Chapter V: Part 5

The Bornean Bear is perhaps somewhat shorter in his proportions than the rest of the group, and the great proportional breadth of his head extends also to the neck and body. The claws are very long, strongly arched, and very gradually attenuated to the point, which is transversely truncated and chiefly fitted for digging the earth; but probably also enabling it to climb with great agility. The fur is short and glistening, somewhat rigid, but closely applied to the skin, and smooth to the touch. On the body, head, and extremities, the Bornean Bear has the same pure, saturated, jet-black tint which is observed in the Malayan. The muzzle, including the region of the eyes, has a yellowish brown colour; and the anterior part of the neck is marked by a large broad patch of a more vivid and nearly orange tint, which is of an irregular quadrangular form, and deeply notched above. The difference in the form and colour of this patch constitutes the chief distinction between the present animal and the Malayan species, in which latter it is crescent-shaped and white.

The specimen from which this description was taken measured along the back, from the muzzle to the tail, three feet nine inches. It arrived in this country about four years ago, and formed until lately one of the most attractive and interesting spectacles among the animals confined in the Menagerie. It was brought from Borneo when very young, and during its passage was the constant associate of a monkey and of several other young animals. It was thus domesticated in early life, and its manners in confinement greatly resembled those of the Malayan Bear observed by Sir Stamford Raffles, to which it was probably not inferior in sagacity or intellect. It could rest entirely on its posterior feet, and could even raise itself without difficulty to a nearly erect posture; but was more generally seen in a sitting attitude at the door of its apartment, eagerly surveying the visiters and attracting their attention by the uncouthness of its form and the singularity of its motions. When a morsel of bread or cake was held at a small distance beyond its reach, it would expand the lateral aperture of its nostrils and thrust forwards its upper lip as a proboscis in a most ludicrous manner, at the same time making use of its paws to seize the object. After obtaining it and filling its mouth, it would place the remainder with great calmness on its posterior feet, and bring it in successive portions to its mouth. When craving for food, and also while consuming it, it emitted a coarse, but not unpleasant, whining sound, accompanied by a low grunting noise; but if teased at this time, it would suddenly raise its voice to a harsh and grating tone. It was excessively voracious, and appeared disposed to eat almost without cessation; a propensity which finally cost it its life, having overgorged itself at breakfast one morning in the course of last summer during the hot weather, and dying within ten minutes afterwards. This was a severe loss to Mr. Cops, who prized it highly, and to whom, in return, it was greatly attached. On seeing its keeper it would often place itself in a variety of attitudes, to court his attention and caresses, extending its nose and anterior feet, or, suddenly turning round, exposing its back and waiting for several minutes in this posture with its head placed on the ground. It delighted in being patted and rubbed, even by strangers; but violently resented abuse and ill treatment. Its principal food was bread.

Our figure was taken from the stuffed skin which is preserved in the Museum of the Zoological Society.

MONKEYS.

_SIMIÆ._ LINN.

It may perhaps seem to require some apology that we have ventured so far to depart from the ordinary system of arrangement as to remove the Monkeys from the station which they have hitherto usually been permitted to occupy at the head of the class, and to transfer them to their present position. We will not attempt to conceal that in so doing we were chiefly actuated by the desire of placing at the commencement of our series the largest and most attractive of the animals of which it was composed; and those which, in a Menagerie like that which we have undertaken to illustrate, always constitute the most imposing feature. But while we acknowledge the influence of this feeling to the fullest extent, we cannot refrain from expressing at the same time our firm conviction that the carnivorous quadrupeds possess in reality a better title to the place which we have assigned them, than the Monkeys which we have displaced to make room for them. The supposed transition from man, on which the received arrangement is founded, has little to do with the question; and it would surely require no great subtilty of argument to prove that the Carnivora are more highly typical of the great class, of which they form so important a part, than any other tribe whatever. But this is not the proper place for entering into so abstract a question; to which we have only referred _en passant_, for the sake of justifying ourselves upon broader principles for a deviation from established custom, which we should not have hesitated to adopt, in the present instance, on the narrow ground of expedience alone. Before, however, we take leave of it altogether, we cannot avoid asking, why, if the Monkeys are to take precedence of the Carnivora among Mammalia, the analogous tribe of Birds, the Pies and the Parrots, should not also rank above the ornithological representatives of the beasts of prey, the towering Eagle and the rapacious Vulture?

To return, however, to our Monkeys; to which, be it observed, we do not pretend to assign this as a definite position. They form by far the largest portion of the Quadrumana; all the other animals of that order being comprehended, or rather confounded, in a distinct family, under the name of Lemurs, from the rightful owners of which appellation many of them differ most essentially. In addition to the hands on the posterior as well as anterior members, with long and flexible fingers and opposable thumbs, which constitute the primary characters of the order, the Monkey tribe in general is distinguished by the following peculiarities. Their incisor teeth are invariably four in each jaw, and their molars, like those of man, are flat and surmounted by blunted tubercles. The latter are five in number on each side of either jaw in all the Monkeys of the Old Continent, and in one very distinct tribe belonging to the New; but most of the American species are furnished with a sixth. Their canines vary considerably in size, from a trifling projection beyond the remaining teeth to a long and powerful tusk, almost equalling those of the most formidable Carnivora; and from this structure it necessarily follows that a vacant space is left between the incisors and the canines of the upper jaw, and between the canines and the molars of the lower, for the reception and lodgment of those organs when the mouth is closed. The nails of all their fingers, as well as those of the thumbs, are invariably flat and expanded.

