HARES (LEPUS.)

1. American Hare. (Lepus Americanus.)

2. American Hare, just receiving its winter clothing, which in the northern parts is entirely white.

3. Hare from Senegal, greatly resembling the common, but the hair much shorter and finer, and the animal of a less size than ours.

4. Angora Rabbit. (L. Angorensis.)

The Lama. (Camelus Glama.) This is a native of the Peruvian mountains, and was the only beast of burden known to the original inhabitants: it resembles the Camel in being able to abstain from drink for a considerable time, and travels about three German miles a-day, carrying a burden of 150lb. This specimen is about six months old; bred in 1811, by I. Thorpe, Esq. of Chippenham Park, near Newmarket, and is the only one ever produced in this country.

The Vicuna. (C. Vicuna.) This is another of the Peruvian animals, with which, till lately, we have not been well acquainted. It inhabits the highest mountains of the Andes in flocks; is timid and gentle, but very swift it carries small burdens, although it is not easily tamed; their wool is extremely fine; from it is manufactured cloths of the most exquisite softness and beauty, known by the name of Vigona cloth. This specimen is the only one ever brought alive to this country; it was in the extensive menagerie of Mr. S. Polito, to whose liberality in encouraging the importation of foreign animals the public are indebted for the knowledge of many interesting subjects before unknown.

The Memina, male and female. (Moschus Memina.) These were received from Java; one of them lived some time in the menagerie of her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, who presented it to the Museum.

The other was presented by her Royal Highness the Princess Charlotte of Wales.

The Stag. (Cervus Elephus.) A remarkable fine specimen of this noble animal; presented by the Earl of Derby, in whose park at Knowsley it led the herd for several years.

CAMELOPARDALIS (GIRAFFA.)

The Camelopardalis, or Giraffa. (Camelopardalis Giraffa.) Which is by far the tallest of all known quadrupeds, measuring the extraordinary height of seventeen feet three inches from the hoof of the fore foot to the top of the head, whilst (so disproportionate is the form) that the body scarcely exceeds that of a horse. Till lately the existence of so wonderful an animal was doubted by many European Naturalists, who ranked it amongst the fabulous monsters of antiquity.

This specimen was lately killed at a considerable distance, in the interior of the Cape of Good Hope, by the Rev. Mr. Edwards, an African Missionary, when travelling in that country, under the patronage of Lord Caledon, then Governor of the Cape. It is represented as an harmless timid animal, living in small herds of six or seven together, in the plains that border on Caffraria: they are so extremely shy and wary, that it is with the greatest difficulty they can be approached: they feed on the fruit of the wild apricot, and on the tender branches of several species of Mimosa. This specimen, which is a full grown male, and very rich in colour, is allowed to be the finest ever brought to Europe, and is in the most perfect preservation.

Such is the excessive rarity of this singular animal, that from the decline of the Roman Empire till the middle of the eighteenth century its existence was deemed extremely problematical, if not in the highest degree chimerical. The contradictory accounts

of Oppian, Heliodorus, and Strabo, at periods when curiosity might have been amply gratified, and investigation have received the fullest and most satisfactory conviction, by attending the public games (upon which occasions, Pliny informs us, it was frequently exhibited), were alone sufficient to create justifiable doubts, and propagate an opinion of the inaccuracy of the statements and inadvertency of these writers upon the subject. The narratives of succeeding travellers, who felt little inclination to observe, or whose opportunities of observation were limited and few, only tended to increase this perplexity, already too intricate, and by their dark ambiguous details, equally opposite and vague, to confirm the previous supposition of its fabulous and imaginary origin.

That this conjecture should have been strengthened by a perusal of the several relations of our travellers and naturalists, ought not to excite surprise, when we remember we are told, by one, that the length of its fore-legs is double that of those behind-by another, that this disparity does not exist-by a third, that such is their astonishing height, that a man mounted on horseback may with ease pass beneath its body-and by a fourth, that in point of magnitude, it does not exceed the size of a small horse.

From such a contrariety of evidence, the veracity of the traveller became disputed, and the credulity of the naturalist an object of derision. The whole was rejected as a fictitious invention was classed with the crude abortions of Pliny's fervid imagination; and such was the influence of this variety of testimony, that though Captain Carteret had given a distinct account of a Giraffe killed at the Cape of Good Hope in the year 1769, Mr. Pennant still refused to yield his assent, till convinced by personal inspection of a skin preserved in the University of Leyden. The cloud of uncertainty, however, which has so long hovered over the real form of this beautiful and extraordinary animal, has of late years been dissipated by the minute descriptions of Gordon, Vaillant, and Sparrman. From them we have learned its size, its proportions, and