6 1 Unicorn. — Earthquake in Persia. — Crocodile of the Ganges. 



UNICORN. 



Among the curiosities so liberally sent by Mr. Hodgson, 

 assistant to the resident at Katmandoo, to the Asiatic Society 

 of Calcutta, is a large spiral horn said to belong to the uni- 

 corn, and with it drawings of the animal made by a Bhotea 

 peasant. The drawings are stated to convey the true image 

 of a living animal of the deer kind, out of the centre of whose 

 forehead grows a horn of the description transmitted. The 

 animal is described as gregarious, graminivorous, and its flesh 

 good to eat. Its name is chiro; its colour bright bay, and its 

 dwelling-place the plains of B'hote, beyond the Himalayah, 

 and especially the woody tract of country situated a kv; days 

 north-west of Digurche, known to the natives by the name of 

 Chaugdung. The testimony of the poor Bhoteas, whom 

 trade and religion bring down annually to Nepaul, appears to 

 be uniform respecting the existence of this animal, but they 

 hesitate about procuring it, though urged by the promise of a 

 liberal reward. They declare that the chiro is too large and 

 fierce to be taken alive, or to fall under their simple weapons ; 

 but they sometimes find the horns, naturally shed by the living, 

 or remaining after the decay of the dead animal. These horns 

 are dedicated to their divinities, and the one obtained by 

 Mr. Hodgson was brought to Katmandoo to be suspended in 

 the interior of the temple of Sumb'hooNat'h. — Asiatic Journal. 



EARTHQUAKE IN PERSIA. 



Letters from Shiraz announce, that on the 27th Chavval, 

 1^239, which answers to the month of April 1824, there had 

 been an earthquake, which lasted six days and six nights with- 

 out interruption, and which had swallowed up more than the 

 half of that unfortunate city, and overthrown the other, as was 

 the case with the earthquake at Aleppo. Nearly all the inha- 

 bitants fell victims to this catastrophe ; scarcely five hundred 

 persons could save themselves. Other letters from Aborkoh 

 announce that the same shock, but less violent, had been felt 

 there. Kazroon, a city between Aborkoh and Shiraz, was 

 swallowed up, with almost the whole of its inhabitants, in con- 

 sequence of the same earthquake. All the mountains sur- 

 rounding Kazroon were levelled by it, and no trace of them 

 now remains. — Asiatic Journal. 



THE CROCODILE OF THE GANGES. 



Dr. C. Abel, of Calcutta, has investigated the structure and 

 character of the cummeer, or Ganges crocodile, and compared 

 it with its described congeners, from an individual of great 

 size, measuring eighteen feet from the extremity of the nose 



to 