In almost every other point they are subject to infinite variations of form and structure. The shape of the head, which, in one or two species, offers a close approximation to the human form, passes through numerous intermediate gradations, until it reaches a point at which it can only be compared with that of the hound. The body, which is in general slight and well made, is in some few instances remarkably short and thickset, and in others drawn out to a surprising degree of tenuity. Their limbs vary greatly in their proportions; but in most of them the anterior are longer than the posterior: in all they are admirably adapted to the purposes to which they are applied, in climbing and leaping, by the slenderness of their form, the flexibility of their joints, and the muscular activity with which these qualities are so strikingly combined. But of all their organs there is perhaps none which exhibits so remarkable a discrepancy in every particular as the tail; which is entirely wanting in some, forms a mere tubercle in others, in a third group is short and tapering, in a fourth of moderate length and cylindrical, in a fifth extremely long but uniformly covered with hair; in others, again, of equal length, divested of hair beneath and near the tip, and capable of being twisted round the branch of a tree or any other similar substance in such a manner as to support the whole weight of the animal, even without the assistance of his hands.

In none of them, it may be observed, are the hands formed for swimming, or the nails constructed for digging the earth; and in none of them is the naked callous portion, which corresponds to the sole or the palm, capable of being applied, like the feet of man or of the bear, to the flat surfaces on which they may occasionally tread. Even in those which have the greatest propensity to assume an upright posture, the body is, under such circumstances, wholly supported by the outer margins of the posterior hands. The earth, in fact, is not their proper place of abode; they are essentially inhabitants of trees, and every part of their organization is admirably fitted for the mode of life to which they were destined by the hand of nature herself. Throughout the vast forests of Asia, Africa, and South America, and more especially in those portions of the three continents which are comprehended within the tropics, they congregate in numerous troops, bounding rapidly from branch to branch, and from tree to tree, in search of the fruits and eggs which constitute their principal means of subsistence. In the course of these peregrinations, which are frequently executed with a velocity scarcely to be followed by the eye, they seem to give a momentary, and but a momentary, attention to every remarkable object that falls in their way, but never appear to remember it again; for they will examine the same object with the same rapidity as often as it recurs, and apparently without in the least recognising it as that which they had seen before. They pass on a sudden from a state of seeming tranquillity to the most violent demonstrations of passion and sensuality; and in the course of a few minutes run through all the various phases of gesture and action of which they are capable, and for which their peculiar conformation affords ample scope. The females treat their young with the greatest tenderness until they become capable of shifting for themselves; when they turn them loose upon the world, and conduct themselves towards them from that time forwards in the same manner as towards the most perfect strangers.

The degrees of their so much vaunted intelligence, which is in general very limited, and rarely capable of being made subservient to the purposes of man, vary almost as much as the ever-changing outline of their form. From the grave and reflective Oran-Otang, whose docility and powers of imitation in his young state have been the theme of so much ridiculous exaggeration and sophistical argumentation, to the stupid and savage Baboon, whose gross brutality is scarcely relieved by a single spark of intelligence, the gradations are regular and easy. A remarkable circumstance connected with the developement of this faculty, or perhaps we should rather say, with its gradual extinction, consists in the fact that it is only in young animals which have not yet attained their full growth, that it is capable of being brought into play; the older individuals, even of the most tractable races, entirely losing the gaiety, and with it the docility, of their youth, and becoming at length as stupid and as savage as the most barbarous of the tribe.

The Monkeys of the Old and of the New World differ from each other in several remarkable points, some of which are universally characteristic of all the species of each, while others, although affording good and tangible means of discrimination, are but partially applicable. Thus the nostrils of all the species inhabiting the Old World are anterior like those of man, and divided only by a narrow septum. In those of the New World, on the contrary, they are invariably separated by a broad division, and consequently occupy a position more or less lateral. In the former again the molar teeth are uniformly five in number, crowned with obtuse and flattened tubercles; while in the latter they are either six in number, or in the few anomalous cases in which they are limited to five, and which are peculiar to a group that ought to occupy an intermediate station between the Monkeys and the Insect-eating Carnivora, their crowns are surmounted by sharp and somewhat elevated points. The tails of all the American Monkeys are of great length, but they differ more or less from each other in the power of suspending themselves by means of that organ, a faculty which is nevertheless common to the greater number of them, and of which those of the Old World are entirely destitute. On the other hand the American species never exhibit any traces of the callosities or of the cheek-pouches, which are so common among the Asiatic and African races.

