the colossal forms that extended far as the eye could reach, he heard voices calling him, as from a distance; and stranger was the rush of feeling, sad through momentary, for it seemed as if his companions were far away, bewildered, it might be, among the intricacies of the forest. And truly his apprehensions were not unfounded: a labourer, employed in forest work, who was scarcely two hundred yards from his companions, became bewildered when seeking to rejoin them. He shouted and heard distant shouts, but getting more and more bewildered, went wandering on, till night closed in and he sunk to the ground overpowered with fatigue and anxiety. The same traveller relates that he measured a fallen tree, two hundred and thirteen feet long; he ascended it by the help of one of its huge branches, and walked with four of his companions along the trunk. Equally picturesque or beautiful are the prostrate forms of these patriarchal trees; some are bleached with age, throwing wide their sepulchral arms; others, left, perchance for ages, are overgrown with luxuriant ferus and mosses.

Observe the camphor tree of Japan, Laurus camphora, in passing.

Before proceeding to inspect the lesser stove-houses, let us make all haste up the wide gravel walk leading to the new palm stove. Beautiful is the effect produced in this noble walk by the arrangement of shrubs and flowers on either side, and the alternating, with large beds of flowers, two lines of deodars, stately and yet graceful trees, eventually designed to form an avenue terminating at the house of palms.

I have watched the progress of that building ever since the period when it was merely an external frame, yet, giving the earnest of future greatness, it progressively advanced to its present magnificent proportions. The whole, as you may readily perceive, is formed of stone and iron, brick, and sheet-glass, slightly tinged with green, for this was suggested by R. Hunt, Esq., of the Geographical Survey, in order to temper the powerful rays of light when summer suns shone from amid cloudless skies. The ribs which uphold the dome are inserted in enormous blocks of Cornish granite. We see around us objects of the deepest interest, which it is needless to mention. Our catalogue will furnish us with considerable information. One plant, however, must be especially noted, and that is, the Xepenthes distillatorica, or pitcher plant, in the orchidious house.

This wonderful production is brought from sultry regions, and abounds in stony and arid parts of Java. Travellers, in passing through the country, are often attracted by seeing a multitude of birds flying to one spot, and on drawing near they observe a considerable-sized plant, having leaves terminated by pitchershaped bags furnished with lids and hinges. The latter is an elastic fibre, acted on by heat and moisture. Numerous little goblets, filled with sweet fresh water, are thus held forth,

nearly covered with these thirsty creatures-some taking a full draught, others lifting up their little bills between each sip, as if grateful for the blessing thus awarded them. But no sooner has the cloud passed, and the warm sun shone forth, than the heated fibre begins to expand, and closes the goblet so firmly as to prevent evaporation. This is a beautiful and prospective contrivance. The quadruped, bird, or insect, has had sufficient time to quench its thirst, for the heavens do not immediately become cloudless; some brief space must, therefore, necessarily elapse before the warmth of the sun is felt. But the plant also requires nourishment; rain drops soon trickle from the parched place in which it grows, and nightly dews, though heavy, are insufficient to refresh the sloping side of its arid habitat. The pitchers, therefore, are essential to its preservation, and a sufficient quantity of fluid is preserved by the gradual contraction of the lid. As long, too, as the lid stands open, the slender bill, the proboscis, or the tongue, can be readily thrust in; but as it gradually contracts, lest any poor creature should arrive late, or remain unsatisfied in the crowd, such pitchers as are covered with leaves remain much longer open, and it is probable that some never close. Neither one, nor two, nor even six or eight large pitchers, are assigned to each plant; but every leaf-stalk has its own, and consequently every leaf receives a needful supply of moisture through tubes that communicate with the absorbing vessels. I scarcely know a single instance in which a wonderful adaptation of one part to another of any vegetable to the animals that surround it, is more clearly shown forth, than in this interesting plant.

Farewell, beautiful Kew! we can only spare

time to take a rapid glance at thy cactuses and mesembryanthemums, thy Victoria water-lily, thy orchidious house, with its seeming butterfly and king plant, rare as its leaves are beautiful; thy heaths and calceolarias; thy museum, too, for, although as yet in its infancy, it contains subjects fraught with instruction and delight.

