nnocent gamble of these guinea-pigs could not fail
to be accessible for good when occasion required. It was the first flush
of that largeness of heart which afterwards appeared in all I ever heard
him say or saw him do."[182]

FOOTNOTES:

[174] "Memoir of Wilson," p. 27, prefixed to his poetical works.
Belfast, 1844.

[175] _Gentleman's Magazine_, for June 1784, being the sixth number of
vol. liv., pp. 412-414, "Unnoticed Properties of that little animal the
Hare."

[176] "History of England," vol. vi. p. 486.

[177] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 59.

[178] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 182.

[179] Biography of S. Bisset in G. H. Wilson's "Eccentric Mirror," vol.
i., No. 3, p. 29.

[180] Published by Lord Lindsay in vol. iii. of his "Lives of the
Lindsays," p. 387.

[181] "Worthies of England," vol. ii. p. 445 (ed. 1840).

SLOTH.

REVEREND SYDNEY SMITH ON THE SLOTH.

Few anecdotes can be published of this curious creature, though Waterton
and Burchell, or Dr Buckland, for him and his friend Bates, have
recorded much that is interesting of its habits. The following bit is
peculiarly happy: "The sloth, in its wild state, spends its life in
trees, and never leaves them but from force or accident. The eagle to
the sky, the mole to the ground, the sloth to the tree; but what is most
extraordinary, he lives not _upon_ the branches, but _under_ them. He
moves suspended, rests suspended, sleeps suspended, and passes his
life in suspense--like a young clergyman distantly related to a
bishop."[183]

[Illustration: The Great Ant-Eater. (Myrmecophaga jabata).]

FOOTNOTES:

[182] Dr Hannah's "Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Thomas Chalmers,
D.D., L.L.D.," vol. ii. p. 237.

THE GREAT ANT-EATER.

(_Myrmecophaga jubata_, L.[184])

A few months ago a handbill was distributed in the neighbourhood of
Seven Dials, inviting the public to visit a "wonderful animal fed with
ants, and possessing strength to kill the lion, tiger, or any other
animal under its claws." We entered the miserable apartment where it was
exhibited, and any spectator must at once have been struck with the
creature's want of resemblance to any other he had ever seen. Its head
so small, so long and slender; the straight, wiry, dry hair with which
it was covered, and its singularly large and bushy tail, first attracted
notice. A second glance showed its enormously thick fore-legs, and the
claws of its feet turned in, so that it wa