110 THE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



ten days it was simply roasted with part of the loin-fat or 

 suet, some of which was used for a suet pudding. Three brother 

 naturalists formed with Owen a " committee of taste," to test the 

 qualities of this joint of the first eland fattened for the table. 

 When carved the meat presented the appearance of pork, and 

 the committee were unanimous that in texture it was the finest, 

 closest, most tender and masticable of any. In taste, the first 

 impression was of its sweetness and goodness without any 

 strongly marked flavour, which the committee thought might 

 be due to the fact that the animal was young. It was compared 

 with veal, with capon; finally the suggestion that it was 

 (mammalian) meat, with a soupgon of pheasant flavour, was 

 adopted. And their final conclusion was " that a new and 

 superior kind of animal food had been added to the restricted 

 choice from the mammalian class at present available in 

 Europe." 



Another great attraction was the elephant with her calf, pur- 

 chased of Mr. Batty, the well-known equestrian. The dam was 

 obtained by a dealer at a fair in Cawnpore at the end of August, 

 1850. On the journey down to Calcutta her owner made a halt 

 for three weeks, during which she gave birth to the healthy little 

 calf. The fatigue of the journey diminished the mother's supply 

 of milk, and the young one was fed with zebu's milk, which 

 agreed with it very well. The natives who saw the baby on 

 the march to Calcutta regarded it with interest, as elephants 

 seldom breed in the state of semi-domestication in which they 

 are kept in India ; consequently a sucking elephant was as rare 

 a sight there as Obaysch was at Alexandria. This was certainly 

 the first instance in which so young an animal of this species 

 had been brought to England. Indeed, its small size led to the 

 erroneous belief that it was born in the Gardens. It sucked 

 daily till the dam was sold to the Dublin Gardens in 1854„ 

 and grew till within a year of its death, which occurred from 

 tuberculosis, in 1875; and it was then just 8 ft. high at the 

 withers.^ 



In 1853 rheas bred for the first time in the Gardens, though 

 emeus had been hatched in this country many years before. 

 The rhea chicks were figured in the Illustrated London New& 



*PrQceeding8, 1875, p. 542. 



