ZEBRA." Un âne rayée."

A FRENCHMAN'S "DOUBLE-ENTENDRE.'

When, in 1805, Patrick Lattin, an officer of the Irish Brigade, was residing in Paris, a M. de Montmorency, whose Christian name was Anne, made his appearance, announcing that he was enabled to return to France, in consequence of the First Consul having scratched his name on the list of émigrés. "A present donc," observed Lattin, mon cher Anne, tu es un Zèbre—un âne rayée.” *

66

CAMEL.

TRULY the Ship of the Desert, and one that by Lewis and Henry Warren has afforded the subject of many a pleasing picture. The camel has a most patriarchal look about him.

CAPTAIN WILLIAM PEEL, R.N. REMARKS ON CAMELS.

Captain William Peel, in his "Ride through the Nubian Desert" (p. 89), writes—" We met once at a hollow, where some water still remained from the rains, 2000 camels, all together admirably organised into troops, and attended by only a few Arabs. On another occasion, we passed some camels grazing at such a distance from the Nile, that I asked the Arab attending where they went to drink? He said, he marches them all down together to the Nile, and they drink every eleventh day. It is now the cool season, * Quoted in Timbs" " Century of Anecdote,” vcl. i. p. 223 (1864).

and the heat is tempered by fresh northerly breezes. The Arab, of course, brings water skins for his own supply. All these camels were breeding stock. They live on thorns and the top shoots of the gum-arabic tree, although it is armed with the most frightful spikes. But very little comes amiss to the camel; he will eat dry wood to keep up digestion, if in want of a substitute. Instinct or experience has taught him to avoid the only two temptinglooking plants that grow in the desert, the green eusha bush, which is full of milk-coloured juice, and a creeper, that grows in the sand where nothing else will grow, and which has a bitter fruit like a melon. I was surprised to learn that the leopard does not dare to attack the camel, whose tall and narrow flanks would seem to be fatally exposed to such a supple enemy. Nature, however, has given him a means of defence in his iron jaw and long powerful neck, which are a full equivalent for his want of agility. He can also strike heavily with his feet, and his roar would intimidate many foes. I never felt tired of admiring this noble creature, and through the monotony of the desert would watch for hours his ceaseless tread and unerring path. Carrying his head low, forward, and surveying everything with his black brilliant eye, he marches resolutely forward, and quickens his pace at the slightest cheer of the rider. He is too intelligent and docile for a bridle; besides, he lives on the march, and with a sudden sweep of the neck will seize, without stopping, the smallest straw. When the day's march is over, he passes the night in looking for food, with scarcely an hour to repose his limbs, and less than that for sleep. He closes the eye fitfully, the smallest noise will awake him. When lying down for rest,

every part of the body is supported; his neck and head lie lightly along the sand, a broad plate of bone under the breast takes the weight off his deep chest, and his long legs lay folded under him, supporting his sides like a ship in a cradle."

A CAPTAIN IN THE ROYAL NAVY MEASURES THE PROGRESS OF THE SHIP OF THE DESERT."

The dromedary has long and deservedly been called "the Ship of the Desert." A very gallant captain in the Royal Navy, the late Captain William Peel, son of the Prime Minister, calculated its rate of motion much after the manner in which he might have measured the path of his ship. He writes *"In crossing the Nubian Desert I paid constant attention to the march of the camels, hoping it may be of some service hereafter in determining our position. The number of strides in a minute with the same foot varied very little, only from 37 to 39, and 38 was the average; but the length of the stride was more uncertain, varying from 6 feet 6 to 7 feet 6. As we were always urging the camels, who seemed, like ourselves, to know the necessity of pushing on across that fearful tract, I took 7 feet as the average. These figures give a speed of 2.62 geographical miles per hour, or exactly three English miles, which may be considered as the highest speed that camels lightly loaded can keep up on a journey. In general, it will not be more than two and a half English miles. My dromedary was one of the tallest, and the seat of the saddle was 6 feet 6 above the ground."

*" A Ride through the Nubian Desert," by Captain W. Peel, R. N., p. 49.

T

LORD METCALFE ON A CAMEL WHEN A BOY.

Charles Metcalfe, "first and last Lord Metcalfe," to whose care were successively intrusted the three greatest dependencies of the British crown, India, Jamaica, and Canada, and who died in 1846, was sent to Eton when eleven years old. His biographer relates,* that "it is on record, and on very sufficient authority, that he was once seen riding on a camel. 'I heard the boys shouting,' said Dr Goodall, many years afterwards, and went out and saw young Metcalfe riding on a camel; so you see he was always orientally inclined.' This anecdote will serve as a comrade to that told by Mr Foss, in his "Lives of the Justices of England," of Chief-Baron Pollock. When a lad, one of his schoolmasters, fretted by the boyish energy and exuberant spirits of his scholar, said petulantly, "You will live to be hanged." The old gentleman lived to see his pupil Lord Chief-Baron, and, not a little proud of his great scholar, said, "I always said he would occupy an elevated position."

STAGS AND GIRAFFE.

THE deer family is rather numerous, and found in many different parts of the world. Reindeers abound in some parts even of Spitzbergen, and with musk oxen can find their food even under the winter snows of the Parry Islands.

* "Life and Correspondence of Charles Lord Metcalfe,” by John William Kaye, vol. i., p. 8.

The wapiti and heavy large-headed elk or moose, retreat before the advancing civilisation of North America. The Indian mountains and plains have noble races of deer. No species, however, is more celebrated than our red deer. The giraffe is closely allied to the stag family. The Arabs name it the seraph, and indeed, that is the origin of its now best-known English name. Visitors should beware of going too near the male, for we have seen the dent made by one of the giraffe's bony knobs on a pannel close to its stall. We have heard of a young lady, who entered the garden one of those summer days when straw bonnets had great bunches of ripe barley mingled with artificial poppies as an ornament, and, going too near the lofty pallisade, found to her confusion and terror that the long lithe tongue of the giraffe had whisked off her Leghorn, flowers and all, and had begun leisurely to munch it with somewhat of the same gusto with which it would have eaten the branch of a graceful mimosa.

EARL OF DALHOUSIE AND THE FEROCIOUS STAG.

Mr Scrope relates an instance of unprovoked ferocity in a red deer at Taymouth, in which the present Earl of Dalhousie might have been seriously injured.

"In October 1836, the Hon. Mr and Mrs Fox Maule had left Taymouth with the intention of proceeding towards Dalguise; and in driving through that part of the grounds where the red deer were kept, they suddenly at a turn of the road came upon the lord of the demesne standing in the centre of the passage, as if prepared to dispute it against all comers. Mr Maule being aware