464 Miscellaneous. 



may be illustrated by the smalness of many organized bodies. Ten" 

 thousand seeds of the plant called Harts-Tongue, hardly make the 

 bulk of a peppercorn. Now the covers and the true body of each 

 seed, the parenchymous and lignous parts of both, the fibres of those 

 parts, the principles of those fibres, and the homogeneous particles or 

 atoms of each principle, being moderately multiplied one by another, 

 afford a hundred thousand millions of formed atoms in the space of 

 a peppercorn ; but how many more we cannot define, 



"The same is yet more evident from the stupendious smalness of 

 some animals, especially in the sperm of smaller insects. Which have 

 been observed by Mr. Leuwenhoeck, to be a hundred millions of 

 times smaller than a great sand. xA.nd what then must be the 

 number and smalness of those formed atoms, whereof all the organ - 

 ical parts of these animals are composed V — Grew's Cosmologia 

 Sacra, 1701, p. 11, ch. vi. 



NOTES ON THE BIRTH OF THE GIRAFFE AT THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY 8 

 MENAGERIE. BY PROFESSOR OWEN. 



Connexion took place between the female Giraffe and the lighter- 

 coloured male on the 18th March, 1838, and again on the 1st of 

 April. 



The young animal was a male, and was born June 9, 1839, being 

 444 days, or fifteen lunar months, three weeks, and three days, since 

 the last observed, and, in all probability, the last coitus. 



The new-born animal came into the world, like other Ruminants, 

 with the eyes open, and the hoofs disproportionately large. The 

 skin was marked as distinctly as in the adult, with large angular 

 spots, which were somewhat darker than those of the mother ; and 

 the hair of the legs was of a deeper fawn colour. It sucked some 

 warm cow's -milk from a bottle with avidity, and once or twice uttered 

 a low, gentle grunt or bleat, something between that of a fawn 

 and a calf. The young creature made several efforts to stand, raising 

 itself on the fore knees ; and was able to support itself on its va- 

 cillating and outstretched legs, about two hours after its birth. 



" No one could have seen the young Giraffe," says Professor 

 Owen, " without being struck with its large size, compact figure, 

 and strength of limb. The condition or purpose of the long gesta- 

 tion is, evidently, to bring into the world the young Giraffe of a 

 stature and strength suitable to the exigencies of a denizen of the 

 desert — the birthplace, likewise, of the Lion and other destructives." 

 The length of the animal, measuring from the muzzle to the root of 



