rapidly that in a few hours it registered 16 degrees
below freezing-point. On the following morning, though the sun broken feather, and could hardly present a finer appearance was shining brightly, every pool and pond was sheeted with heads emerge from the powdery snow, is something more extra coat by burrowing in its straw and then emerging with into its freezing bath. almost concealing the horns and the sullen, bloodshot eye.
THE ZOO IN A FROST. This bull is said to be the largest, and almost the last, of its fro in their large aviary on pinions =disfigured by a single on their native hills. The Gayal, an immense bison from the at the frost and icicles, and as indifferent to the cold as Mr. ferent to the weather. It would seem that all those species, Samuel Weller's polar bear " yen he was a-practising his such as the wild boar, or the buffalo and bison, which are skating." A visit to the Gardens in such weather sug. widely distributed on many continents, adapt themselves gests a modification of too rigid ideas of the limitation rapidly to changed conditions of climate; and the wild boars, of certain types of animals to warm or torrid climates, which have been bred for several generations in this country and illustrates the gradual and reluctant character of and in Scotland, are rapidly developing a thicker and the retreat of species before the advance of the glacial rougher coat of hair than their Indian cousins. It is probable that the tiger from Turkestan, if allowed the use cold in remote ages. No creatures are, as a rule, more sensitive to cold than the whole monkey tribe. Yet of the outer cages, from which the Indian tigers and other there is at least one species of monkey which habitually large carnivore, are withdrawn during the winter, would endures the rigours of a northern winter. One of the develop the thick and beautiful coat with which the northern oleverest antique Chinese drawings at South Kensington tiger is represented in Chinese paintings. The bears, though represents a troop of monkeys caught in an avalanche of so well wrapped up, take the frost as a hint to hibernate, and were for the most part fast asleep. Those which occupy snow. The grotesque discomfiture of these pink-faced monkeys rolling down the hill-side, helplessly clutching at cages facing the morning sun uncurl as the day grows b each othef's bodies and tails, grinning and grimacing as their brighter, and exhibit coats in the utmost perfection of winter growth. The black, brown, and cinnamon bears have at this than the fancy of a Chinese painter. The incident is pro- time a bloom upon their fur which the utmost skill of the "Ably drawn from an actual scene, and one of the creatures, furrier fails to reproduce if the animal is killed at any other monkey from the mountains of Pekin, the Tcheli was in an period of the year. In Southern and Central Russia many proprietors own large estates devoted to breeding horses open cage in the gardens, and in far better health and P spirits than in the height of summer. Its fur had grown and cattle. A menagerie of bears is often added to this. thick and close, and the naked face had assumed the dark These are killed at the right season, and their skins sold madder-pink with which it was adorned in the Chinese draw- in the best condition. Cloaks made from the skins of the ing. When presented with sticks crusted with frozen ice, six-months'-old cubs have been sold for from 2600 to 41,000. it sucked the chilly dainty with great relish, and only Of the Polar bears, one, the older and larger, seems showed signs of sensitiveness to cold by putting its disposed to follow the example of the brown and black fingers in its mouth, and then sitting on its hands to species, and to doze through the cold weather. The she. warm them. The behaviour of this northern monkey is only bear, much smaller and younger than its mate, takes its strange by contrast with the general habits of its kind, bath as usual, and plays with the floating ice like a baby But the indifference to cold of the capybara, a gigantic with the soap. There it exhibits the most astonishing antics, water guinea-pig from the warm rivers of Brazil, is not turning back-somersaults, and standing on its head, or easy to explain. Two of these quaint creatures had left their flinging out plates of ice with its nose and paws. No creature snug sleeping apartments, and were stepping gaily among suggests such perfect indifference to cold as this Arctic bear, pools of half-frozen water and broken ice. One had gained an with icicles hanging to its fur, as it plunges again and again a pile upon its back; and, when this fell off, retired and The beavers are, of course, invisible, having long ago pro shuffledon another pile ; but the other seemed quite con- vided against the frost by plastering the wooden sides of tent to sit without protection in the sunniest corner of its the new house with mud and turf, and dragged a supply of enclosure. The whole colony of porcupines (six in number), dead branches as far as they could be forced to enter the which, like most semi-nocturnal animals, are very loath narrow door. Though they are fed every day, and have to appear in public during the day unless enticed by food nothing to fear from the weather, the instinct of winter of a more than usually tempting character, were abroad storage is as strong as in the wild state. One is tempted to and in the highest spirits, erecting and rattling their quills, speculate whether this prudence is accompanied by any rational and sitting up to inspect their visitors like gigantic rabbits, knowledge of the probable inadequacy of their stock to meet
their natural wants. If their sense of quantity bears any proportion to their industry and skill in engineering, they must be full of anxiety and misgivings, for the few branches given them are only in make-believe ; and they are wholly dependent on their captors for daily food. For some reason, the rare European beavers, brought from the river Rhone, have not thriven at the Zoo this year. It is said that only two are left of the six which were formerly in the pond.
From another point of view the demeanour of the semi- tropical birds in this sudden wave of cold was even more interesting than the power of adaptation to climate shown by so many qualrupeds. The whole pheasant tribe, perhaps the most beautiful, as a class, of any family of birds, are in the very acme of plumage and condition. The Himalayas and China are the main homes of the gorgeous creatures, and we are not surprised to see in Regent's Park the metallic lustre of the Monauls, or the scarlet, orange, and gold of the rarer Chinese varieties, in equal perfection with that attained in the glens of Cashmir or the mountains of China. But the Argus pheasant is a native of Sumatra and Borneo, the companion of the trogons and the ourang- outang ; yet the cock-bird was displaying its beauties in the open air, among leaves and grass tipped with icicles, and showed plumage so close and perfect that it was impossible to doubt that the colder climate had, if anything, added a lustre to its unrivalled wealth of ornament. It is to be regretted that the eggs laid last summer were not fertile, else the development of perhaps the most perfect instance of animal pattern might have received further explanation from the processes of growth in the plumage of the young. There is one tender nestling from the tropics at present being reared at the Zoo, though not exposed to the rigour of December frost. Two months ago a young king vulture arrived from South America—a round, fluffy ball of white down, with a smooth black head like a negro baby, and as helpless as a young pigeon. It has grown rapidly, and is now the most interesting and intelligent specimen of a young carnivorous bird that the writer has yet seen. As a rule, nothing could well be more morose and forbidding than the eaglet or the young of any hawk or falcon. They are helpless, savage, and unresponsive to any form of kindness. But the young vulture is almost as tame and as intelligent as a puppy. it follows its keeper in the warm house, which it shares with the tortoises, sitting down when he stops, and rising and running with a strange half-bird, half-quadruped gait which is irresistibly comic. When frightened or shy in the presence of strangers, it lays its head on the ground, and "shams dead" like a young plover, though now almost as large as a turkey. But it soon loses all fear, and takes food or pulls at the garments of its visitors with amusing confidence. But the young vulture is an accidental visitor. The frosts of winter are mainly interesting at the Zoo as the time when the inmates exhibit the full beauty and vitality of vigorous maturity.
E*** We are compelled by the pressure on our space to defer all our letters till next week.]
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