Our best way to return home will be along the Kensington road; we shall pass the Crystal Palace, and stop at the Chinese Exhibition, and the Diorama of Her Majesty's Visit to Ireland.

ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS, REGENT'S PARK.

Equally suited to the young and old, to the contemplative and thoughtless, to the lover of natural history, and to those who have as yet acquired little, if any, information relative to birds and animals, are the gardens of the Zoological Society.

Tall waving trees and dwarf shrubs, green eminences, dells, and mimic islands, are everywhere intermingled; yonder group of exotic plants cast their restless lights and shadows on the clear calm waters of the neighbouring lake; and near them stands an aloe, calm, immovable, with its formal shade on the green sward.

Every step develops some fresh object of interest. Tall dromedaries and giraffes, fierce animals from sandy deserts, stern occupants of dark pine forests, beautiful gazelles, with their clear loving eyes; llamas, pertaining to South America; savage creatures that range the sandy deserts of burning Africa-dwell here in strange juxta-position. Much has been done, with regard to such as are herbivorous, in surrounding them with trees and shrubs, and letting their eyes rest pleasantly on the green sward. The otter has his house, and pond beside it; the beautiful zebra grazes in a paddock; deer are allowed as much space as possible; and the bear climbs up and down his pole. Vivid, however, must be the imaginative powers of the clumsy quadruped, if he can forget, even for a moment, his tall pine in the depth of some Scandinavian forest. Alas, for others! They walk growling up and down their galleries; no wastes of sands, or cloudless skies, recal to their remembrance the wild haunts on the trackless desert. I remember seeing a beautiful royal tigress, whose thoughts, it seemed to me, must have been wandering to the land of her nativity. Crowds were around her-the buzz of many voices; but she did not heed them; her fine, clear, intelligent eye seemed as if gazing on vacuity.

Time was, when animals were regarded as little more than living automatons-as merely subservient to the interest of their delegated masters. Other thoughts are associated with thein now, and they are increasingly considered with reference to their varying instincts. Memory they undoubtedly possess in a very remarkable degree; and, therefore, it is by no means improbable, that the tigress often remembered with regret the open plains where

she used to range unchecked. The cameleopard we are about to visit, offered, in one of his brethren, an interesting instance both of memory and affection. The lofty creature was conducted towards his future home, the Jardin des Plantes, at Paris; he was accompanied by an escort of twenty gens-d'armes, and a Dafur moor and negro, dressed in their national costume and turbans, led the animal in a halter, followed by two other Africans.

His arrival excited great interest, and a vast crowd of people collected from all parts. It was curious to watch his movements-to see the animal with his Egyptians, armed men, and lookers-on, approaching his new dwelling. His head reached to the foliage of tall chesnut trees, his long neck rose gracefully above the mass of people, and his large brilliant eye seemed to convey an expression of mild melancholy. His neck was ornamented with an enormous wreath of flowers, and near them were suspended several Arabian amulets. Thus attired went on the cameleopard to the Garden of Plants, and took possession of his new abode. Crowds went daily to visit him, and many proffered him presents of cakes or fruits; but he did not heed them: all was strange to him excepting the moor and negro, Hassan and Atar.

At length, two Egyptians, in the costume of their country, paid the giraffe a visit. Those who saw the interview related that he loaded them with caresses; that his countenance exhibited the most lively joy; and that every movement indicated that their arrival awa kened in him the most agreeable associations. They no doubt brought to his remembrance the boundless plains on which his young eyes first opened to the light.

The colossal creature stands alone amid such animals as feed on vegetables, in genus and even species; his commanding height, long neck, callosities on the knees, assimilate him with the camel; but then the form of his small horns recals to mind that peculiarity in the Muntjak deer. His name, Giraffe, is derived from his Arabian appellation; that of Cameleopardalis was given him by the Romans, because resembling the camel in form and the panther in spots. This animal, the loftiest and most harmless creature that wanders over the plains of Ethiopia, is sometimes nearly twenty feet high; he is often seen with his compa nions, in companies of from seven to fifteen; and though the districts which they inhabit are destitute in many parts of vegetation, it matters not to them: their aspiring forms could hardly brook the gathering of low herbage. That Great Being who assigns them a place in pathless wastes of sand, has provided the Mimosa cameleopardalis for their use.

