past, taking not the slightest notice of my presence. I breathed freer, when I saw his broad buttocks and little pig-like tail disappearing down the path, and I made my way out of the jungle, in a manner probably more expeditious than either graceful or valorous. Antonio, who was dodging after a fat currassow, had heard the noise, and was witness of my retreat. He seemed alarmed at first, but only smiled when I explained what I had seen. In fact, he appeared to think it rather a good joke, and hurried off to examine the tracks. He came back in a few minutes, and reported that my monster was only a dante, which I took to be some kind of Indian lingo for at least a hippopotamus, or rhinoceros.

"We shall have rare sport,' he continued, 'in catching this dante. It will be equal to hunting the manitus.'

"I found, upon inquiry, that the dante is called, in the Mosquito dialect, tilba or tapia, which names at once suggested tapir, an animal of which I had read, but of which I had very vague notions.

"The Poyer boy seemed delighted with the news that there was a tapir about, and in less then five minutes after, both he and Antonio were sharpening their spears and lances, with palpable design on my monster's life. They told me that the tapir generally keeps quiet during the day, wandering out at night, usually in fixed haunts and by the same paths, to take exercise and obtain his food. I was not a little relieved when they added that he never fights with man or beast, but owes his safety to his speed, thick hide, and ability to take to the water, where he is as much at home as on land, swimming or sinking to the bottom at his pleasure. He is, nevertheless, a headlong beast, and when alarmed or pursued, stops at nothingvines, bushes, trees, rocks, are all the same to him! He would do well for a crest, with the motto, 'Neck or Nothing !

"In shape, the dante or tapir (sometimes called mountain cow) is something like a hog, but much larger. He has a similar arched back; his head, however, is thicker, and comes to a sharp ridge at the top. The male has a snout or sort of proboscis hanging over the opening of the mouth, something like the trunk of an elephant, which he uses in like manner. This is wanting in the female. Its ears are rounded, bordered with white, and can be drawn forward at pleasure; its legs are thick and stumpy; its fore-feet or hoofs are divided into three parts or toes, with a sort of false hoof behind; but the hind-feet have only three parts or divisions. Its tail is short, and marked by a few stiff hairs; the skin so hard and solid as generally to resist a musket-ball; the hair thin and short, of a dusky

brown; and along the top of the neck runs a bristly mane, which extends over the head and down the snout. He has ten cuttingteeth, and an equal number of grinders in each jaw; features which separate him entirely from the ox-kind, and from all other ruminating animals. He lives upon plants and roots, and, as I have said, is perfectly harmless in disposition. The female produces but one young at a birth, of which she is very tender, leading it, at an early age, to the water, and instructing it to swim.

"This description finished, the reader is ready to accompany us in our nocturnal expedition against the tapir. Before it became dark, Antonio, accompanied by the boy, went to the thicket which I have described, and felled several stout trees across the path, in such a manner as to form a kind of cul-de-sac. The design of this was to arrest the animal on his return, and enable us to spear him before he could break through or disengage himself. We went to the spot early in the evening, and, as the moon did not rise until late, Antonio caught his hat half-full of fire-flies, which served to guide us in the bush. He then pulled off their wings and scattered them among the fallen trees, where they gave light enough to enable us to distinguish objects with considerable clearness. Notwithstanding Antonio's assurances that the tapir was a member of the Peace Society, I could not divest myself of the alarm which he had given me in the morning, and I was not at all sorry to find that my companions had selected a spot for their abattis where an overhanging tree enabled me to keep out of harm's way, yet near enough to take a sly drive with my lance at the tapir, if he should happen to come that way.

"Antonio and the Poyer boy took their stations among the fallen trees; I took mine, and we awaited the dante's pleasure. I strained my eyes in vain endeavors to penetrate the gloom, and held my breath full half the time to hear the expected tread. But we peered, and listened, and waited in vain; the fire-flies crawled away in every direction, and yet the tapir obstinately kept away. Finally, the moon came up; and by and by it rose above the trees-and still no tapir!

