44. LEAVES FROM THE 



rishing, enjoying a bath of the temperatnre of the river, 

 and delighting everybody by its amiable and docile 

 qualities. This most valuable gift was accompanied by 

 a fine lioness and a cheetah ; and Mr. Murray was 

 further informed, by his Highness the Viceroy of 

 EgyjDt, that a party of his troops remained out on the 

 White Nile, expressly charged with the duty of securing 

 a young female hippopotamus, destined also for the So- 

 ciety. 



If fortune be but propitious — if no casualty should 

 arise to disappoint our hopes — it is not improbable that 

 in the merry month of May, two hippopotami may be 

 presented to the wondering eyes of the visitors to the 

 Regent's Park. The Romans, who saw in their day 

 every known creature that the Old World produced, 

 were made familiar with this uncouth form — this huge 

 incorporation of life — at their shows and shambles of 

 men and beasts, when both fell slaughtered as the 

 crowning excitement of the arena. But no living hip- 

 popotamus has as yet been seen on British ground. 



The King of Dahomy, the steps of whose throne are 

 formed of the skulls of his enemies, and who commands 

 an army of plump, well-fed Amazons, had never seen a 

 peacock. The Zoological Society, longing for an African 

 elephant, sent over to his majesty a gift of pea-fowl, the 

 cocks having first been shorn of their tail — or rather 

 back-feathers ; for the feathers springing from the back 

 arrange themselves into that magnificent iridescent 

 circle, and are supported by the caudal feathers, when 

 Juno's bird shines out in all his splendour, and, as the 

 nursery-maids term it, ' spreads his tail/ 



But why dock the peacocks ? 



Because, if they had been sent with their trains on, 

 they would have presented such a ragged appearance 

 to the royal eyes, after being cooped up on their voyage 

 — to say nothing of the irritation to the system of the 



