large herds; and sometimes goring travellers to death. When tamed, however, they are patient and humble. Various.

VIII.-GRAMINIVOROUS ANIMALS CONTINUED.

THE Sheep, so useful to man, furnishing him with both food and clothing, is one of the most defenceless and inoffensive of all animals. It is not so, however, in its savage state, being when wild, a bold, fleet creature, able to escape from the greater animals by its swiftness, and to oppose the smaller with its horns.

The Goat is a hardy animal, more playful, lively, and vagrant than the sheep. It delights in climbing precipices, for which nature seems to have fitted it, by giving it hoofs hollow underneath, with sharp edges, so that it walks securely on a narrow ridge. The Chamois (from whose skin shammy leather is made), though a wild timid animal, is yet docile and easily tamed. It is the goat of mountainous regions, abounding particularly in the Alps, where they are found in large flocks dispersed among the crags of the mountains. The chamois is extremely active and lively, and its flesh is considered delicate food.

The Gazelle, an intermediate link between the goat and the deer, is a beautiful animal, resembling a roebuck, but more delicately and finely limbed, with hair equally short, but finer and more glossy. It has a small tuft of hair on each of its fore limbs. Of all animals in the world, the gazelle has the most beautiful eye-extremely brilliant, and yet so meek, that the eastern poets compared the eyes of the ladies they love, to those of the gazelle. Their swiftness is equal to that of the roe; they do not, however, bound forward like the roe, but run along in an even uninterrupted course. Most of them are brown upon the back, white under the belly, with a black stripe separating these colours. Their horns are annulated or ringed round.

The Antelope resembles the gazelle in many particulars. The limbs are of a light and elegant form, and it is so swift as to outstrip the greyhound in speed. It

is brown on the back and white beneath; but these colours are not separated by the black streak which is to be found in all the rest of the gazelle kinds. Its horns also are different, being about sixteen inches long, almost touching each other where they spring from the head, and spreading as they rise, so that their tips are sixteen inches asunder.

Animals of the Deer kind differ from those we have been describing, in that their horns are solid, and are renewed every year. Though there are few separate species of deer, yet the race seems diffused over all parts of the earth. America, in which neither the sheep, the goat, nor the gazelle, have been originally bred, nevertheless produces stags, and other animals of the deer kind, in plenty. The Stag, Hart, or Red Deer, whose female is called a Hind, differs in size and in horns from the fallow deer. He is much larger, and his horns are round; whereas in the fallow kind they are broad and palmated. The first year the stag has no horns; the second year the horns are single and straight; they have two antlers the third year, three the fourth, four the fifth, and five the sixth. After the sixth year, the antlers do not always increase. These horns, large as they seem, are shed every year, and give place to new ones. Red deer are not now numerous in this country, the land being turned to the grazing of sheep and cattle. They are still, however, found in considerable numbers in Ross and Sutherland; but the largest forest set apart for red deer in Scotland, is the forest of Atholl, where a hundred thousand English acres are given up to them exclusively. The Fallow Deer, smaller and less robust, are seldom found wild in the forest; they are kept in parks, for the purposes of hunting or of luxury, their flesh, called venison, being preferred to that of any other animal. The Roebuck, the smallest of the deer kind in this climate, is almost extinct among us, except in some parts of the Highlands of Scotland. It is about three feet long and two feet high; and its horns are from eight to nine inches long, round, upright, and divided into only three branches. The Elk, as it is called in Europe, and in

America the Moose Deer, is a gigantic animal compared with any of the former, being from eight to ten feet high, with prodigious antlers or horns, measuring, in some instances, nearly ten feet from the one tip to the other.

