se, would be very enticing and interesting to young
people. To make birds and other animals relate their stories has been
done sometimes, and generally with success. There are anecdotes hinging,
however, on animals which have more to do with man than the other
mammals referred to in the little story. These stories we have felt to
be very interesting when they occur in biographies of great men. Cowper
and his Hares, Huygens and his Sparrow, are tales--at least the
former--full of interesting matter on the history of the lower animal,
but are of most value as showing the influence on the man who amused
himself by taming them. We like to know that the great Duke, after
getting down from his horse Copenhagen, which carried him through the
whole battle of Waterloo, clapped him on the neck, when the war-charger
kicked out, as if untired.

We could have added greatly to this book, especially in the part of
jests, puns, or cases of _double entendre_. The few selected may
suffice. The so-called conversations of "the Ettrick Shepherd" are full
of matter of this kind, treated by "Christopher North" with a happy
combination of rare power of description and apt exaggeration of detail,
often highly amusing. One or two instances are given here, such as the
Fox-hunt and the Whale. The intention of this book is primarily to be
amusing; but it will be strange if it do not instruct as well. There is
much in it that is _true_ of the habits of mammalia. These, with birds,
are likely to interest young people generally, more than anecdotes of
members of orders like fish, insects, or molluscs, lower in the scale,
though often possessing marvellous instincts, the accounts of which form
intensely interesting reading to those who are fond of seeing or hearing
of "the works of the Lord," and who "take pleasure" in them.

CONTENTS.

MAMMALIA.[1]

PAGE
MAN 1

Gainsborough's Joke--Skull of Julius Caesar when a boy 2

Sir David Wilkie's simplicity about Babies 3

James Montgomery translates into verse a description of
Man, after the manner of Linnaeus 4

Addison and Sir Richard Steele's Description of Gimcrack
the Collector 5

MONKEYS