As we issue again into the open air, we have before us the whole length of the avenue, arched with lime-trees, in summer a veritable isle of verdure. What a charming picture it used to be to see the docile elephant pacing towards us with ponderous and majestic steps, whilst, in the scarlet howdha, happy children swayed from side to side as she marched. She, who was our delight for so many years, died some time since of a storm of thunder and lightning. Such indeed was what may seem at first the singular verdict of the medical man who made his post mortem. The terror, however, inspired by the storm appears to have produced some nervous disease, under which she succumbed. There is a suspicion that the carcase, five thousand pounds and upwards in weight, which was disposed of to the nackers, ultimately found its way to the sausage-makers. Do not start, good reader; elephant’s flesh is considered excellent eating by the tribes of South Africa, and the lion-slayer tells us that the feet are a true delicacy. He used to eat them as we do Stilton cheese, scooping out the interior and leaving the rind; he exhibited to his audience some of these relics, which looked like huge leather fire-buckets. And now we have only the young animal left, that once sucked his huge mother, to the delight of the crowd of children, and to the disgust of the rhinoceros, who is the sworn enemy to all elephants. The little one is growing apace, however, and has already been promoted to carry the long-deserted howdha. The rhinoceros, close at hand, is the successor of the fine old fellow purchased in 1836 for 1,050l., the largest sum ever given by the society for a single animal. The specimen now in the gardens cost only 350l. in 1850, so much do these commodities fluctuate in value. His predecessor, who departed this life full of years, was constantly forced upon his belly by a pugnacious elephant, who pressed his tusks upon the back of his neighbour when he came near the palings which separated their inclosures. This rough treatment appears to have led to his death, as Professor Owen found, on dissecting the massive brute, which weighed upwards of two tons, that the seventh rib had been fractured at the bend near the vertebral end, and had wounded the left lung.

Not far from the picturesque house built by Decimus Burton, in one of the cages fronting the office of the superintendent of the gardens, is to be seen a beaver. The wonderful instinct of this little animal is certainly not inferior to that of the huge elephant. As yet he has not been placed in circumstances to enable the public to witness his building capacities; but it is the intention, we understand, of the Council to give him a stream of running water and the requisite materials to construct one of those extraordinary dams for which this animal is so famous. In Canada, where he used to flourish, the backwoodsmen often came upon hill-sides completely cleared of good-sized trees by colonies of these little creatures, who employed the felled timber to construct their dams—dams, not of a few feet in length, but sometimes of a hundred and fifty feet, built according to the best engineering formula for resisting the pressure of water, namely, in an angle with its apex pointed up the stream, and gradually narrowing from base to summit. In short, Mr. Brunel himself could not outdo your beaver in his engineering operations. Even in confinement this sagacious Rodent loves to display his skill, as we may learn from Mr. Broderip’s account of his pet Binney:—

“Its building instinct,” says that accomplished naturalist, “showed itself immediately it was let out of its cage, and materials were placed in its way, and this before it had been a week in its new quarters. Its strength, even before it was half-grown, was great, it would drag along a large sweeping-brush, or a warming-pan, grasping the handle with its teeth, so that the load came over its shoulder, and advancing in an oblique direction till it arrived at the part where it wished to place it. The long and large materials were always taken first; and two of the longest were generally laid crosswise, with one of the ends of each touching the wall, and their other ends projecting out into the room. The area caused by the cross-brushes and the wall he would fill up with hand-brushes, rush baskets, books, boots, sticks, cloths, dried turf, or anything portable. As the work grew high, he supported himself on his tail, which propped him up admirably; and he would often, after laying on one of his building materials, sit up over against it, appearing to consider his work, or, as the country people say, ‘judge it.’ This pause was sometimes followed by changing the position of the materials, and sometimes they were left in their place. After he had piled up his materials in one part of the room (for he generally chose the same place), he proceeded to wall up the space between the feet of a chest of drawers which stood at a little distance from it, high enough on its legs to make the bottom a roof for him, using for this purpose dried turf and sticks, which he laid very even, and filling up the interstices with bits of coal, hay, cloth, or anything he could pick up; the last place he seemed to appropriate for his dwelling, the former work seemed to be intended for a dam. When he had walled up the space between the feet of the chest of drawers, he proceeded to carry in sticks, cloths, hay, cotton, and to make a nest; and when he had done, he would sit up under the drawers, and comb himself with the nails of his hind feet.”

