Ittrutni elmiugs.
• VISIT To THE Gamix ANT-EATER.—Well! I have seen this most re- markable quadruped in the flesh, safely housed in the garden of the Zoologi-
cal Society of London in the Regent's Park. It was on its legs, eating an egg
after its fashion. The egg had been broken into an earthenware panikin, and the rounded filiform tongue of the quadruped, looking like a worm or a rat's
tail smoothed down, was coming and going, protruding and retracting, curved at the end as it rested on the bottom of the dish like a blunt hook, as if it had been some instrument dependent on springs, and worked by internal machinery, as it really is "Oh! my—look, ma ; he's got a great worm coming out of his mouth," said a precocious young lady of some six years of age, put forward through the dense crowd by her respectable parent. "Be quiet, Jemima, my dear," said her full-blown peony of a mamma, with a bonnet on her occiput not much larger than the calyx of that rubicund flow- er; " be quiet, don't you see that 'tis the hanimars tongue ?" "Please,
ma, it can't be his tongue," replied Jemima, putting out her own bit of scar- let, that looked as if the family apothecary had not often seen it, "he couldn't screw it up into such a long, round thing as that." For which dis- play poor Jemima got a shake, and an order to hold what she had so liberally displayed. Old myrmecophaga, nothing daunted, went on working the feed- ing-organ in and out, so as to lick up the relished repast into the small mouth that terminated the exceedingly long beak-like face, while the oc- casionally half-shut eye expressed all the sensualism of gourmandise. As the animal proceeded with its meal, the yellow of the egg was frothing round its lips, and a philosopher near us said, " Look at the colour of the secretion." "How many teeth has he ?" said a portentously heavy swell with a moustache that made him look like a courier out of place. " Got none," answered the keeper. Swell looked mystified; and while he was rummaging in his empty head for some overwhelming remark, a little sharp-visaged ar- tisan by his side broke in with—" Then he's a lucky fellow, for he can't lave the toothache." The ordinary expression of the animal's exceedingly long face is very mild, and little indicative of the truculent appetite which slays hundreds for a breakfast. A lion kills a deer or an antelope ; but this lion of the ants sacrifices the insects by hecatombs. Occasionally there is a sly knowing look about the eye, which Punch has admirably hit off in its portrait with the jaunty Jonathan hat on, as it plies its tongue among the industrious niggers. But we have left the Great Ant-eater at dinner before the public, like the Kings of France before revolutions were thought of. The busy tongue was still at work, and continued in action till it had cleared the .panikin of every particle of the omelette an naturel. The animal then turn- ed leisurely round, stumped gravely to its lair, bowed down, and bent in its elongated head into a comfortable reposing posture between the fore-legs, as it knelt on its fore extremities, and wrapping its shaggy toga of a tail round itself, like an ancient Roman after his meal, took its siesta, snug. Wonder- fully is the Ant-eater made, if not fearfully. The strong coarse hair would defy the weapons of the ants of Brobdignag, and the sway of the tail must be a besom of destruction to every eatable living thing around, sweeping all and sundry back to be devoured, notwithstanding their efforts to escape from the area of danger. It is a true KuXXerroSion, and no mistake, as it faces you with its clump-footed anterior extremities : for Dame Nature has taken care that the phalanges or finger-joints, which bear the long claws that .dig down and tear asunder the intrenchments of its prey, should be kept sharp and fit for action by being incurred so that their points do not come in contact with the ground. When viewed in front, it looks as if it must carry on the war against the ants, like Widdrington upon its stumps. "Poor thing !" exclaimed a worthy woman among the spectators, in a tone that spoke the goodness of her heart • "see how he is cramped by being kept so long aboard ship." And, in truth, the incurred fingers, as it rests on the callous pad of the outer edge of its hands, or fore-feet if you will, look worthy of Lord Chalkstone himself. The hind-feet are plantigrade, and the ends of the claws of those extremities not being required for tearing, are in the ordinary position. Our Great Ant-eater has been spoken of and written about, hitherto, as a male ; no such thing—it is of the gentler sex. Her march is slow and deliberate, but clattering withal from the action of the horny claws on the boards, "—as if one should try
To play the piano in thimbles."