Each of these grand divisions has been subdivided into several minor groups or genera; but zoologists have hitherto been by no means unanimous with respect to the principles on which this subdivision ought to be effected. The arrangement which appears to be most generally adopted at the present day is that of M. Cuvier and M. Geoffroy-Saint-Hilaire, which is essentially founded on the application of an imaginary rule, first employed by Camper for ascertaining the degree of intelligence, and consequently of ideal beauty, expressed by the human face in its various gradations of elevation or debasement, and called by him the facial angle. Unfortunately, however, the operations of nature in the animal creation can never be subjected to geometrical laws; nor can her innumerable phases be expressed with the precision of a mathematical theorem. This assumed point of comparison varies almost indefinitely, not merely in different species, but even in the same individual; and the Oran-Otang himself, who is supposed to approach most nearly to the human form, offers the most striking illustration of the truth of this observation; inasmuch as in his young and intellectual state his facial angle is equal to 65°, while in his aged and debased condition, in which he has actually been repeatedly described as a different animal under the name of Pongo, it sinks below 30°; degrading him even beneath the level of the most savage and stupid of the Baboons.

In the foregoing observations we may perhaps be considered as giving too much space to the generalities of the subject; an objection to which we can only answer that nearly the whole of our knowledge of the Monkey tribes consists in generalities. Of the great number of species, upwards of one hundred, which are now known and characterized, very few are distinguished from their immediate fellows by striking and strongly-marked characters, either physical or moral. The groups too are connected by such gradual and easy transitions, that although the typical forms of each, isolated from the mass and placed in contrast with each other, unquestionably exhibit many broadly distinguishing peculiarities, yet the entire series offers a chain so nearly complete and unbroken as scarcely to admit of being treated of in any other way than as one homogeneous whole.

A no less striking than apposite instance of the close affinity between the species, and of the difficulty of distinguishing them from each other, especially in their young state, is furnished by the animals whose figures stand at the head of the present article. They are all three very evidently young individuals, and have not yet reached the period when it would be safe to pronounce with positiveness upon the species, or, were we to adopt the Cuvierian system in its full extent, upon the genera even, to which they respectively belong.

The specimen from which the central figure was taken is in all probability the earlier age of a species of Cercopithecus; but to which of them it should be referred, or whether it belongs to any hitherto characterized species, we may not venture to determine until its characters shall have become more fully developed. The distinctive marks of this genus, which comprehends the smallest Monkeys of the Old Continent, consist in a depressed forehead, with a facial angle of 50°; a flat nose, with the nostrils directed upwards and outwards; cheek-pouches, generally of large size; callosities behind; and a tail of considerable length. The individual before us, in addition to these characters, is remarkable for the reddish brown colour of his upper parts, which gradually disappears in a lighter hue, mingled with a bluish tinge beneath; for the elevated and compressed toupet which advances considerably forwards on his forehead; for the hairs which are thinly scattered over his livid face; and for the spreading tufts of a somewhat lighter colour which occupy the sides of his head and face posteriorly.

The animal which occupies the right hand in the cut appears to be the young of the Macacus cynomolgus, Cuv., the Common Macaque; or rather perhaps, if the colour of the face is to be regarded as affording a sufficient specific distinction, of a new species lately described by M. F. Cuvier under the name of Macacus carbonarius. The Macaques are characterized by the greater elongation of their muzzles, which reduces their facial angle to 40° or 45°; by the strong developement of their superciliary ridges; by the oblique position of their nostrils in the upper surface of their nose; and by the presence of cheek-pouches and callosities. The young animal figured is blackish brown above, and, as is very common among the Monkeys, lighter and of a bluish cast beneath; his hands and face are nearly black; the hairs which cover his forehead form a thick tuft advancing forwards; and his face is almost naked.

We have little hesitation in referring the left hand figure to the Cercopithecus pileatus of M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, the Guenon couronnée of Buffon, which M. Cuvier suspects, with great appearance of truth, to be nothing more than a variety of the Macacus Sinicus, the Bonnet Chinois of the same popular author. It differs from that in fact in little else than in a shorter muzzle, and in a less regularly radiated and depressed disposition of the hair of the upper part of the head; characters which may be fairly regarded as resulting from its immature age. We may also observe that the Macacus radiatus, Geoff., described in the succeeding article, does not appear to be by any means clearly distinguished from the Bonnet Chinois; and that it is highly probable that these three Monkeys form in reality but a single species.

All these animals, which are at present confined in one cage along with several young individuals of the common species of Baboon and with the Bonneted Monkey, exhibit a mixture of playfulness and malice, which renders them extremely amusing. Their gambols with each other are often truly laughable.

THE BONNETED MONKEY.

_MACACUS RADIATUS._ DESM.

THE PIG-FACED BABOON.

_CYNOCEPHALUS PORCARIUS._ DESM.

