told, but never so well as by Sydney Smith
in one of his lectures at the Royal Institution. "Every one knows the
old story of the tailor and the elephant, which, if it be not true, at
least shows the opinion the Orientals, who know the animal well,
entertain of his sagacity. An eastern tailor to the Court was making a
magnificent doublet for a bashaw of nine tails, and covering it, after
the manner of eastern doublets, with gold, silver, and every species of
metallic magnificence. As he was busying himself on this momentous
occasion, there passed by, to the pools of water, one of the royal
elephants, about the size of a broad-wheeled waggon, rich in ivory
teeth, and shaking, with its ponderous tread, the tailor's shop to its
remotest thimble. As he passed near the window, the elephant happened to
look in; the tailor lifted up his eyes, perceived the proboscis of the
elephant near him, and, being seized with a fit of facetiousness,
pricked the animal with his needle; the mass of matter immediately
retired, stalked away to the pool, filled his trunk full of muddy water,
and, returning to the shop, overwhelmed the artisan and his doublet with
the dirty effects of his vengeance."
DR JOHNSON ALLUDED TO AS "AN ELEPHANT."
"If an elephant could write a book, perhaps one that had read a great
deal would say, that an Arabian horse is a very clumsy, ungraceful
animal." This was written by Horace Walpole to Miss Berry, in 1791, in
allusion to Dr Johnson's depreciation of Thomas Gray the poet.[192] It
is an acute observation, well worth being wrought out. There is a
grandeur and even a grace about this bulky beast and its motions well
deserving the study of any one who has the opportunity. Elephants in our
streets are not now so rare as they used to be. We saw three in one
procession in the streets of Edinburgh in 1865.
ELEPHANT'S SKIN.
"Did any of you ever see an elephant's skin?" asked the master of an
infant school in a fast neighbourhood. "I have!" shouted a six-year-old
at the foot of the class. "Where?" inquired the master, amused by his
earnestness. "_On the elephant!_" was the reply.
FOOTNOTES:
[187] This memoir has been published, and the subject of it was this
very ant-eater. Professor Owen has introduced many striking facts from
the history of its structure, in his lecture delivered at Exeter Hall,
1863, and published by the Messrs Nisbet.
[188] "The Life of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron Guilford, Lord
Keeper of the Great Seal, under King Charles II. and King James II.,
&c." By the Hon. Roger North. A New Edition, in three vols., 1826, vol.
ii. p. 167.
[189] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 329.
[190] "John Holland and James Everett," vol. iv. p. 283.
[191] "A Book for a Rainy Day," p. 92.
FOSSIL PACHYDERMATA.
CUVIER AND THE FOSSIL.
George Cuvier was perhaps the first man who, by his admirable works and
researches, gave zoology its true place among the sciences.
His discoveries of the structure of molluscous and other animals of the
obscurer orders are perhaps eclipsed by his researches in osteology. He
has enabled the comparative anatomist to tell from a small portion of
bone not only the class, but the order, genus, and even the species to
which animal that bone belonged.
Mrs Lee,[193] in her Life of the Baron, gives an example of his
enthusiasm in his researches.
M. Laurillard was afterwards his secretary and the draftsman who
executed nearly all the drawings in his "Ossemens fossiles." At the time
of this story he had not particularly attracted Cuvier's notice.
"One day Cuvier came to his brother Frederic to ask him to disengage a
fossil from its surrounding mass, an office he had frequently performed.
M. Laurillard was applied to in the absence of F. Cuvier. Little aware
of the value of the specimen confided to his care, he cheerfully set to
work, and succeeded in getting the bone entire from its position. M.
Cuvier, after a short time, returned for his treasure, and when he saw
how perfect it was, his ecstasies became incontrollable; he danced, he
shook his hands, he uttered expressions of delight, till M. Laurillard,
in his ignorance both of the importance of what he had done, and of the
ardent character of M. Cuvier, thought he was mad. Taking, however, his
fossil foot in one hand, and dragging Laurillard's arm with the other,
he led him up-stairs to present him to his wife and sister-in-law,
saying, 'I have got my foot, and M. Laurillard found it for me.' It
seems that this skilful operation confirmed all M. Cuvier's previous
conjecture concerning a foot, the existence and form of which he had
already guessed, but for which he had long and vainly sought. So
occupied had he been by it, that, when he appeared to be particularly
absent, his family were wont to accuse him of seeking his fore-foot. The
next morning the able operator and draftsman was engaged as secretary."
FOOTNOTES:
[192] "Letters of Horace Walpole," edited by Peter Cunningham, ix., 319.
[193] "Memoirs of Baron Cuvier," by Mrs R. Lee (formerly Mrs T Ed.
Bowdich), 1833, p. 93.
SOW.
A very gross but useful animal, which can, by feeding, be stuffed into
such a state of fatness as only one who has seen a Christmas cattle show
in England could believe it possible for beast to acquire. Dean Ramsay,
in a happy anecdote, refers to a good quality of the sow as food. He
tells, that a Scottish minister had been persuaded to keep a pig, and
that the good wife had been duly instructed in the mysteries of
black-puddings, pork-chops, pig's-head, and other modes of turning poor
piggy to account. The minister remarked to a friend, "Nae doubt there's
a hantle o' miscellaneous eating aboot a pig." The author of "A Ramble,"
published by Edmonstone and Douglas in 1865, has devoted some most
amusing pages of his work to an account of "Pig-sticking in Chicago," as
witnessed by him during the late American war. The wholesale and
scientific off-hand way in which living pigs enter into one part of a
machine, and come out prepared pork, could only have been devised by a
Yankee.