As she is noctivagous, that poor invalid, the Chimpanzee, next door, must have a disturbed time of it ; for her wanderings must be as sonorous as those of the cat shod with walnut-shells, introduced by Jack Wilson into Hum- phrey Clinker's nuptial chamber, though not so scampering, for she treads her stage gravely ; and strongly does this female aruhimage of the ants re- mind us of a former woria, and so must have progressed the Megatherium and the Mylodon, for a similar reason. The great curtain depending from her tail appears, when she lies down, to turn suddenly upon a hinge or pivot at the end of her body, covering her, as Sancho said of sleep, like a cloak, and forming a natural thatch of coarse hair, protecting her effectually from the rays of the sun and all atmospheric influences. Indeed, when she is packed up for repose, and turns her tail over herself as a coverlet, the action is not unlike that of a human arm throwing a cloak over the shoulder. And so she is her own landlord, never fearing an ejectment. When thus wrapped in her natural blanket, she presents a sufficiently amorphous appearance, and might be taken for a huge ant-hill.—Fraser's Magazine.
VIEW FROM ADAM'S PEAK AT SUNRISE.—When I rose in the morning all was black below ; nothing whatever could be distinguished, except a few streaks of light in the East. Gradually the rays shot further and further over the sky ; and at length, standing in the foot-impression, on the highest pinnacle of the summit, I could discern a small portion of the sun himself. Still everything around and beneath was dark—the sky alone glowing with light, but all below like. a vast black ocean of the most forbidding character. At length a hill in our vicinity was touched by the rays, and there, in the gloom, it shone and glistened like a piece of burnished gold in a sea of pitch. Another and another mountain-top caught the glow and stood prominently forth, shining gorgeously in the surrounding darkness. And so it went on— the shining islands ever increasing in size and becoming more numerous, until nothing remained dark but the rallies between the highest hills, whilst the various tints of the clouds.that hung on the mountain-sides added a peculiar charm to the landscape. I could at length discover the Indian Ocean to the West and South ; and more than half the island was laid open, as in a vast panorama, to my inspection. To witness the rising of the sun from the summit of Adam's Peak, iB a sight worth living and toiling for, and once witnessed, can never be forgotten ; the impression, vivid almost as the reality, will live in the memory, however far we may be removed, from the mountain in distance, or from the scene itself by time. In the vast land- scape that was thus spread out before me standing on that solitary cone, a mile and a half in perpendicular height from the level of the sea, I was par- ticularly struck by the absence of any trace of man. Not a single object which I could discern around or below recalled him or his works—all was nature,: in its highest and grandest sense. The thick forests that filled the rallies; the rocks, massive, bleak, and stern, that marked the hills' sides; the rivers or streams, winding like threads of silver through the green or brown beneath; the clouds, white, grey, and black, that dotted the landscape here and there ; all was nature, and nature only, without being interfered with or marred by man.—Forest Life in Ceylon.
VALUING A WIFE IN CAFFRARIA..—Polygamy is only restricted by the bovine riches of the men. A chief, or a wealthy individual, has generally seven or eight wives at least (all living amicably together,) whom he has purchased from his various fathers-in-law, for certain numbers of oxen, in proportion to the rank and attractions of the ladies. This is left to the heads of the tribe to settle ; and to insure a fair valuation, the bride in prospect, " in native beauty clad," is made to walk round a ring of influen- tial old gentlemen appraisers, seated on the ground, before each of whom she stops a few minutes ; when, having been criticized by the circle she re- tires, and a consultation is held to fix the number of cattle her charms are worth ; the decision being final and without appeal either for father or suitor."—Carepaigning in Kojirland.
THE DESERTED KENNED.—Having made the before-mentioned arrange- ment with Mr. Wilkins, and seen my hounds depart for the Pychley kennel, I could not bear to look on the deserted doors at home. When, after a time, I did go into the kennel, there were a thousand remembrances to make me melancholy.Where were the rows of attached and sensible faces that used to stand or sit in the yard round the feeding-house door, each to wait till I called them to their dinner ? every hound always on one particular spot, and one at the door, kissing the whip in my hand, and asking it to touch her head, to signal her in, but not attempting to pass as the door opened to some light feeder whom I had called before her ; a hundred and twenty silent and submissive creatures, every one knowing his or her particular name, and distinguishing that name though others had appellations that sounded like it, and though hungry and full of animal anxiety to feed, not one attempt- ing to pass the constantly opening door till called by name to do so. There was the bench on which they slept so comfortably on their clean wheaten straw, lapped the one over the other, like a Chinese puzzle made of hounds, after they came home from hunting ; and where, after cub-hunting, having had my breakfast, I used to pay them a visit, their coats scarcely dry of the woodland dew, and smelling so sweetly of the aroma of the wild plants they had crushed in forcing their way through the thickets at the brush of a fox. Every part of the kennel reminded me of some beautiful favourite severed from me for ever ; and for a time I hated the sight of those lonely favourite, —Berkeley's Reminiscences of a Huntsman.