The Monkey which occupies the left hand in the present cut forms part of the same group with the subjects noticed at the end of the preceding article, from which it is distinguished by the peculiar manner in which the hair of the upper part of its head diverges, and, as it were, radiates horizontally, from a central point towards an imaginary circumference, assuming a form not unlike the object to which it is usually compared, the round bonnet of a Chinese. Its forehead is also more flattened, its superciliary crests less developed, and its muzzle considerably lengthened and laterally compressed. The length of its body is from twelve to fifteen inches, and its tail when entire measures quite as much. The forehead, which is strongly wrinkled, is nearly naked, and the whole of the face is entirely destitute of hair. That of the upper parts of the body is of a uniform yellowish gray, the under surface deriving a bluish tinge from the skin, which is but thinly covered. Its native country is the east of Asia.

The right hand figure represents the Chacma, or Pig-faced Monkey, one of the true Baboons, whose generic characters will be found in the succeeding article. The forehead of this species is remarkably depressed, and the nose much prolonged. Its general colour is dusky, approaching to black. Its body measures from two to three feet in length; but the tail is short, and does not reach the ground when the animal stands upon all fours. It is a native of Africa, and was formerly very troublesome in the neighbourhood of the Cape.

Both these animals, although lively and tolerably good humoured when young, become mischievous in their dispositions and disgusting in their habits as they advance in age. The voice of the latter closely resembles the bark of a dog.

THE BABOON.

_CYNOCEPHALUS PAPIO._ DESM.

In the true Baboons the facial angle of the adult varies from 30° to 35°, and the superciliary crests are for the most part considerably elevated, as is also the ridge on the back of the head formed by the attachment of the temporal muscles, which, as well as the canine teeth, are large and powerful. The cheeks are furnished with pouches capable of much distension; and the muzzle terminates in a flattened extremity like that of the dog, on which the openings of the nostrils are situated. The tail is generally as long as, and sometimes even longer than, the body; but in several of the species it is extremely short. The callosities are frequently of large size and disgustingly conspicuous. This genus is generally considered as the lowest in organization, and consequently in capacity and intelligence, of the tribe to which it belongs.

The colour of the common Baboon is reddish brown; his face and hands are black, and his upper eyelids white. The hair of his cheeks forms a considerable tuft on each side; and the under surface of his body is but sparingly covered. In bulk he is equal to a middle sized dog; his proportions are thickset and inelegant; but he is by no means dull or inactive. When young, he is gay, playful, and docile; but as he grows older he becomes untractable, malicious, and ferocious. He is sometimes even dangerous, his muscular strength and agility, together with the great power of his teeth and jaws, rendering him a formidable opponent. On this account it is absolutely necessary to keep him strictly confined. He is a native of Africa, and more especially of the tropical parts of its western coast.

THE WHITE-HEADED MONGOOS.

_LEMUR ALBIFRONS._ GEOFF.

Belonging to a different tribe of the same grand division with the true Monkeys, from which they are more readily distinguished by their general form and habit than by any very remarkable deviation in their structure or organization, these agile and playful little creatures form a group which naturally follows in immediate succession. The technical peculiarities on which their separation from the Monkeys is founded are usually deduced from their teeth and nails; but other and more obvious characteristics are afforded by the form of their heads, of their tails, and of their hinder extremities, and these assist in confirming a distinction which might otherwise be regarded as arbitrary and unnecessary. The teeth of the Lemurs are, like those of man and of the Monkeys of the Old World, thirty-two in number, and consist of four incisors, two canines, and ten molars in the upper jaw, and of six incisors, two canines, and eight molars in the lower. Such at least is the usual statement with respect to their dentition; but M. Geoffroy maintains, on the other hand, that the number of incisors is equal in both jaws, and coincides with that of the Monkeys; the two outermost of the six, which are larger than the rest, being in his opinion the true canines; while the canines, commonly so called, are in fact only the first of the series of molars. This conjecture unquestionably derives considerable strength from the fact that, when the animal closes its mouth, the supposed canines of the lower jaw pass behind those of the upper, a position directly contrary to that which they uniformly assume in every other animal that is furnished with that kind of teeth. On each of their four hands they have four fingers of moderate length, and a thumb which is capable of being opposed to them almost equally well with that of the other Quadrumana; they are consequently enabled to grasp whatever they seize with the greatest precision. The peculiarity of their nails consists in the shape of that of the index of the hinder hands, which forms an elongated, curved, and pointed claw, approaching in some degree to those of the carnivorous quadrupeds. All the rest of their nails are broad and flat like those of the Monkeys. Their posterior extremities are longer than their anterior; and their body and limbs are light, graceful, and well proportioned. The tail, which is of uniform thickness throughout, is longer than the body, and, in common with it, is clothed with long, soft, and woolly hair. The head is long, triangular, and gradually tapering into a slender and pointed muzzle, which, in proportionate length, far exceeds that of any of the Monkeys; the ears are short and rounded; and the whiskers but little developed.

