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THE ZooLoGtst—SEPTeMBER, 1872. $197 
Zoology of the Royal Academy. By Epwarp NEwMaAn. 
THE Royal Academy has closed its one hundred and fourth 
Annual Exhibition, and, as usual, amidst a wilderness of miscel- 
laneous paintings, has presented to our notice a few zoological 
designs both of interest and merit. “No mere transcripts of the 
objects of Natural History” are allowed on the walls of Burlington 
House: such is the edict of the R.A. A far higher authority 
expressly forbids the making of “a likeness of any beast that 
is on the earth.” Exhibitors seem to have kept both injunctions, 
human and divine, steadily in view, and to have yielded implicit 
and praiseworthy obedience. There are, it is true, thousands of 
fleeces evidently studied in a fellmonger’s yard, and thousands of 
cealf-skins and cow-hides elaborately painted at a trank-maker’s,— 
and well painted too; but neither has Prometheus deigned, nor 
have the painters attempted, to infuse into these tegumentary 
habiliments of ruminants the spark of life. As for Prometheus, 
perhaps he may be in ill-humour; his liver may be out of sorts, 
suffering from an attack of vulture; or he may be growing old and 
blind, and unable to recognize the vestments,—unable to make out 
to whose bodies they once belonged: and as to the painters, their 
genius is perhaps restrained by the law and command which I 
have already quoted. One thing is certain,—life is entirely 
absent; like the carvings of ingenious Dutchmen, which abound 
in our nurseries, the creations of our animal painters’ are unmis- 
takably wooden. 
Still there are exceptions—interspersed among the noahsarkian 
flocks and herds—which seem to have surreptitiously escaped 
their floating dwelling-place: mingled with pink hunting-coats 
and top-boots, shovel-hats and buttonless waistcoats; chignons, 
paniers, and Dolly Vardens; volunteer uniforms and aldermen’s 
gowns; indeed brave toggery, that would make the fortune of Rag 
Fair or Monmouth Street; there are the zoological pictures that 
do one good to look on: not many, indeed,—I could literally 
count them on my fingers; but still they are there, all the more 
precious for their rarity. Sir Edwin Landseer has three such: 
misty, unfinished, almost uncoloured, dream-like,—but the dreams 
of unquestioned genius. Turner, as he approached the close of his 
illustrious career, flooded the canyas with a sea of those brilliant 
SECOND SERIES—VOL. VII. 27 
