THE PICTURE-BOOK. 9 



"With these laws our friend had little cause of quarrel. 

 And now, asking pardon for bestowing on such particulars 

 the space which, in regular biographies, is usually devoted 

 to a genealogical table, we proceed with our narrative. 



The books given to children are like the flies with which 

 an angler tries the stream. Few are so dull or sulky as 

 to refuse every bait ; but so diverse has the wise Creator 

 made the turn or tendency of different people, that the 

 fisher of men or the teacher of youth, whose hooks have 

 all the self-same mounting, will fail to " raise " some of 

 the most valuable fishes. Fortunately for himself and his 

 fellow-creatures our little orphan was caught betimes. 

 "When only three years of age a kind friend presented 

 him with a book called " The Three Hundred Animals." 

 It was the very food for which his hungry soul had 

 appetite. He never wearied gazing on its pictures of the 

 elephant and lion, and its monkeys manifold ; and as 

 soon as he could read with sufficient ease, he devoured its 

 descriptive letterpress. The barb thus busked was killing, 

 and even before he knew the name, he was carried captive 

 for the rest of life by natural history. 



In the fauna of the Pentlands, sheep are doubtfully in- 

 digenous, and in Edinburgh itself the mammalia of most 

 frequent occurrence are mice and rats ; but for the other 

 great divisions of natural science no European capital is 

 so favourably situated. With a delightfully variegated 



