THE LITERARY ZOOLOGICAL GARDEN. 261 



attention in the way you are led to expect from the notice we have men- 

 tioned, growling, and thrusting out his paws through the wires, until 

 he forces you to appease him with morsels of biscuit, or pieces of ginger- 

 bread. A kind of fellow-feeling forbids us to speak harshly of this 

 poor creature ; yet truth compels us to say, that there is not a sorrier 

 animal in the whole collection. It resembles nothing so much as a half- 

 starved dog. Some zoologists say that it is its nature to eat little or 

 nothing ; but we are rather disposed to believe that it would eat its belly- 

 full if it could but get it. Its habits seem to combine those of the 

 spaniel and lap-dog, servile and snappish by turns ; to-day fawning on 

 the Editor for his notice, to-morrow barking at the Proprietor for a bone. 

 It has been known to bite ; but displays that spirit so seldom, that it 

 inspires very little fear ; and, in nine cases out of ten, may be kicked 

 about as you please. However, it is the safer course to be on one's 

 guard against it, particularly when there happens to be a rise in the 

 price of red-herrings or sheep's-trotters, for it is then apt to be rabid, 

 and to do something more than shew its teeth. 



The EDITOR, so called from " edo" to eat, is placed with great pro- 

 priety in the next cage to the animal we have just described ; care, 

 however, is taken to keep them asunder, by means of a partition, else 

 the former would inevitably be worried to death by his hungry and 

 envious neighbour. It is the prerogative of eating (as the name imports) 

 that forms the zoological characteristic of the Editor, which is therefore 

 as fat and well- conditioned as the Contributor is lean and miserable. 

 One would suppose, that such a difference of circumstances could not 

 but repel them from each other ; but the fact is, that in a state of nature 

 they are always in company, the plump dog being attended by a pack 

 of lean ones, like a bishop in a circle of curates. What the Contributor 

 gets by dogging the Editor, naturalists are not agreed ; but there is no 

 doubt that it expects something, for it is not in canine nature, any more 

 than in human, to content itself with the mere contemplation of another's 

 prosperity, without feeling a desire to share it. 



The REVIEWERS are amongst the most remarkable beasts in this exhi- 

 bition. They are the bears of literary zoology, and there are three 

 species of them ; the Ursa Unicolor, the Ursa Bicolor, and the Ursa 

 Tricolor. The two former are denominated from the colours of their 

 skins, that of the former being of a uniform dull yellow, that of the 

 latter being deep blue, with the exception of a bright yellow stripe 

 along its back. The third differs very little in the colour of its fur from 

 the first ; but anatomists having discovered that revolutionary combina- 

 tion of tints red, white, and blue in the animal's heart, they gave it 

 the name of Ursa Tricolor, from so remarkable a circumstance. It is 

 the Unicolor which is at present so ferocious, that it is necessary to warn 

 visitors against approaching too near its cage. The keeper informed us 

 that it first began to be dangerous about the month of July, 1830 ; but 

 that it did not become so outrageous as to be altogether unmanageable 

 until the day when the royal assent was given to the Reform Bill. 

 " From that day forth," said the fellow, <( he went so wild, that one 

 would have sworn he was a boroughmonger instead of a bear." We 

 never saw a more furious creature. It paces incessantly up and down 

 its cell, growling savagely, and glaring fiercely at every one who stops 

 to observe it, or else at its tricoloured neighbour, towards whom its 

 feelings appear to be particularly acrimonious. The Tricolor, however, 