The whole of the genus thus characterized are natives of Madagascar and of two or three of the smaller islands in its immediate vicinity. They appear to occupy in that remarkable and very imperfectly known country the place of the Monkeys, none of which have yet been detected within its precincts. They are said to live in numerous troops upon the trees, and to feed upon fruits and insects; but their habits in a state of nature have not yet been observed with sufficient accuracy to enable us to form any clear idea of their mode of existence. In captivity they are particularly tame and good tempered, fond of being noticed, delighting in motion, and climbing and leaping with surprising agility. They are, however, in some degree nocturnal; and when undisturbed pass a considerable portion of the day in sleep. If alone, they roll themselves up in the form of a ball, and wind their long tail in a very curious manner round their body, apparently for the purpose of keeping themselves warm; for they are naturally chilly, and delight in basking in the rays of the sun, or in creeping as close as possible to the fire. When two of them are confined together, they interlace their limbs and tails after a singular fashion, and placing their heads in such a position as that each may, if disturbed, see what is going on behind the other’s back, fall comfortably asleep.

The species to which the beautiful pair in the Menagerie belong has all the habits of its group. It is characterized by the clear fulvous brown colour of the upper surface of the body and outer side of the limbs, gradually becoming lighter on the under and inner surfaces, and deepening in its shade towards the tail, the greater part of which is nearly black. The muzzle and the hands are bluish black. The male has the whole of the forehead, the sides of the cheeks, and the under part of the lower lip covered with a white fur, which in the female is of a blackish gray and much less developed; her general colour is also of a lighter tinge. This remarkable difference would lead us to question the specific identity of the two animals, were we not assured by M. F. Cuvier that he had verified the fact by what is usually regarded as an unequivocal test. Mr. M’Leay has, however, thrown considerable doubt upon the accuracy of the inference thus attempted to be drawn, by exhibiting to the Linnean Society a female, in whom the white fur of the head was as distinctly developed as in her male companion. The whole of the species of this group require, in fact, an accurate revision.

THE KANGUROO.

_MACROPUS MAJOR._ SHAW.

The very peculiar structure from which the Marsupial animals derive their name has been regarded by almost every naturalist who has written on the subject as so essential a deviation from the common type, that, setting aside all considerations of form or habits, and regardless even of those technical characters on which so much reliance is usually placed, they have for the most part agreed in uniting under the same family designation every animal in which it occurred. This peculiarity consists in a folding or doubling of the skin and its appendages beneath the lower part of the belly in the females, in such a manner as to form an open pouch or bag, in which the young are contained from a very early period, in which the process of suckling takes place, and in which, even for some time after they have acquired sufficient size and strength to leave it, the little ones continue to take refuge.

But the presence of this one anomalous characteristic is accompanied by so many striking discrepancies in other parts, that, limited as this tribe is in number, most of the principal forms of Mammalia find analogous representations among its groups. Thus the Opossums exhibit characters in some measure intermediate between the Quadrumana and the Carnivora, to which latter the Dasyuri, another Marsupial group, closely resembling the Civets in form and habits, approach very nearly; while the herbivorous races of the tribe might occupy a station between the Rodent and Ruminant Orders, with each of which they exhibit various degrees of relationship. This want of uniformity in the essential parts of their organization necessarily gives rise to much difficulty in determining their position in the system. The mode of classification now most generally followed is perhaps, under all the circumstances, the best that could at the present moment be adopted; although it must be owned that the purely herbivorous species arrange themselves with a very ill grace under a subdivision of the order Carnivora. Placed, however, as they are at the end of that order, and immediately before the Rodentia, the regular gradations from the type of the former to that of the latter, which occur in their different groups, become most distinctly manifest.

With the exception of the Opossums, which are natives of America, the tribe is peculiar to New Holland and its appendages, and to some of the islands which form the great chain of connexion between that insular continent and South-eastern Asia. The former is, however, their head quarters, and the species which are found beyond its limits are few in number compared with those which people its territory, and, what is more remarkable, people it to the exclusion of nearly all the other Mammalia; the dog alone, the universal concomitant of man, and one or two species of rats, disputing with them their title to its exclusive possession; for those paradoxical creatures, the Ornithorhynchus and Echidna, if really mammiferous, approximate closely in structure to the Marsupial tribe.