But of all animals of the deer kind, the Rein-deer is the most extraordinary and the most useful. It is a native of the icy regions of the north; and though many attempts have been made to accustom it to a more southern climate, it shortly feels the influence of the change, and in a few months declines and dies. Nature seems to have fitted it entirely to answer the necessities of that hardy race of mankind that live near the pole. As these would find it impossible to subsist among their barren snowy mountains without its aid, so this animal can live only there, where it is absolutely necessary. The rein-deer resembles the American elk in the fashion of its horns; they both have brow-antlers, very large, and hanging over their eyes, palmated toward the top, and bending forward like a bow. But here the similitude ends; for, as the elk is much larger than the stag, so the rein-deer is smaller. It is lower and stronger built than the stag; its legs shorter and stouter, its hoofs broader, and its hair thicker and warmer. Its pace is rather a trot than a bound, and thus it can continue for a whole day. As the winter approaches, the coat of the rein-deer begins to thicken in a most remarkable manner, and assumes that lighter colour which is the great peculiarity of polar quadrupeds. During the summer the animal pastures upon the green herbage, and browses upon the shrubs that he finds in his march; but in winter, his sole food is the lichen or moss, which he instinctively discovers under the snow. As camels are the chief possession of an Arab, so the rein-deer comprise all the wealth of a Laplander. A family having a herd of three or four hundred can live in tolerable comfort; they can make in summer a sufficient quantity of cheese for the year's consumption, and in winter can afford to kill deer enough to supply them with venison. Harnessed to a sledge, the rein-deer will draw about 300 lb., though

the Laplanders generally limit the burden to 240 lb. The trot of the rein-deer is about ten miles an hour, and their power of endurance is such, that journeys of one hundred and fifty miles in nineteen hours are not

uncommon.

We cannot close our account of the deer kind, without mentioning a singularly diminutive and graceful animal, the Chevrotin or little Guinea deer, which is the least of all cloven-footed quadrupeds, and perhaps the most beautiful. Its legs at the smallest part are not much thicker than the shank of a tobacco-pipe. It is about seven inches high, and about twelve from the point of the nose to the insertion of the tail. It is the most delicately shaped animal in the world, being completely formed like a stag in miniature, except that its horns are hollow and annulated like those of the gazelle. Its short and glossy hair is of a beautiful yellow, except on the neck and belly, which are white. The male has horns, the female none. They are natives of India and Guinea, where they are found in great plenty. They are very nimble and easily tamed, but their constitution is so delicate, that they can only live in the warm climates between the tropics. Various.

IX.-REMARKABLE TREES.

THE Almendroon grows on the shores of the Rio Negro, in South America, rising sometimes to a height of more than one hundred and twenty feet. The leaves are above two feet long, and on their under-side of a silvery white. Its fruit, which is often twelve or fourteen inches in diameter, contains a number of flat triangular seeds, called almonds or chesnuts of Brazil. These, when fresh, have an extremely agreeable taste; but the oil with which they abound soon becomes rancid. From the great size of the fruit, it is dangerous to travel in the forests where it is produced, at the period of its being ripe; and the natives cover their heads and shoulders with bucklers of very hard wood to avoid being wounded by it.

The Artocarpus, or Bread-fruit Tree, a native of Otaheite and other South Sea Islands, was introduced into Jamaica in 1793. Three hundred trees were brought from Otaheite by Captain Bligh, in the ship Providence, and the tree is now very generally cultivated in that Island. The tree is about the size of a middling oak; and the fruit, as large as an infant's head, contains beneath the rind a substance as white as snow, which, when dressed. is soft and somewhat like a boiled potato. It is a substitute for bread with the people in whose country it is produced, and composes a principal part of their food.

The Shea Tree, or Butter Tree, which grows in the interior of Africa, is of a moderate size; and the fruit, about the bulk of a walnut, has an aromatic smell, and encloses a kernel nearly as large as an acorn. This kernel, being first dried in the sun, and then boiled in water, gives a substance which resembles butter, possesses a rich flavour, and will keep during a whole year without salt.

The Tallow Tree grows naturally in China, where it is found on the banks of rivulets. It has smooth leaves, of a roundish shape, and bright red colour, and having spines on both sides. In its trunk and branches it resembles the cherry, and in its foliage the black poplar. The fruit is contained in a husk divided into three spherical or globular segments, which open when it is ripe, and discover three white grains of the size of a small walnut. The tallow is collected from the pulp which covers the seed, and resembles animal tallow in colour, smell, and consistence. This vegetable grease is melted, and having a little linseed oil added to it, in order to render it softer and sweeter, is made into candles.

The Wax Tree grows in North America, and particularly in Pennsylvania, Carolina, and Virginia. The berries which it bears are boiled; and in the process of boiling, are pressed, from time to time, on the sides of the vessel. This operation detaches the waxy substance from them, which is soon seen floating on the surface of the water in the form of grease, and which is collected and strained through a coarse cloth, in order to separate all extraneous matters from it. After being dried and