NOTE-BOOK OF A NATURALIST. 413 



powerful liberality, both an African elephant, and a 

 rhinoceros may be forthcoming, good Mr. Murray being 

 on the spot to take care of the much-desired additions. 

 With the tide of foreigners setting in to inundate these 

 islands, two orangs from Borneo, three feet high, and 

 rejoicing in the names of Darby and Joan, are coming. 

 Despatches have already been received, with a programme 

 for their treatment from morning till night : 

 Every clay, when they go to dine. 

 They're to have, at one, a shoe of pine ! 



Poor dear Theodore ! If he were spared to us, what 

 a second edition of The Chim2mnzee we should have. 



Negotiations are pending with Leyden for a visit from 

 the gigantic Salamander, Sieholdtia maxima.* I 

 should not be surprised if Mr. Mitchell, with whom all 

 things seem possible, were, by hook or by crook, to 

 beg or borrow an egg of the gigantic bird of Madagascar, 

 fit rival for the New Zealand Moa.-|- Two of these eggs, 

 besides fragments, are in Paris. Each would hold six 

 ostrich eggs, sixteen emeu eggs, one hundred and forty 

 eggs of the common barn-door hen, and a thousand hum- 

 ming-bird eggs. Old Sinbad was a true man, after all ; 

 and we may catch a Rok yet.^: 



May, 1851. 



* Ante, p. 103. 



t Dlnornis (Owen). Nearly a perfect skeleton of this form 

 has been found lying together, and is on its way to this countiy. 



X I have jnst seen (April 19) the Asiatic elephant, with her 

 calf, seven months old, at her side. They have been secured to 

 the Zoological Society by the energetic management ; and I hear 

 that ' more elephants' are coming. Four are now to be seen in 

 this noble collection ; and before the year is out, a herd will 

 probably be exhibited in the Regent's Park. 



THE END. 



