and strength. The chief reason of his enmity to the elephant appears to be not that it ever intentionally injures him, but merely that it shares his taste for certain favorite fruits. And when, from his watch-tower in the upper branches of a tree, he perceives the elephant helping himself to these delicacies, he steals along the bough, and striking its sensitive proboscis a violent blow with the club with which he is almost always armed, drives off the startled giant, trumpeting shrilly with rage and pain.

Towards the negroes, the gorilla seems to cherish an implacable hatred; he attacks them quite unprovoked. If a party of blacks approach unconsciously within range of a tree haunted by one of those wood-demons-swinging rapidly down to the lower branches, he clutches with his thumbed foot at the nearest of them; his green eyes flash with rage, his hair stands on end, and the skin above the eyes drawn rapidly up and down gives him a fiendish scowl... Sometimes, during their excursions in quest of ivory, in those gloomy forests, the natives will first discover the proximity of a gorilla by the sudden mysterious disappearance of one of their companions. The brute, angling for him with his horrible foot dropped from a tree while his strong arms grasp it firmly, stretches down his huge hind-hand, seizes the hapless wretch by his throat, draws him up into the boughs, and, as soon as his struggles have ceased, drops him down, a strangled corpse.

A tree is the gorilla's sleeping-place by night, his pleasant abode by day, and his castle of defence. If surprised as he waddles along, leaning on his club, instantly he betakes him to all-fours, applying the back part of the bent knuckles of his fore-hands to the ground, and makes his way rapidly, with an oblique, swinging kind of gallop, to the nearest tree. From that coigne of vantage he awaits his foe, should the latter be hardy, or foolhardy, enough, to pursue... No full-grown gorilla has ever been taken alive. A bold negro, the leader of an elephant-hunting expedition, was offered a hundred dollars for a live gorilla. "If you gave me the weight of yonder hill in gold, I could not do it," he said.

Nevertheless, he has his good qualities, in a domestic point of view; he is an amiable and exemplary husband and father, watching over his young family with affectionate solicitude, and exerting in their defence his utmost strength and ferocity. At the close of the rice harvest, the period when the gorillas approach nearest the abodes of man, a family group may sometimes be observed, the parent sitting on a branch, leaning against the trunk, as they munch their fruit, while the

young innocents sport around, leaping and swinging from branch to branch, with hoots or harsh cries of boisterous mirth... The mothers show that devotion to their young in times of danger which is the most universal of instincts. "A French natural history collector" accompanying a party of the Gaboon negroes into the gorilla woods, surprised a female with two young ones on a large bread-fruit-tree which stood some distance from the nearest clump. She descended the tree with her youngest clinging to her neck, and made off rapidly on all fours to the forest, and escaped. The deserted young one on seeing the approach of the men, began to utter piercing cries; the mother having disposed of one infant, returned to the rescue of the other, but before she could descend with it, her retreat was cut off... Seeing one of the negroes level his musket at her, she, clasping her young with one arm, waved the other, as if deprecating the shot. The ball passed through her heart, and she fell with her young one clinging to her. It was a male, and survived the voyage to Havre, where it died on arriving.

The gorilla constructs himself a snug hammock out of the long, tough, slender stems of parasitic plants, and lines it with the broad dried fronds of palms, or with long grass-a sort of bed surely not to be despised, swung in the leafy branches of a tree. By day, he sits on a bough, leaning his back against the trunk, owing to which habit elderly gorillas become rather bald in those regions... Sometimes, when walking without a stick, he clasps his hands across the back of his head, thus instinctively counterbalancing its forward projection. The natives of Gaboon always speak of the gorilla in terms which imply a belief in his close kinship to themselves... But they have a very low opinion of his intelligence. They say that during the rainy season he builds a house without a roof, and that he will come down and warm himself at the fires left by them in their hunting expeditions; but has not the wit to throw on more wood out of the surrounding abundance to keep it burning, "the stupid old man "... Mimic though he be, he cannot even catch the trick of human articulation so well as the parrot or the raven. The negroes aver that he buries his dead by heaping leaves and loose earth over the body.

Wherein does the gorilla differ from the previously known anthropoid, or man-like, tail-less apes? Of these there are three distinct genera: the gibbon, or long-armed ape, the orang-outang, and the chimpanzee. It is a peculiarity of the quadrumana (or monkey and ape tribe generally) that the

brain is very precociously developed. Hence, when they are young, with small milk-teeth, fully developed brain, and globular-shaped cranium, they look, comparatively speaking, quite promising characters. But in the large apes, the orang and the chimpanzee, maturity brings a vast access of physical force, without any corresponding enlargement of the brain, which becomes masked and overlaid by the prominence of the brute attributes... The jaws expand to receive the great tusklike teeth; and then, to work such massive jaws, comes a large addition of fleshy fibres to the muscles, and for these great muscles an increased surface of attachment in the corresponding bones. Hence the physiognomy becomes more brutish, and less human, in maturity... Hence too the small species of monkeys and apes, in whom this development of physical force does not take place, are far milder and more intelligentlooking than the more highly organised orang and chimpanzee when full grown; though these latter have absolutely a larger amount of brain, and several other modifications of the bony structure which bring them in reality, as we have said, nearest to man... The gorilla surpasses the orang and chimpanzee in this peculiarity; and it is the lowering ferocity of his countenance produced by immense jaws and teeth, the bony prominence over the eyes, and the relative insignificance of the brain, which have induced some naturalists to rank him below the previously known species of chimpanzee.

