The Zoologist— October, 1866, 431 



much upon his previously experienced powers of deceit, without 

 weighing the ordeal of the keen, the intelligent, the searching, the 

 scientific, and the antagonistic eje he had on this occasion to 

 encounter. This indiscreet step was a woeful mistake on the part of 

 the hitherto skilful and experienced impostor. The Squire fortunately 

 was at home, put in an appearance, and received the stranger, without 

 the slightest previous knowledge of the man, and without a suspicion 

 that the toils were to be spread for him, or that dust would be thrown 

 in his eyes by so cleverly manufactured a falsehood. I will endeavour 

 to state what passed during this interview, as nearly as possible, in 

 Mr. Waterton's own words, having repeatedly heard him narrate the 

 conversation with apparently great pleasure, and especially as regarded 

 his immediate discovery of what he always termed the ' clumsy 

 fraud.' Whenever the subject was broached, the Squire usually com- 

 menced by saying, ' On the occasion of Green's visit to my house, 

 I happened to have a gentleman in the room with me, learned in 

 many things, but not in Natural History. When this fellow Green 

 exposed his counterfeit and fabricated monstrosity for a professed 

 inspection, but in reality for nefarious sale, I, without any difficulty, 

 instantly discovered the deception, and anxious to let my learned 

 friend into the secret, without letting Green know what my private 

 opinion was, I said to my visitor, * Annosa vulpes haud capitur laqueo^ 

 but did not anglicise it by adding, ' An old fox is not to be caught with 

 a springe.' As, however, I smiled when addressing my learned friend, 

 who was still in the room and manifestly enjoying the prospective finale. 

 Green evidently concluded that my scrap of Latin, although unintel' 

 ligible to him, was laudatory of his exhibition, and therefore appeared 

 more and more satisfied with his apparently exalted and self-established 

 but really unenviable position. At length, gathering still more assurance, 

 he coolly looked me in the face, and with a grinning smile of self- 

 approbation, observed, ' Did you, Mr. Waterton, ever witness so great a 

 curiosity in your life ? and you must have seen many curious things in 

 your travels in foreign countries, 1 suppose.' My reply was expressed 

 with an intentionally stern countenance, ' Sir, in all my travels, at home 

 or in ' foreign countries,' I never met with so great and so unpardonable 

 an impostor as you. Get out of my house instantly, you scoundrel, and 

 if I ever hear of your offering this gross imposition for sale again, rest 

 assured that I shall expose you right and left.' When this vagabond 

 had fairly taken his departure, and finally turned his back on the house, 

 my friend, who vastly enjoyed the concluding stormy scene, and more 



