PREFACE. 



THE reader of the following pages will doubtless 

 remind the writer of the present lines that good 

 wine needs no bush. As, however, the authorship 

 of the articles from the Saturday Review was only 

 known to a few friends and acquaintances, it 

 appeared desirable that they should be prefaced 

 in the book form by someone interested in the 

 matters of which they treat, and, as so many of 

 them relate to the animals at the Zoological 

 Society's Gardens, I was asked by the author's 

 friends to say a few words by way of an intro- 

 duction to these essays of Mr. Tristram-Valentine. 

 The first set of sketches deals with animals at 

 the Zoological Gardens. When they appeared in 

 the Saturday Review, they were a propos of recent 

 acquisitions ; but it will be seen that they are of 

 more than temporary value as short essays upon 

 the animals in question. Moreover a large per- 

 centage of them relates to creatures that are 

 generally included in the collection of living 

 animals at the Kegent's Park. At the moment 

 of writing there happens to be neither an Aurochs 



