204 NATURAL HISTORY ESSAYS 



menagerie at Knowsley Hall ; the ambiguous state- 

 ment of an anonymous essayist in t86o that Lord 

 Derby *' anticipated the Zoological Society with 

 the great anteater " may refer to museum specimens. 

 Be this as it may, some two years after the death 

 of Lord Derby in 185 1, there might have been seen 

 in London a window-bill in a small shop inviting the 

 public to see an ANTITA at a charge of sixpence 

 per head, children half-price. The mysterious 

 exhibit was a young tamanoir, about five months 

 old, and as big as a Newfoundland dog, the only 

 survivor of four which had been taken by some poor 

 Germans in the wilds of Brazil. The captors had 

 arranged to divide into two parties bound respectively 

 for London and Paris, each section taking with them 

 a couple of tamanoirs. The anteaters destined for 

 Paris unfortunately died before reaching France, and 

 of those intended for England one fell prematurely 

 into the hands of a Rio Janeiro taxidermist. The 

 survivor was exhibited to the public at No. 17, 

 Broad Street, Bloomsbury. Kept behind a curtain 

 and railed off from the spectators, it inhabited a deal 

 box carpeted with straw and surmounted by the 

 stufifed skin of its departed comrade. The anteater 

 was fed on eggs (of which it took fifty a day) and 

 with milk, chopped meat, and soup. Mr. D. W. 

 Mitchell, then Secretary of the Zoological Society, 

 after repeated overtures managed to secure the 

 animal for the Gardens. Installed in a special glass 