"My seat on the tree became uncomfortable, and I instituted a comparison between tapir and manitus hunting, largely to the advantage of the latter; and, finally, when Antonio whispered 'He is coming!' I felt a willful disposition to contradict him. But my ear, meanwhile, caught the same dull sound which had arrested my attention in the morning; and, a few moments afterward, I could make out the beast, in the dim light, driving on at the same swing

ing trot. Right on he came, heedless and headlong. Crash! Crash! There was a plunge and struggle, and a crushing and trampling of branches, then a dull sound of the heavy beast striking against the unyielding trunks of the fallen trees. He was now fairly stopped, and with a shout my companions drove down upon him with their lances, which rung out a sharp metallic sound when they struck his thick, hard hide. It was an exciting moment, and my eagerness overcoming my prudence, I slipped down the tree, and joined in the attack. Blow upon blow of the lances, and I could feel that mine struck deeply into the flesh, it seemed to me into the very vitals of the animal. But the strokes only appeared to give him new strength, and gathering back, he drove again full upon the opposing tree, bearing it down before him. I had just leaped upon the trunk, the better to aim my lance, and went down with it headlong, almost under the feet of the struggling animal, one tramp of whose feet would have crushed me like a worm. I could have touched him with my arm, he was so near! I heard the alarmed shriek of Antonio, when he saw me fall; but, in an instant, he leaped to my side, and, shortening his lance, drove it, with desperate force, clean through the animal, bringing him to his knees. This done, he grappled me as he might an infant, and before I was aware of it, had dragged me clear of the fallen timber. The blow of Antonio proved fatal; the tapir fell over on his side, and in a few moments was quite dead.

"The Poyer boy was dispatched to the camp for fire and pine splints, which, stuck in the ground around the tapir, answered for torches. By their light my companions proceeded to cut up the spoil, a tedious operation, which occupied them until day-light. I did not wait, but went back to my hammock, leaving them to finish their work, undisturbed by my questions.

"When I awoke in the morning, I found Antonio had the tapir's head baking in the ground, from whence rose a hot but fragrant steam. It proved to be very good eating, as did also the feet and the neck, but the flesh of the animal in general was abominably coarse and insipid, although my companions seemed to relish it greatly.

“Some idea may be formed of the tapir's tenacity of life, when I say that I counted upward of thirty lance-thrusts in the body of the one we killed, none of which were less than six inches deep, and nearly all penetrating into the cavity of the body! It rarely happens, therefore, that the animal is killed by the individual hunter.”

"THE young of the kangaroo are born in an embryotic state, and are conveyed to a comfortable marsu

pium, or pouch, belonging to the mother, where there are teats to which they attach themselves by their mouths. Here they stick like little animated lumps till the small knobs, that exist at the places where the members ought to be, bud and shoot out into limbs; by and by these limbs become more. and more perfect, and the extremities are completely formed, till gradually the development of the creature reaches its proper proportions, and it is able to go alone. It is right pleasant to behold these curious little animals hopping or running about their parents, and on the most distant approach of danger flying for refuge to the pouches of their mother, where they disappear till it is past; and from whence, if they think they may safely venture, they peep out to see whether the coast is clear."

Such is the account given of the kangaroo by Scaglier, and despite

the romantic and "dragonish" air that seems to pervade it, it is simply and strictly true. Professor Owen, anxious to settle the perplexing question, obtained a female kangaroo, mated it, and watched it narrowly that he might exactly determine how long a time would elapse before the progeny came into the world. On the thirty-ninth morning, on looking into the animal's pouch, there was a tiny thing resembling an earth-worm in the color and semi-transparency of its integument, adhering firmly to the point of the mother's nipple, breathing strongly but slowly, and moving its fore-legs when disturbed. Its little body was bent upon the abdomen, its short tail tucked in between its hind-legs, which were one-third shorter than the fore-legs, and its entire length, from the nose to the tip of the tail, did not exceed one inch and two lines.

Although this mite has power enough to grasp the nipple, it is utterly incapable of its own unaided efforts to draw sustenance therefrom. He, however, who has decreed that an animal should come so imperfectly into the world, has made ample provision for its maintenance during its extreme infancy. The parent animal has the power to inject milk into the mouth of its helpless suckling, and as it is impossible (according to our acceptation of the word) that the young one's efforts at suction should invariably coincide with the act of injection performed by the mother, the air passages of the fœtus are so beautifully constructed that it can imbibe and breathe at one and the same time with the most perfect freedom. "Thus," says Professor Owen, "aided and protected by modifications of structure, both in the system of the mother and in its own, designed with special reference to each other's peculiar condition, and affording therefore the most irrefragable evidence of creative foresight, the feeble offspring continues to increase from sustenance exclusively derived from the mother for a period of about eight months. The young kangaroo may then be seen frequently to protrude its head from the mouth of the pouch, and to crop the grass at the same time that the mother is browsing. Having thus acquired additional strength, it quits the pouch and hops at first with a feeble and vacillating gait; but continues to return to the pouch for occasional shelter and supplies of food till it has attained the weight of ten pounds. After this it will occasionally insert its head for the purpose of sucking, notwithstanding another fœtus may have been deposited in the pouch; the latter attaching itself to a different nipple from the one which had previously been in use."

All marsupiated animals (so called from the Latin marsupium, a