LEAVES FROM THE NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 



51 



teresting group, and other temptations crowd upon 

 my pen. The hippopotamus thanks to his pow- 

 erful highness, the Viceroy of Egypt, who saith to 

 a man "Go, and hegoeth;" and to good, zeal- 

 ous, indefatigable, disinterested Mr. Murray is 

 delighting multitudes of eager spectators, who 

 crowd to the Regent's Park to see this most 

 healthy, good-humored, rollicking, pachydermatous 

 baby of five hundred pounds' weight, that has come 

 from a distance of five thousand miles to see and 

 be seen ; for he appears to be as pleased with his 



visitors as they are with him. The thylacines 

 shapes such as one sees in dreams as yet so shy 

 and wild that they dash with horror from the sight 

 of a human face, and remain sulkily in their dor- 

 mitory, are arrived to add to our notions of Aus- 

 tralian wonders. The Egyptian snake-charmers 

 are come. There are, however, other things in 

 the world besides birds, beasts, and reptiles ; and 

 the friendly reader must be no longer detained 

 from the more interesting pages that here claim 

 his attention. 



