and appearance infinitely superior. Their flesli is | 

 good but coarse ; eating like tough venison, and the 

 tongue and nose are often to be procured at the 

 tables of the great, where they are esteemed deli- 

 cacies. They feed on the young leaves and branches 

 of trees, and may be considered harmless animals enough 

 unless provoked, and then the hair on the back of the 

 Elk, bristling up like the mane of a lion, gives him a 

 wild and frightful appearance. An Elk-chase forms a 

 scene of the most animated description. 'J'he pictu- 

 resque garb of the hunters, the sterile tracks and prairies 

 through which they follow their prey, tlie dangers of the 

 morass and the pitfall, and above all the glare of the 

 torches shedding a red unearthly liglit over the wild 

 country traversed in the depth of night, all combine to 

 render an Elk-chase one of the most exciting scenes 

 that the imagination can picture, and which ])articipation 

 in its excitement alone can appreciate. 



Here are a few objects of a different nature, which, 

 however, must not be permitted to pass unnoticed. 

 They divide the animals aboA'c mentioned, Tlie first is 

 the trunk of an arborescent fern, brought from the 

 mountains to the eastward of Silhet in ]5engal, and is 

 upwards of forty-five feet in height. By its side is 

 placed a transverse section of another arborescent fern, 

 and neurit is a species of palm, growing in South Ame- 

 rica. But by far the most conspicuous objects on the 

 upper landing-place are a male and female Giraffe, or 

 cameleopard, I'rom South Africa, and another giraffe pre- 

 sented by the Trustees of the Hunterian Collection, and 

 which last was the first ever seen in this country. The 

 groupe is completed by a young Indian Elephant and a 

 Malay Tapir, which, as we shall hereafter again have to 

 Kpeak of these animals, may remain without farther 

 description for a few chapters at least. These terminate 

 the animal curiosities of the first landing; and here we 

 would entreat the visitor to pause awhile. Let him re- 

 member that he is on the eve of witnessing all the 

 most striking objects that nature and art can furnish, 

 — that he is on the threshold of a spot where human en- 

 terprise has brought from every clime and every coun- 

 try something to attract the eye and interest the mind. 



