s adorning a
bonnet, and we once saw a lady miserably oppressed by monkeys. She was
very decidedly of "a certain age," but dressed in the extreme of
juvenility, with flowers and ribbons of all the colors of the rainbow.
Her complexion was delicately heightened with rouge, and the loveliest
tresses played about her cheeks. As she languidly sauntered through the
former monkey house at the gardens, playfully poking the animals with
her parasol, one seized it so vigorously that she was drawn close to the
den; in the twinkling of an eye, a dozen little paws were protruded, off
went bonnet, curls and all, leaving a deplorable gray head, whilst
others seized her reticule and her dress, pulling it in a very
unpleasant manner. The handiwork of M. Vouillon was of course a wreck,
and the contents of the reticule, her purse, gloves, and delicately
scented handkerchief, were with difficulty recovered from out of the
cheek pouch of a baboon.

On other occasion we saw the elephant, that fine old fellow who died
some years ago, administer summary punishment to a weak minded fop, who
kept offering him cakes, and on his putting out his trunk, withdrawing
them and giving him a rap with his cane instead. One of the keepers
warned him, but he laughed, and after he had teased the animal to his
heart's content, walked away. After a time he was strolling by the spot
again, intensely satisfied with himself, his glass stuck in his eye, and
smiling blandly in the face of a young lady, who was evidently offended
at his impudence, when the elephant, who was rocking backwards and
forwards, suddenly threw out his trunk and seized our friend by the coat
tails; the cloth gave way, and the whole back of the coat was torn out,
leaving nothing but the collar, sleeves, and front. As may be supposed,
this was a damper upon his amatory proceedings; indeed we never saw a
man look so small, as he shuffled away amidst the titters of the
company, who enjoyed his just reward.

That very agreeable writer, Mrs. Lee, formerly Mrs. Bowdich, has related
in the first volume of the "Magazine of Natural History," a most
interesting account of a tame panther which was in her possession
several months. He and another were found very young in the forest,
apparently deserted by their mother; they were taken to the King of
Ashantee, in whose palace they lived several weeks, when our hero, being
much larger than his brother, suffocated him in a fit of romping, and
was then s