Well done, Binney! If the beaver in the garden will only work out his natural instincts as perfectly, we may expect some amusement. Up to a late period the beaver had become rather a scarce animal, the exigencies of fashion having nearly exterminated him. When silk hats came in, however, the annual slaughter of hundreds of thousands of his race, for the sake of the fur, gradually slackened, and now he is beginning to increase in his native retreats,—a singular instance this of the fashions of Paris and London affecting the very existence of a prolific race of animals in the New World! In the very next compartment is a hare, who for years played the tambourine in the streets of the metropolis, but his master, finding that his performances did not draw, exchanged him at these gardens for a monkey; and now, whilst he eats his greens in peace, poor Jacko, in a red cloak and a feathered cap, has probably to earn his daily bread by mimicking humanity on the top of a barrel-organ. But the hippopotamus surges into his bath in the inclosure as we pause, and there is a rush of visitors to see the mighty brute performing his ablutions. He no longer gives audience to all the fair and fashionable folks of the town. Alas for the greatness of this world! the soldier-crab and the Esop prawn now draw better “houses.” Whether or no this desertion has embittered his temper, we cannot say, but he has certainly lost his amiability, notwithstanding that he still retains the humorous curl-up of the corners of his mouth which Doyle used to hit off so inimitably. At times, indeed, he is perfectly furious, and his vast strength has necessitated the reconstruction of his house on a much stronger plan. Those only who have seen him rush with extended jaws at the massive oaken door of his apartment, returning again and again to the charge, and making the solid beams quiver as though they were only of inch-deal, can understand the dangerous fits which now and then are exhibited by a creature, who was so gentle, when he made his début, that he could not go to sleep without having his Arab keeper’s feet to lay his neck upon. This affection for his nurse has undergone a great change, for, on Hamet’s countryman and coadjutor, Mohammed, making his second appearance with the young female hippopotamus, Obaysch very nearly killed him in the violence of his rage. He has a peculiar dislike to the sight of working men, especially if they are employed in doing any jobs about his apartment. The smith of the establishment happening one day to be passing along the iron gallery which runs across one side of his bath, the infuriated animal leapt out of the water, at least eight feet high, and would speedily have pulled the whole construction down, had not the man run rapidly out of his sight. We trust his temper will improve when his young bride in the adjoining room is presented to him; but she is as yet but a baby behemoth, although growing fast. The enormously strong iron railings in front of his apartments are essential to guard against the rushes he sometimes makes at persons he does not like. Look at that huge mouth, opened playfully to receive nic-nacs! What is a bun or a biscuit to him? Down that huge throat goes one hundred pounds weight of provender daily. Surely the dragon of Wantley had not such a gullet.

The giraffes in the adjoining apartment have been in the gardens so long that they are no longer thought a rarity; but it should be remembered that the four procured in 1835 from Khordofan by the agent of the society were, like the hippopotamus, the first ever exhibited in Europe since the days of ancient Rome. Of these only one female now remains; but very many have been bred in the gardens, and have continued in excellent health. At the present moment three of their progeny are housed in the apartment we are entering. The finest, a male, is a noble fellow, standing nearly seventeen feet high. When he strides out into the inclosure, high up as the trees are protected by boarding, he yet manages to browse as in his African forests, and it is then that the visitor sees the full beauty of the beast, which is lost in the house. The giraffe, in spite of his mild and melancholy look, which reminds us forcibly of the camel, yet fights ferociously with his kind at certain seasons of the year. Two males once battled here so furiously that the horn of one of them was actually driven into the head of the other. Their method of fighting is very peculiar: stretching out their fore and hind legs like a rocking-horse, they use their heads, as a blacksmith would a sledgehammer, and swinging the vertebral column in a manner calculated, one would think, to break it, they bring the full force of the horns to bear upon their antagonist’s skull. The blow is severe in the extreme, and every precaution is taken to prevent these conflicts.

