194 



ZOOLOGICAL SKETCHES, 



Meiringer, the daughter of a German colonist of New 

 Freyburg, Brazil. Her father was a self-taught natu- 

 ralist, and his collections have been described by several 

 South-American travellers ; but in the opinion of the 

 natives his curiosity-shop was eclipsed by the menagerie 

 of his daughter, who had tamed some of the wildest 

 denizens of the forest, though evidently on the suaviter 

 in modo plan, since most of her pets boarded themselves 

 or only took an occasional breakfast at the fazenda. 

 Among her more regular guests were a couple of red 

 coaties, or nose-bears, several bush-snakes, and one large 

 boa, a formidable-looking monster with the disposition 

 of a lap-dog, for at a signal from his benefactress he 

 would try to curl himself up in her apron, with a super- 

 numerary coil or two around her knees. 



There may be something, however, in personal mag- 

 netism. All menagerie-keepers know that there are per- 

 sons who exercise over wild animals an influence which 

 it takes others years to acquire. The chronicler of St. 

 Renaldus tells a rather tough story about a troop of 

 wild deer attending the saint's funeral ; but the testimony 

 of Moslems and Giaours seems to confirm the tradition 

 that a Santon, or Mohammedan hermit, near Buda-Pesth 

 had tamed the hill-foxes of the Bakony-Wald, and on 

 his mountain-rambles used to call them from their bur- 

 rows. Wordsworth's legend of the " White Doe of 

 Rylstone" may also be founded on an actual occurrence, 

 for that some attachments of that sort have had other 



