A JANUARY DAT AT REGENTS PARK. 9 



The acquisition of a single new article of food, 

 whether animal or vegetable, is no slight boon to a 

 country, and it is almost impossible to exaggerate the 

 benefits that will accrue to this land if we can fairly 

 establish this splendid antelope as a denizen of our 

 parks or paddocks. When adult and well fed it is 

 as large as a prize ox ; its meat is of a peculiarly deli- 

 cate and piquant flavour ; its fat, a handbreadth thick, 

 is thought to surpass that of venison, while the marrow 

 is of such transcendent merit that a South African 

 hunter can hardly trust himself to think about it. 

 There are, of course, many difficulties in the way, 

 inasmuch as the animal has not yet become civilised, 

 and is apt to display an amount of irascibility that is 

 rather terrifying in an animal that wears horns as sharp 

 and powerful as those of an Andalusian bull, that can 

 leap a fence or chasm from which the boldest hunter 

 would recoil, and can charge down a precipitous hill 

 with the speed and sure foot of the chamois. Still it is 

 possible that in successive generations this evil temper 

 may be eliminated by careful management ; and it is 

 to be hoped that before the lapse of many years the 

 eland may be as common in our parks as the fallow 

 deer. 



Nor is this the only creature which is being bred at 

 the Zoological Gardens with the intention of acclima- 

 tizing it. Among quadrupeds the bison of North 

 America and the kangaroo of Australia are among the 

 number of the intended denizens of this country, while- 