He has other claims to precedence, besides this cogent one of more brain and a more convoluted brain. The distinctive characteristic of the order, that which gives it the name, quadrumana, is, as we all know, the having hands instead of feet-four hands... And in the comparative anatomist's eyes, the most characteristic peculiarity of man's structure is the great toe; it is mainly this which enables him to walk erect, which constitutes the great difference between a foot and a hand, and entitles him, sole genus of his order, sole species of his genus, to his zoological appellation bimana, or two-handed ... In the gorilla, the thumb of the hind-hand is more like a great toe than it is either in the orang-outang or chimpanzee : it is thicker and stronger. The heel also makes a more decided backward projection, and in the fore-hand, that important member, the thumb, is better developed... A disproportionate length of arm gives, as we notice in the deformed, a singularly awkward and ungainly aspect to the figure. This is a familiar attribute of all monkey-kind, and one which, in its gradual diminution, marks the gradual rise in the scale of organisation. ... In the gibbons, or long-armed apes, these members hang

down to the feet, so that the whole palm can be applied to the ground without the trunk being bent. In the orang, they reach the ankle; in the chimpanzee, below the knee; in the gorilla, a little short of the knee; while in man, below the middle of the thigh.

There are other advances of structure interesting to the anatomist, and all tending to support the gorilla's claims to the topmost place. Now and then we come across a human face in which the bony framework of the eye is almost circular, with a repulsive, cunning, monkey-like look. This, though universal, is one of the ugliest characteristics of the monkey. The gorilla, however, is exempt from this particular detail of ugliness: the bony setting of the eye is squarish, as in most men. Again and again it strikes the fancy-strikes deeper than the fancy that the honey-making, architectural bee, low down in the scale of life, with its insignificant head, its little boneless body, and gauzy wing, is our type of industry and skill: while this apex in the pyramid of the brute creation, this near approach to the human form, what can it do? The great hands have no skill but to clutch and strangle: the complex brain is kindled by no divine spark: there, amid the unwholesome luxuriance of a tropical forest, the creature can do nothing but pass its life in fierce, sullen isolation eat, drink and die. "All the Year Round."

AUSTRALIA: ITS FAUNA AND FLORA.

IN no part of the known world do we meet with so peculiar and so remarkable a flora as in Australia. Some trees occur having their leaves twisted out of what appears their natural position; others with leaf stalks performing the office of leaves; others having fruit with the stone placed on the outside; plants belonging to parasitical orders, growing on the ground; whilst, from the very remarkable construction and appearance of a leguminons plant, a Dutch botanist actually mistook it for a fern... Indeed, so singular and peculiar is the aspect of many of the plants belonging to this region, that the eye of an experienced botanist is required to determine their true botanical character. We meet here with a species of mulberry, of fig, of orange, and of lemon-tree, all these, however, producing small fruit, whilst vines hang from tree to tree, and the lagoons are adorned by a splendid species of blue nelumbium, the seeds of which are eaten by the natives.

Among the plants more particularly characteristic of Aus

tralian scenery are the gum-trees, so called on account of the gummy substance which exudes from the leaves and stems of these trees. The "brown gum-tree" yields the timber called Australian mahogany, and in some parts acquires splendid dimensions. Some of the acacias present very extraordinary forms, being destitute of leaves, or having leaves of the most singular shape... There is the grass-tree, producing a valuable aromatic gum, which is used as a cement, and forms an article of export to Great Britain. The swamp oak is remarkable for its long weeping thread-like branches, and forms the beefwood of the colonists which they eat. The screw-pine grows only within the influences of the sea breezes, and extends its range to most of the islands of Oceanica, in some of which it forms the staple food of the inhabitants... In addition to the plants above enumerated, there is the native cherry, but which has the stone outside; the singularly formed bottle-tree, the trunk of which bulges out like a barrel. There is also a tree which presents a most curious instance of a plant growing on the ground. It is said to attain the stature of a small orangetree, and such is the abundance of its flame-coloured blossoms, that the colonists at King George's Sound compare it to a tree on fire, from whence it has obtained the name of the "firetree"... There is also the chestnut bean, the fruit or beans of which are contained in long pods, and are larger than the Spanish chestnut, to which, when roasted, they are said to approach in flavor. In some parts of the interior, the natives form a sort of paste or bread of the seed of a species of grass which they gather, and collect in heaps for that purpose.

Among its native animals, Australia possesses a very small number that are of utility to man; this extensive region being apparently entirely destitute of ruminant animals, such as the cow, deer, sheep, &c., and of pachydermatous animals, such as the hog, horse, &c. ; whilst four-fifths of its native quadrupeds belong to the order Marsupiata. Among the latter we find the kangaroo, the kangaroo rat, the flying opossum and the bandicoot, all of which are nocturnal.

The marsupial animals are so called because they have a marsupium, or purse, under their stomachs, in which they carry their young till they are able to take care of themselves. The kangaroo, sometimes, when pursued, lets the young ones drop, and they speedily disperse to take care of themselves... The opossums, which are largely eaten by the natives, are about the size of cats. Their heads are like those of rabbits, and their tails are prehensile, like a certain type of monkeys. By these