The largest of these animals are the Kanguroos, whose generic characters we shall now proceed to describe. Their teeth are only of two kinds, the canines being altogether wanting. The incisors are six in the upper jaw, and two only in the lower; the former short, and arranged in a curved line, and the latter long, pointed, closely applied to each other, and directed forwards. The molars are separated from the incisors by a considerable vacant space, and are five in number on each side of each jaw. The most remarkable peculiarity in the external form of these animals consists in the extreme disproportion of their limbs, the anterior legs being short and weak, while the posterior are extremely long and muscular. The tail too is excessively thick at its base, of considerable length, and gradually tapering; and this singular conformation enables it to act in some measure as a supplemental leg, when the animal assumes an erect or nearly erect posture, in which position he is supported as it were on a tripod by the joint action of these three powerful organs. By means of this combination they will, when flying from danger, take a succession of leaps of from twenty to thirty feet in length and six or eight in height; but even in their more quiet and gradual mode of progression they also make use of their tail in conjunction with their four extremities. The fore feet are furnished with five toes, each terminating in a moderately strong and arcuated claw. The hinder extremities, on the contrary, have only four toes, the two interior of which are united together so as to form the appearance of a single one furnished with two short and feeble claws; the third is long, of great strength, and terminated by a large and powerful claw having the form of a lengthened hoof; and the fourth, the most external of the series, is similar in character to the third, but of much smaller dimensions. The head and anterior part are small and delicate, and appear quite disproportioned to the robust posterior half of the body; and this disproportion is equally striking, whether the animal assumes an erect position or crouches forwards upon all fours. In either case the whole extent of the soles of the posterior feet, which are of great length, is applied to the surface of the ground. Although differing from all the Rodent animals in the number of the cutting teeth of the upper jaw, the Kanguroo has the deep fissure in the upper lip, with which nearly all that order are furnished, and of which the hare offers a familiar and proverbial instance.

These singular animals were among the first fruits which accrued to natural history from the discovery of New South Wales, a country which has since proved so fertile in new and remarkable forms both of the animal and vegetable creations. Their natural habits in a wild state are still, however, very imperfectly known. They appear to live in small herds, perhaps single families, which are said to submit to the guidance of the older males, and to inhabit in preference the neighbourhood of woods and thickets. They are, as might be inferred from the small size of their mouths and the peculiar character of their teeth, purely herbivorous, feeding chiefly upon grass and roots. Their flesh is eaten by the colonists, by whom it is said to be nutritious and savoury, an assertion which is confirmed by those who have partaken of it in England. In order to procure this they are frequently hunted in their native country; but the dogs who are employed in this service sometimes meet with dangerous wounds, not only from the blows of their powerful tail, which is their usual weapon of defence, but also from the claws of their hind feet, with which they have been known to lacerate the bodies of their assailants in a shocking manner. But, unless when thus driven to make use of such powers of self-defence as they possess, they are perfectly harmless and even timid; and, when domesticated, are not in the least mischievous. In several collections in this country, and particularly in the Royal Park at Windsor, from which the specimens in the Menagerie were obtained, they have become almost naturalized, and appear to be but little affected by the change of climate. When confined in a small enclosure, they uniformly make their path round its circuit, seldom crossing it or passing in any other direction except for the purpose of procuring their food. Their whole appearance, and especially their mode of progression, is singularly curious and even to a certain extent ludicrous.

Modern naturalists have attempted to distinguish several species among the Kanguroos; but as the characters on which these are founded consist merely in difference of size and slight modifications of colour, a much more complete acquaintance with them than we yet possess is requisite before they can safely be adopted. Our specimens are of a brownish gray above, somewhat lighter beneath, with the extremity of the muzzle, the back of the ear, the feet, and the upper surface of the tail, nearly black, and the front of the throat grayish white. Since they have been confined in the Menagerie, the female has once produced young; a circumstance by no means unfrequent even in this country among those which are less restricted of their liberty and are suffered to roam at large in a meadow or a park. They are fed, like the domesticated Ruminants, upon green herbage and hay; and are extremely tame and good tempered.

THE AFRICAN PORCUPINE.

_HYSTRIX CRISTATA._ LINN.

Although the Rodent order, next to the Carnivorous, is the most numerous in species, the Porcupine is the only animal belonging to it which is at present contained in the Menagerie. The animals of this division, consisting chiefly of “rats and mice and such small deer,” have indeed, with some few exceptions, so little of interest for the mere casual visiter of an exhibition, that it is rarely that they are sought after unless by the scientific collector. They are at once distinguished from the Carnivora by the total absence of canine teeth; and have uniformly two incisors in each jaw, projecting forwards and generally of considerable size, separated from a variable number of grinders by a vacant space.

From the other animals of the order the Porcupines are so readily distinguished by the long and pointed spines with which their body is armed, that it is unnecessary to dwell on their generic characters. The common Porcupine, when fully grown, as in the remarkably fine specimen figured over leaf, measures more than two feet from the tip of the nose to the origin of the tail. The spines, which are supported by a slender pedicel, thickly clothe the upper and posterior parts of the body, the largest being more than a foot in length; they are regularly surrounded by alternate rings of black and white. The head and neck are crested with long, bristly, black hairs, forming a kind of mane, and all the rest of the body is covered with short black hair.

The Porcupine is a native of Africa and the south of Europe; he chooses for his abode the most arid and solitary situations, and passes the daytime secluded in the burrows which he digs for his habitation, quitting them only at night to provide his subsistence, which consists entirely of vegetable substances. He is a remarkably timid animal, and never makes use of his formidable weapons except in self-defence; if alarmed, his spines immediately become erected, and woe be to the enemy who should dare to attack him open-mouthed when in that posture.

THE ASIATIC ELEPHANT.

_ELEPHAS INDICUS._ CUV.

