in the spring of 1850. It is very seldom, indeed, that they
are caught alive; and when so caught they are generally at once killed,
so that it was with some difficulty and by offering a considerable
pecuniary inducement to the shepherds, that they were at last secured
for the Zoological Society.[158] In their den they show great activity,
and can bound upwards nearly to the roof of the place where they are
confined.--_A. White, from "Excelsior."_

FOOTNOTES:

[153] So called from the Latin word _marsupium_, a pouch.

[154] _Diabolus ursinus_, the ursine opossum of Van Diemen's Land, a
great destroyer of young lambs.

[155] From the Greek words for a pouch and a dog, [Greek: thylakos] and
[Greek: kuon]. Dr Gray had previously named it _Peracyon_, from [Greek:
pera], a bag, and [Greek: kuon], a dog.

[156] _Echidna aculeata_, or _E. hystrix_, the porcupine ant-eater, a
curious edentate, spine-covered quadruped, closely allied to the still
stranger _Ornithorhynchus_, the duck-bill.

[157] _Phascolomys Vombatus,_ a curious, broad-backed, and large-headed
marsupial, two specimens of which are in the Zoological Gardens. It is a
burrower, and in the teeth it resembles the rodent animals; hence its
name, from [Greek: phaskolon], a pouch, and [Greek: mus], a mouse.

SQUIRREL: ARCTIC LEMMING.

The one with its long plume-like tail, organised for a life among trees,
the other with its home in the arctic regions, belong to an order not
generally distinguished for intelligence, although, the beaver, once
reputed a miracle of mind, belongs to it. The glirine or rodent animals
are generally of small or moderate size, though some, like the
water-loving capybara, are of considerable dimensions.

The squirrel is a fine subject for a painter. There is a picture by Sir
Edwin Landseer, of a squirrel and bullfinch. On an engraving of it,
published in 1865, is inscribed "a pair of nut-crackers,"--a happy
title, and very apposite.

Jekyll saw in Colman's chambers a squirrel in the usual round cage. "Ah!
poor devil," said Jekyll, "he's going the _home circuit_."[159]

If you come upon a squirrel on the ground, he is not long in getting to
the topmost branch of the highest tree, so perfectly is he adapted for
"rising" at a "bar"!

PETS OF SOME OF THE REVOLUTIONARY BUTCHERS. A SQUIRREL.

Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton, Bart., in his novel, "Zanoni,"[160] pictures
Citizen Couthon fondling a little spaniel "that he invariably car