, instead of being long and slender, was
short, round, and somewhat cat-like; while its hair, or more properly
its fur, formed a thick even coat all over its body, limbs, and tail,
and presented a smooth and shining surface. Its general colour was a
very dark brown, streaked and mottled with golden yellow; and Caspar
remarked, upon the moment of seeing it, that it was one of the
handsomest creatures he had ever beheld.

The naturalist Cuvier had made the same remark long before Caspar's
time. So said Karl, on hearing the observation escape from the lips of
his brother.

Ossaroo knew that the animal was the "wha," a name derived from its
ordinary call; and that it was sometimes known as the "chetwa," and also
the "panda."

Karl, on hearing Ossaroo's name for it, and indeed, on hearing it
pronounced by the creature itself, was able to identify the animal, and
to give it still another name--that which has been bestowed upon it by
Frederick Cuvier--_ailurus_. This is the generic name, of which, up to
the present time, it has been left in undisturbed possession. Since
only one species has been discovered, it has the name all to itself; and
therefore would not require any specific appellation. But for all that,
one has been given to it. On account of its shining coat, it has been
called the _ailurus fulgens_.

Though the closet naturalists, in following out their pedantic
propensities, have created a genus expressly for this animal, there is
nothing either in its appearance or habits to separate it from the
badgers, the racoons, the coatimondis, and such other predatory
creatures. Like them it preys upon birds and their eggs, as also on the
smaller kinds of quadrupeds, and like the racoon, it is a nimble
tree-climber.

The situation in which the particular panda, of which we are writing,
first appeared to the eyes of Karl and Caspar, proved this capacity, and
its actions the moment after testified to its fondness for birds'-eggs.
It had not been a minute under the eyes of the spectators, when they saw
that it was after the eggs of the hornbill; perhaps, too, it might have
had a design of tasting the flesh of their owner.

Resting its thick plantigrade hind feet upon the projection of the tree,
it erected itself like a little bear; and with its fore-paws commenced
scraping at the barrier wall which the male bird had spent so much time
and taken so much pains in building. It is possible that if it had been
left