[Illustration: The Wild Boar of Syria and Egypt. (Sus Scrofa.)]
The essay of Charles Lamb on Roast Pig, and his history of how the
Chinaman discovered it, is a most characteristic bit of the productions
of Elia. We have cut from a recent paper, what seems an authentic story,
of one of this race having obtained a kind of mausoleum. We hope it is
not a hoax, but that it is as genuine as all that is in one of "Murray's
Handbooks:"--
MONUMENT TO A PIG.--"Up to the present time," says the _Europe_ of
Frankfort, "no monument that we are aware of had ever been erected to
the memory of a _pig_. The town of Luneburg, in Hanover, has wished to
fill up that blank; and at the Hotel de Ville, in that town, there is to
be seen a kind of mausoleum to the memory of a member of the swinish
race. In the interior of that commemorative structure is to be seen a
glass case, inclosing a ham still in good preservation. A slab of black
marble attracts the eye of visitors, who find thereon the following
inscription in Latin, engraved in letters of gold--'Passer-by,
contemplate here the mortal remains of the pig which acquired for itself
imperishable glory by the discovery of the salt springs of Luneburg.'"
THE WILD BOAR (_Sus scrofa_).
We have a specimen of the family of swine in that well-known and useful
animal, with whose portrait Sir Charles Bell furnishes the reader, as an
example of a head as remote as possible from the head of him who
designed and executed the Elgin marbles. Although the learned anatomist
brought forward the profile of this animal as the type of a
"non-intellectual" being, yet there are instances enough on record to
show that pigs are not devoid of intelligence, and are even, when
trained, capable of considerable docility. "Learned pigs," however, such
as are exhibited at country fairs, are a rare occurrence, and the family
to which they belong is essentially one "gross" in character, and far
from gainly in appearance. The most handsome of the race is one from
West Africa, recently added to the Zoological Gardens, and described by
Dr Gray under the name of _Potamochaerus penicillatus_. The wild swine of
Africa are, with this bright exception, anything but handsome, either in
shape or colour; and the large excrescences on their cheeks and face
give the "warthogs" a ferocious look, which corresponds with their
habits. In the East there are several species of wild swine. One of the
most celebrated is the _Babyrusa_ of the Malay peninsula, distinguished
by its long recurved teeth, with which it was once fancied that they
suspended themselves from trees, or rather supported themselves when
asleep. Mrs M'Dougall[194] refers to the wild hogs of Borneo, which seem
to be dainty in their diet, as they think nothing of a swim of four
miles from their jungle home to places on the river where they know
there are trees laden with ripe fruit. These Borneo swine are active
creatures too, as they can leap fences nearly six feet high. In South
America the sow family is represented by the Peccaries (_Dicotyles_), of
which there are two species, one of which is very abundant in the woods,
and forms a most important article in the diet of the poor Indians.
They, too, can swim across rivers, and although their legs are short,
they can run very fast.
It is chiefly in the warmer parts of the world that the species of this
family are found. They are all distinguished by the middle toes of each
foot being larger than the others, and armed with hoofs,[195] the side
toe or toes being shorter, and scarcely reaching the ground. The nose
terminates in a truncated, tough, grissly disk, which is singularly well
adapted for the purpose of the animals, which all grub in the ground for
their food. In some parts of France it is said that they are trained to
search for truffles.
Having briefly alluded to different species "_de grege porci_," we now
limit ourselves to our immediate subject.
The wild boar, at no very remote period, was found in the extensive
woods which covered great portions of this island. The family of Baird
derives its heraldic crest of a wild boar's head from a grant of David
I., King of Scotland. This monarch was hunting in Aberdeenshire, and
when separated from his attendants, the infuriated pig turned upon him;
one of his people came up and killed it, and in memory of his feat
received from the grateful king the device still borne by the family.
The name of a Scottish parish, and of one of the oldest baronial
families in Scotland--Swinton of Swinton, in Berwickshire--is derived
also from this animal, the first of the Swintons having cleared that
part of the country from the wild swine which then infested it. It is
curious to know that some large fields in the neighbourhood of Swinton
still carry in their names traces of these early occupants. Dr Baird
informed the writer that there are four of these fields so
distinguished:--"Sow-causeway," and "Pikerigg," where the wild swine
used to feed ("pick their food"); "Stab's Cross," where Sir Alan Swinton
with his spear pierced some monarch of the race; and "Alan's Cairn,"
where a heap of stones was raised as a monument of his hardihood. In the
southern part of our island only the nobility and gentry were allowed to
hunt this animal; and in the reign of William the Conqueror any one
convicted of killing a wild boar in any of the royal demesnes was
punished with the loss of his eyes.
In many parts of the Continent the wild boar is still far from rare, and
affords, to those who are fond of excitement, that peculiar kind of
"pleasure" which involves a certain amount of danger. Scenes somewhat
similar to those depicted by Snyders may still be witnessed in some
parts of Germany; and in the sketches of Mr Wolf, the able artist whose
designs illustrate these papers, we have seen animated studies of this
truly hazardous sport.