As we pass along a narrow corridor in which the ostriches are confined, we reach at length the last inhabitant of the garden, and the most curious creature, perhaps, which it contains. If the keeper is at hand, he will open the door of the box in which it lives, and drive out for us the bewildered-looking apteryx—the highest representative, according to Professor Owen, of the warm-blooded class of animals that lived in New Zealand previous to the advent of man. Strange and chaotic-looking as are most of the living things brought from Australia and the adjacent islands, this creature is certainly the oddest of the bird class, and is, we believe, the only one ever seen out of New Zealand. As it vainly runs into the corners and tries to hide itself from the light of day, we perceive that it is wingless and tailless; it looks, in short, like a hedgehog mounted upon the dwarfed yet powerful legs of an ostrich, whilst its long bill, which seems as though it had been borrowed from a stork, is employed when the bird leans forward, to support it, just as an old man uses a stick. This strange creature seems to hold among the feathered bipeds of Polynesia a parallel position to the New Holland mole (Ornithorhynchus paradoxicus)—which possesses the bill and webbed feet of a duck with the claws of a land animal—among the quadrupeds. Mr. Gould remarks that nature affords an appropriate vegetation to each class of animal life. Our universal mother seems to have matched her Flora to her Fauna in this portion of the globe; at least, the paradoxical creatures we have mentioned seem in happy accord with Australian vegetation, where the stones grow outside the cherries, and the pear-shaped fruits depend from the branch with their small ends downwards! The apteryx is entirely nocturnal in its habits, pursuing its prey in the ground by smell rather than by sight; to enable it to do which, the olfactory openings are placed near the point of the beak. Thus the bird scents the worm on which it feeds far below the surface of the ground. We must not regard the apteryx as an exceptional creature, but rather as the type of a large class of birds peculiar to the islands of New Zealand, which have been destroyed, like the dodo in the Mauritius, since the arrival of man. Professor Owen, long before the apteryx arrived in England, pronounced that a single bone found in some New Zealand watercourse had belonged to a wingless, tailless bird that stood at least twelve feet high.[9] This scientific conjecture has lately been transformed into a certainty by the discovery of a number of bones, which demonstrate that several species of Moas once roamed among the fern-clad islands which stud the bright Polynesian ocean. These bones have been found mixed with those of the apteryx, which thus becomes linked to a race of mysterious creatures, which, it is supposed, have long passed away, although a tale is told—an American one, it is true—of an Englishman having come across a dinornis, whilst out on its nocturnal rambles, and of his having fled from it with as much terror as though it had been a griffin of old.

Our walk through the gardens has only enabled us to take a cursory glance at a few of the 1,300 mammals, birds, and reptiles at present located there; but the duty of the zoologist is to dwell minutely on each. To such these gardens have, for the last twenty-six years, been a very fountain-head of information. During that time a grand procession of animal life, savage and wild, has streamed through them, and for the major part has gone to that “bourne from which no traveller returns.” Let us rank them, and pass them before us:—

Quadrumana 1,069
Carnivora 1,409
Rodentia 1,025
Pachydermata 204
Ruminantia 1,098
Marsupialia 219
Reptilia 1,861
Aves 7,320

—making a total of 14,205. Out of this large number many curious animals have doubtless left no trace; but through the care of the Council, no rare specimen has died, within these five years at least, without previously sitting for his portrait. The first part of the valuable collection of coloured drawings, from the inimitable pencil of Mr. Wolf, accompanied by a description from the pen of the late Mr. Mitchell, the editor of the work, is published, under the title of “Zoological Sketches, &c.,” and the others will speedily follow. The work, when completed, will be unique in the annals of zoology, both for the extreme beauty of the drawings, which may be said to daguerreotype the subjects in their most characteristic attitudes, and for the nature of the letterpress, which proves that the editor has written from the life.

This splendid collection has been got together by presents, purchase, breeding, and exchanges. Out of the 14,205 specimens, however, which have been in the possession of the society, scarcely a tithe were bought. The Queen, especially, has been most generous in her presents, and the stream of barbaric offerings in the shape of lions, tigers, leopards, &c., which is continually flowing from tropical princes to the fair Chief of the nation, is poured into these gardens. Her Majesty evidently pays no heed to the superstition once common among the people, that a dynasty was only safe as long as the lions flourished in the royal fortress. In fact, the gardens are a convenience to our gracious monarch as well as to her subjects; for wild animals are awkward things to have in one’s back premises. Neither must we overlook the reproduction which has taken place in the gardens; to such an extent, indeed, has the stock increased, that sales to a large amount are annually made. The system of exchanges which exists between the various British and continental societies helps to supply the garden with deficient specimens in place of duplicates. Very rare, and consequently expensive animals, are generally purchased. Thus, the first rhinoceros cost 1,000l.; the four giraffes 700l., and their carriage an additional 700l. The elephant and calf were bought in 1851 for 800l.; and the hippopotamus, although a gift, was not brought home and housed at less than 1,000l.—a sum which he more than realized in the famous Exhibition season, when the receipts were 10,000l. above the previous year. The lion Albert was purchased for 140l.; a tiger in 1852 for 200l. The value of some of the smaller birds will appear, however, more startling: thus, the pair of black-necked swans were purchased for 80l. (they are now to be seen in the three-island pond); a pair of crowned pigeons and two maleos, 60l.; a pair of Victoria pigeons, 35l.; four mandarin ducks, 70l. Most of these rare birds (now in the great aviary) came from the 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 price is generally ruled by the state of the wild-beast market, and by the intrinsic rarity of the creature. A first appearance in Europe, of course, is likely to draw, and is therefore at the top price; but it is wonderful how demand produces supply. Let any rare animal bring a crowd to the gardens, and in a twelvemonth numbers of his brethren will be generally in the market. The ignorance displayed by some persons as to the value of well-known objects is something marvellous. We have already spoken of the sea captain who demanded 600l. for a pair of pythons, and at last took 40l.! On another occasion, 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.!