1837 3*. CANVAS-LIPPED ELEPHANT. 129 



" Let us now enter the Museum, and in this paper we shall 

 confine our attention to the lower room containing the larger 

 animals. We are not about, showman-like, to say, on the right 

 you will behold this, and on the left that ; but, taking the great 

 Cuvier as our exemplar, we are about, as he did, to open up a 

 new field of fossil zoology not less striking than that which the 

 illustrious Frenchman carved out of the gypsum beds at Paris. 



" We had not paid more than two visits to the Museum before 

 we began to peer narrowly into the characteristics of the assem- 

 bled animals, and for the sake of simplicity we took the larger 

 quadrupeds first; and, singularly enough, we have discovered 

 two extinct species, which we proceed to indicate to our readers. 



" On your left hand as you enter the room stands the effigy of 

 a huge elephant, at first sight not apparently much different 

 from other stuffed elephants. To be sure, it has a resplendent 

 coat of blacking, which all of them have not ; but we daresay 

 Day and Martin, or, failing them, Warren, could nigrify any 

 others as well ; otherwise, this animal, to the vulgar eye, pre- 

 sents nothing remarkable. Great discoveries, in truth, are only 

 made by those who, as Professor Whewell remarks in his late 

 work on the inductive sciences, possess ' exact facts and clear 

 ideas.' Being favoured with a very acute perception of both 

 these desiderata, we carefully scrutinized the wondrous quad- 

 ruped ' from the tip of the nose to the insertion of the tail ; ' 

 and as our eye wandered over the huge mass, we were struck 

 with something singular about the low T er lip. We had traced 

 the wrinkled skin from the bosom upwards in unbroken texture, 

 when suddenly we were startled by a strange line of demarca - 

 tion which ushered us into a new territory. On approaching 

 nearer, it seemed marvellously like a piece of interpolated 

 canvas, and a closer inspection convinced us that the pointed 

 characteristic lip was neither more nor less than a piece of cloth 

 painted black without and red within. It was not without great 

 caution and many doubts that we adopted this opinion. We had 

 read of 'canvas-backed ducks' (see Stewart's 'America'), but of 

 canvas-lipped elephants, never ; and as a diligent inquiry soon 

 satisfied us that not only did no living specimen exist, but that 

 no dead one adorned the walls of another museum, we gazed on 



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