The opportune arrival of a beautiful little Elephant, an animal which has for some time been a desideratum to the Menagerie, fortunately enables us to add to our list of subjects that which in all probability presents the most generally attractive spectacle among the whole class of Mammiferous Quadrupeds. The strong and peculiar interest which the Elephant possesses above all other beasts arises in fact not so much from his gigantic bulk and immense muscular power, as from the high opinion usually entertained of those intellectual qualities with which he has long been supposed to be preeminently endowed, and which have rendered him a theme of exaggerated encomium to the careless observer, while even in some philosophic minds they have furnished the groundwork on which perverted ingenuity has built up theory after theory as baseless and imaginary as the foundation on which they have been made to rest, the reason and reflection of a brute.

It is on this account that we feel it incumbent upon us, notwithstanding all that has been written on the subject, to dwell with some little detail on the natural history of this singular animal; but we shall nevertheless endeavour to compress our observations within the smallest possible compass. We shall commence as usual with his zoological characters, and shall then take a glance at his habits, such as they appear in a pure state of nature, unfettered by any laws but those of necessity, and uncontrolled except by the inevitable influence of the circumstances in which he is placed. And lastly we shall view him when under the control of man, and reduced to that half-domesticated condition to which even his stubborn nature is bowed by the application of those means which man alone can employ, and by which he maintains his ascendancy as undisputed lord of the creation over the mightiest even more effectually than over the meanest of its works.

The Elephants belong to the Pachydermatous order, in which they constitute a family readily distinguishable from the other enormous beasts which form part of it, the Hippopotamus and the Rhinoceros, by a combination of characters of the most remarkable description. To the immense size and clumsy figure of the two last named animals, which indeed they commonly surpass in both those particulars, they add the following distinctive zoological characters. Their teeth consist of two formidable tusks, which, occupying the place of the incisors of the upper jaw, project forwards in a nearly horizontal direction, generally with a slight curvature upwards; and of one or occasionally two cheek teeth of considerable magnitude on each side of each jaw, formed of vertical layers of bony matter surrounded by enamel, and connected together by a third substance called cortical. These latter are not, as in almost all the other Mammalia, renewed for one only time and at a certain age by the growth of others to supply their places from the cavity of the jaw beneath them; but, on the contrary, are pushed forwards by the advance of those which are destined to replace them from behind, and are renewed, according to the statement of Mr. Corse, no less than eight times at different periods of the animal’s existence. On each successive change the number of laminæ of which they are composed is increased, the earliest not offering more than four, while the later ones frequently exceed twenty; and it is in consequence of the new teeth generally making their appearance for some time prior to the total failure of their predecessors that their number occasionally appears to be double its proper and more usual amount. The tusks on the contrary admit but of a single displacement and renewal; the first or milk pair seldom exceeding two inches in length, and falling out between the first and second year. The permanent ones which succeed are much larger and more powerful in the adult male than in the female, and not unfrequently project as much as two feet. They are well known as furnishing one of the most beautiful and ornamental productions which the animal kingdom affords, as well as a valuable article of commerce, in the pure and polished ivory of which they are formed. They have been known to weigh as much as one hundred and fifty pounds, but their usual average is from fifty to seventy.

The ears of the Elephant are large, not elevated like those of other quadrupeds so as to form a kind of trumpet for the reception of sound, but flattened down upon the side of the head, and forming a broad and uninterruptedly expanded surface. His eyes, remarkably small in proportion to his bulk, are sheltered above by a cluster of long hairs, which, with a few others scattered over the head and still more rarely on the body, and a kind of brush at the extremity of the tail, constitute the only covering, if covering it may be called, with which he is provided. His skin in fact is throughout nearly destitute of hair; but in return it is, as in the rest of the order, of excessive thickness and extreme tenacity, insomuch as to be capable of repelling a common musket ball, which scarcely makes the slightest impression upon its surface. His feet are enveloped by a large hoof of a callous and almost horny consistence, and are divided, in the skeleton at least, into five toes, the extremities only of which, rendered obvious by the nails by which they are surmounted, are externally visible. On the hind feet the number of apparent toes varies from three to four.

But of all the peculiarities by which the Elephant is distinguished, the most singular and at the same time the most useful is the projection which is formed by the blending and extension of the nose and upper lip into an elongated and tapering tube, considerably longer than the head, and truncated at the extremity, where it is surrounded by a slightly elevated margin, which is prolonged anteriorly and superiorly into a finger-like appendage of various and invaluable use. This trunk or proboscis, as it is called, is divided throughout its whole extent into two equal cavities, which are continuous with the nostrils, but appear to have no other connexion with the organ of smell than as being the medium of the passage of odours to the olfactory apparatus, which is confined within the bones of the head, and is indeed seated much higher than usual in consequence of the large space occupied by the roots of the tusks and by the cavities of the maxillary bones. The real uses of the trunk are far higher and more important; and it is to this unique and unexampled structure that the Elephant owes whatever superiority he possesses over other beasts. In general capacity he is inferior to most, and the intellectual qualities of a dog or a horse are unquestionably of a far more elevated order; but with the assistance of this curious organ, with some little sagacity, a tolerable memory, and a certain degree of docility, the Elephant is enabled to execute such a variety of actions, either of his own accord or at the command of his keeper, as have gained him the credit not only of being the cleverest of brutes, but of possessing qualities of a superior cast and even the divine gift of reason itself.

