The annual dinner of the Acclimatisation Society was held at
St. James's Hall on Wednesday. Our modern explorers and wild hunters were well represented, Captains Speke and Grant, M. du Chaillu and Mr. Grantley Berkely all being present. The dinner comprised all kinds of strange food- conger-eel soup, ostriches' eggs, " poulets d l'emancipation des negres "—there is some chance of emancipation becoming fashionable after this—frogs dressed like chickens, bear's ham, sand grouse, " bourgoul" from the Lebanon, and many other novelties were cautiously partaken of. Some of them seem, however, to have possessed but little charm besides that of novelty, for Mr. Bernal Osborne declared flatly that he would rather starve than eat conger-eel soup. The chairman, in calling attention to the more important objects of the Society, reminded the members that there was a time when the only vegetable grown in England was the cabbage, when wheat was unknown, and the only trees in our forests were the oak and the beech.
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