Hann BED REFRESHING.—Our evening encampment was the perfection of a resting-place ; a rocky island, but beds nearly for each and all of us, of soft white moss, so that all had themselves to blame if they did not sleep as on beds of down. Not that a soft bed affords the rest necessary after a hard day's labour ; the men uniformly say that they get up from such unrefreshed : but when, as here' the hard rock is underneath the mossy covering, then the back is well supported, and the whole frame is invigorated by the repose.— The Net in the Bay.
1Jsriveass..terr or ROMAN Lerramsroe.—It is not too much to eay that three parts of Europe are to this day essentially, if unconsciously, Roman in habits, sentiments, laws, language, traditions, and usages. Few, indeed, but those who have thought on the subject, can form any idea what a large pro- portion of all that we daily see and use is simply Roman, not only in its origin, but almost in its present form. We wear mourning, we sprinkle dust on the coffins of our friends, our poets talk of their "ashes," and our sculptors commemorate them by cinerary urns. We use bride-cake at weddings ; we give gifts, and add good wishes on New-Year's Day ; we celebrate birthdays; we use the names of the months from January to December unchanged - we dress our statues in Roman attire ; we impress the Palatine bay and oak on our coins - we place afflicted persons in abodes named after the "Asylum" of Romulus ; and we call our " money " after the Temple of Juno Moneta. We still keep the ancient feast of the Floralia in our May-Day revelries; the Ambervalia in "beating the parish bounds ' ,'• and we still retain or- ders of Knighthood, borrowed from the Equites of the old Republic. Similar coincidences might be traced in almost every department of public and pri- vate life : and yet England is far less Roman than many other European states. Agricultural operations in many countries have remained wholly unchanged.—Paley's Ovidii .Yasonis Pastoruni.
PenuAmarrrany REFORM FROM WITHIN.—Compreasion improves style; and we should have better talking if we had shorter speeches. For an im- provement, however, in this respect, we must look, not to any arbitrary rules or system, but to the common sense and good taste of Members themselves —to whom gradual instructive hints could no doubt be given by. an improve- ment in the style of reporting. Ministers must lead the way in such a Re- form ; and, to begin with, it might be made a custom for Ministers to lay their "statements" on the table, for distribution among Members, just as they lay on the table the resolutions they intend to move. Conceive how superior would be a compressed state paper, conveying a complicated Budget, to a diffused speech ? After the deposition of the "statement," it could be debated; and the framer of the statement would have the usual reply; a machinery which would sustain the supply of Parliamentary debaters. And if Ministers set the fashion of neatness of phrase and crispness of style,— independent Members also being required to lay their proposals on the table, in fact, all initiatory matter to debate being written and not spoken,—we should 130011 see a great change. Lord John and Mr. Disraeli might turn out to be too confirmed in habit to give up their present multiplicatory English; but in ten years we should have Mr. Peel and Lord Stanley facing one another and destroying or saving the constitution in elegant efforts not occu- pying more than an hour per stab and per parry.—.Fraser's Magazine.
Summar or Laxness Cruarrirs.-92 Medical Charities, having an ag- gregate income during the year of 266,9251. 12 Societes for the Preservation of Life, Health, and Public Morals, 35,717/. 17 for reclaiming the Fallen, Penitentiary, and Reformatory Asylums, 39,4861. 13 for the relief of Street Destitution and Distress, 18,326/. 14 for the Relief of Specific Distress, 27,387/. 25 Jewish Miscellaneous Charities, 10,0001. 19 for the Benefit of the Industrious, 91241. 12 Benevolent Pension Societies, 23,667/. 15 Clergy Aid Funds, 35,301/. 32 other Professional and Trade Benevolent Funds, 53,467/. 30 Trade Provident, only 25,000/. 126 Asylums for the Reception of the Aged, 87,6301. 9 for the Benefit of the Blind, Deaf, and Dumb, 26,050/. 13 Asylums for the Maintenance of Orphans, 45,465/. 15 for the Maintenance of other Children, (exclusive of Parochial Schools,) 88,2281, 21 Societies for the Promotion of Schools and their efficiency, 72,2471. 43 Home Mission Societies, (several combining extensive operations abroad,) 319,7051. 14 Foreign Mission Societies, 459,668/. The sales of Bibles and other reli- gious publications realizing above 100,000/. not included in either of the last mentioned. To this list must be added 5 unclassed Societies, 32= Also, an amount of 160,0001. raised during the year for special funds, in eluding the proposed Wellington College, the New Medical College, the Wellington Benevolent Fund, &c. Making altogether, as the subject of our report, 530 Charitable Societies of London, with an aggregate amount diS' bursed during the year of 1,805,6351.—The Charitiis of London in 1852-'3.
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