594 
FACTS AND OBSERVATIONS. 
and prevent its drawing in its feet. When the lion entered 
the box, the latter was turned on the side and the sliding 
bottom withdrawn. The paws then slipped between the bars, 
and the screws above were tightened. 
M. Thiernesse, assisted by five pupils of the Veterinary 
School, then proceeded to cut away the claws. The patient 
bore the operation tolerably well, only uttering a short roar 
occasionally, and seemed relieved when the first paw had 
been cut and dressed. A keeper, to whom the lion is much 
attached, sat near its head and endeavoured to calm it by 
talking, evidently not without effect. The operation was 
successfully performed, and there is every reason to believe 
that the cure will be complete. 
Statue of John Hunter. —The first statue to the 
memory of John Hunter, the greatest physiologist England 
lias produced, has just been placed in the Hunterian Museum 
of the Royal College of Surgeons. It is executed in marble, 
and is from the studio of Henry Weekes, R.A. Hunter is 
represented in deep thought, seated in a chair which has been 
modelled after the one made by his own hands, and which 
may still be seen in the office of the conservator of the 
museum. 
The sculptor has availed himself of the large picture of 
Hunter by Reynolds, which is now rapidly fading, notwith¬ 
standing the great care taken of this chef-d’oeuvre by the 
authorities. Indeed it may be said that Mr. Weekes4ias pro¬ 
duced in marble the picture itself, the history of which is not 
a little singular, and at the present moment will no doubt 
be read with some interest. 
Hunter's friends had long been desirous to engage him to 
sit to Sir Joshua Reynolds for his picture, but he had always 
declined to do so, not choosing that it should be done at the 
expense of others, and thinking the price too high for himself 
to pay. He was, however, at length induced to comply, and 
chiefly to oblige Sharpe, the eminent engraver. 
Reynolds found Hunter a bad sitter, and had not been able 
to satisfy himself with the likeness, when one day, after the 
picture was far advanced, Hunter fell into a train of thought, 
in the attitude in which he is represented in the present 
portrait. Reynolds, without saying a word, turned the canvas 
upside down, made a fresh sketch, with the head between the 
legs of the former figure, and so proceeded to lay on over 
the former painting the colours of that which now graces 
the walls of the Council Chamber of the Royal College of 
Surgeons. From this portrait Sharpe executed his engraving, 