The structure of the trunk is entirely muscular, and the fibres of which it is composed are arranged in such a manner that it is capable of being inflected in almost any direction; but to twist itself spirally inwards appears to be its most natural action. In this manner it will grasp with the utmost firmness, for its strength is fully equal to its flexibility, whatever it may seize; and it is by this means that the Elephant conveys his food to his mouth. Being purely herbivorous, but encumbered with a head and appendages so weighty as to require all the support to be derived from an excessively short and almost unyielding neck, it would be utterly impossible for him to browse upon the herbage from which his sustenance is chiefly derived, and he would consequently run no small risk of absolute starvation, were it not for this admirable provision, by means of which he collects and enfolds his food, and conveys it to his mouth with as much ease and precision as a Monkey would execute the same motions with his hands. In drinking too the trunk offers the same facilities and performs the same useful and necessary office. Placing its extremity in the fluid which he is about to drink, the Elephant pumps up, or rather inhales, a sufficient quantity to fill its cavities, and then transferring it to his mouth pours its contents quietly down his throat. When his thirst is satisfied he will frequently continue the same process of filling his trunk for the purpose of discharging the liquid contained in it over his body, an indulgence in which he appears to take no little pleasure; and will even sometimes amuse himself by directing the fluid to other objects.

The Asiatic Elephant was until very lately considered as forming one species with the African, the clear and obvious distinctions which exist between them never having been noticed until pointed out by M. Cuvier, notwithstanding that both have been familiarly known for more than two thousand years to the nations of Europe, the former having formed an important part of the armament with which Porus withstood the conquering arms of Alexander, and having been subsequently introduced even into Italy by Pyrrhus; and the latter, as we may fairly presume, furnishing those individuals which were employed in the warlike array of the Carthaginians. The Asiatic animal appears when fully grown to attain a larger size than the African, the females commonly measuring from seven to eight, and the males from eight to ten feet in height, and sometimes weighing six or seven thousand pounds. His head is more oblong, and his forehead presents in the centre a deep concavity between two lateral and rounded elevations; that of the African being round and convex in all its parts. The teeth of the former are composed of transverse vertical laminæ of equal breadth, while those of the latter form rhomboidal or lozenge-shaped divisions. The ears of the Asiatic are also smaller and descend no lower than his neck, and he exhibits four distinct toes on his hind feet: the African on the contrary is furnished with ears of much greater size, descending to his legs, and no more than three toes are visible on his posterior extremities. These differences are so striking and important, and indeed, so far as regards the form of the head and the structure of the teeth, so essential, that it is impossible not to adopt the division which has been founded upon them, and to consider the natives of the two continents as originally and specifically distinct.

The Asiatic Elephants themselves vary considerably in several minor particulars, such as the comparative length and thickness of their trunks and of their tusks, the latter of which are sometimes, even in the males, of very small dimensions. But these variations are evidently the result of locality and other fortuitous circumstances, the species appearing gradually to degenerate as it recedes from the tropics, and to improve as it advances towards the line. The Elephants of Ceylon are consequently in the highest esteem for size, beauty, and hardihood, and those of Pegu are but little inferior to them; while those of the northern districts of India are held in comparatively trifling estimation.

These animals are by nature sociable, and congregate together in herds, which frequently amount to more than a hundred. The imposing spectacle furnished by such a collection of these immense masses of animated matter may well be imagined. They generally seek the shade of the forest, in which they find additional means of subsistence in the young shoots of the trees, which supply the place of other and more congenial herbs. They frequently issue from it, however, in quest of the latter, and also to indulge in a propensity possessed by them in common with all those animals which like them are furnished with thick and almost naked, or with bristly, skins, that of bathing in the water or wallowing in the mud. It is for this reason that they are usually met with in the neighbourhood of large streams, which their great size and the quantity of fat with which they are commonly loaded enable them to swim with facility. Their trunk is also extremely serviceable in this operation, as it enables them to bury as it were the whole of their body beneath the water, retaining above the surface no more than the extremity of that organ for the admission and expulsion of the air. After having been for some time in the water, it is said that their skin loses the dusky hue by which it is usually distinguished in consequence of the dirt and other matters with which it is incrusted, and assumes a perfect flesh-colour marked with numerous round and blackish spots. This natural colour is, however, lost almost immediately on their reaching the land, when they uniformly scatter themselves all over by means of their trunk with the mud or dust which first falls in their way. So fond are they of this process that they commonly recur to it whenever an opportunity offers. The bathing appears to be absolutely necessary in order to keep their skins to a certain extent supple and flexible; for which purpose their keepers, in captivity, occasionally have recourse to the smearing them with oil as a substitute.