Knowsley collection, at the sale of which, in 1851, purchases were made to the extent of 985l. It would be impossible from these prices, however, to judge of the present value of the animals. Take the Rhinoceros, for example: the first specimen cost 1,000l.; the second, quite as fine a brute, only 350l. Lions range again from 40l. to 180l., and Tigers from 40l. to 200l. The ignorance displayed by some persons as to the value of well-known objects is something marvellous. —A sea-captain demanded 600l. for a pair of Pythons, and at last took 40l.! An American offered the Society a Grisly Bear for 2,000l., to be delivered in the United States; and, more laughable still, a moribund Walrus, which had been fed for nine weeks on salt pork and meal, was offered for the trifling sum of 700l.!

There is a strange notion that the Zoological Society has proposed a large reward for a "Tortoiseshell Tom-cat," and one was accordingly offered to the Society for 250l.! But male Tortoiseshell Cats may be had in many quarters. [4]

The Surrey Zoological Gardens were established in 1831. Thither Cross removed his menagerie from the King's Mews, where it had been transferred from Exeter Change. At Walworth a glazed circular building, 100 feet in diameter, was built for the cages of the carnivorous animals (Lions, Tigers, Leopards, &c.); and other houses for Mammalia, Birds, &c. Here, in 1834, was first exhibited a young Indian one-horned Rhinoceros, for which Cross paid 800l. It was the only specimen brought to England for twenty years. In 1836 were added three Giraffes, one fifteen feet high. The menagerie was dispersed in 1856. The menagerie at Exeter Change was a poor collection, though the admission-charge was, at one period, half-a-crown!

The collections of animals exhibited at fairs have added little to Zoological information; but we may mention that Wombwell, one of the most noted of the showfolk, bought a pair of the first Boa Constrictors imported into England: for these he paid 75l., and in three weeks realised considerably more than that sum by their exhibition. At the time of his death, in 1850, Wombwell was possessed of three huge menageries, the cost of maintaining which averaged at least 35l. per day; and he used to estimate that, from mortality and disease, he had lost, from first to last, from 12,000l. to 15,000l.

Our object in the following succession of sketches of the habits and eccentricities of the more striking animals, and their principal claims upon our attention, is to present, in narrative, their leading characteristics, and thus to secure a willing audience from old and young.

FOOTNOTES:

THE RHINOCEROS IN ENGLAND.

THE intellectual helps to the study of zoology are nowhere more strikingly evident than in the finest collection of pachyderms (thick-skinned animals) in the world, now possessed by our Zoological Society. Here we have a pair of Indian Elephants, a pair of African Elephants, a pair of Hippopotami, a pair of Indian Rhinoceroses, and an African or two-horned Rhinoceros.

The specimens of the Rhinoceros which have been exhibited in Europe since the revival of literature have been few and far between. The first was of the one-horned species, sent from India to Emmanuel. King of Portugal, in the year 1513. The Sovereign made a present of it to the Pope; but the animal being seized during its passage with a fit of fury, occasioned the loss of the vessel in which it was transported. A second Rhinoceros was brought to England in 1685; a third was exhibited over almost the whole of Europe in 1739; and a fourth, a female, in 1741. A fifth specimen arrived at Versailles in 1771, and it died in 1793, at the age of about twenty-six years. The sixth was a very young Rhinoceros, which died in this country in the year 1800. The seventh, a young specimen, was in the possession of Mr. Cross, at Exeter Change, about 1814; and an eighth specimen was living about the same time in the Garden of Plants at Paris. In 1834 Mr. Cross received at the Surrey Gardens, from the Birman empire, a Rhinoceros, a year and a-half old, as already stated at page 21. In 1851 the Zoological Society purchased a full-grown female Rhinoceros; and in 1864 they received a male Rhinoceros from Calcutta. All these specimens were from India, and one-horned; so that the two-horned Rhinoceros had not been brought to England until the arrival of an African Rhinoceros, two-horned, in September, 1868. [5]

The ancient history of the Rhinoceros is interesting, but intricate. It seems to be mentioned in several passages of the Scriptures, in most of which the animal or animals intended to be designated was or were the Rhinoceros unicornis, or Great Asiatic one-horned Rhinoceros. M. Lesson expresses a decided opinion to this effect: indeed, the description in Job (chap. xxxix.) would almost forbid the conclusion