Our seat commands a somewhat extensive view of the gardens. Yonder is the bear-pit, occupied by two cinnamon bears, a male and female. Their name, bringing to our minds the cinnamon gardens of Ceylon, is little in accordance with its aromatic productions; but the appellation thus given is in compliment

to their handsome brown coats; and both as regards their fur, their ferocious disposition, and native haunts, they differ essentially from their black American brethren, some of whom may be seen at no great distance. Poor creatures, they had most probably scooped out for themselves & comfortable bed beneath a huge prostrate tree, into which they crept when the snow began to fall, and were speedily enveloped in a light and fleecy covering; unhappily for them, a party of Hudson Bay Company's hunters passed that way, the men sought in all directions for foot-prints, but without avail; yet knowing that bears were located in the forest, and mindful of their instincts, they looked for some small opening in the snow made by the bear's warm breath, around which frost-like crystals had gathered; and having found one such, they presently captured the half unconscious sleepers.

A lawn and pond, with circling trees and flowers of great beauty, locate a company of splendid macaws. A winding path leads to a lawn rich with purple beech, sloping to another clear piece of water, where a variety of aquatic birds dive and re-appear, and gabble and plume their wings. The Siberian bear, with a white band around his neck, dwells not far distant; as also the horned sheep or moufton, whose tremendous butt with his horn will break down the strongest fences.

It is impossible to particularise the various enclosures and erections where dwell the multifarious occupants of the gardens-we must visit them all by turns.

HIPPOPOTAMUS.

First, then, is the house of the hippopota mus, H. Amphibius, a huge unwieldy creature; he looks as if he dwelt along the muddy banks of rivers; there is nothing buoyant in his appearance, nothing to indicate a location among palms and olives. He seems half asleep; no wonder, he is mostly abroad by night seeking for green pasture beside his favourite river. Look at his enormous mouth, when fully grown it will, probably, measure two feet four inches; and his largest tusk will be more than a foot long. His aspect might cause the stoutest heart to quail, if encoun

tered beneath the bright beams of a full moon when all was still except the solemn rushing of the river; but the creature would, most probably, dive into the water, for the slightest noise or indication of danger causes him to hasten away, and from time to time you might see his huge nostrils emerging from the flood. Travellers relate that the hippopotamus is a harmless creature, that he moves slowly, and raises himself with some effort. Notwithstanding his prodigious strength he never commences an assault; when pursued or in timidated he endeavours to escape; if wounded, he very justifiably turns on the assailants, and has been known to attack a boat filled with armed men, to seize the keel with his terrific teeth, and after breaking a hole and letting in the water, to dash away, shaking his great ears as if in derision. "I have seen him," said a quaint old writer, "in the wash of the shore, when the sea has tossed a Dutchman's boat, with fourteen hundred hogsheads of water in her, upon the said beast, and left it dry upon his back; and another sea came and fetched the boat off, and the beast was not hurt, as far as I could perceive. Kittimpungo is his name, and when he comes near where the fishermen are busy, they throw him a fish, and then he passeth by, not meddling with their craft. His great feet make a huge trampling, but this no one can help."

Those who like to visit the glass-house where serpents dwell, can see many of those slimy and malignant, crawling or swift moving creatures, from which our nature instinctively recoils. For our own part, we would rather employ the remaining time in paying a visit to the

BOTANICAL GARDENS OF THE HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY,

Also in the Regent's Park, and not far distant. These gardens, entered only by means of orders from the Fellows of the Society, are extremely pleasing. The large Conservatory contains some rare and handsome plants most tastefully arranged; creepers run up the pillars and droop in elegant festoons; and right and left, before us and behind us, are trees and shrubs and flowers of exceeding beauty. We cannot look upon them without thoughts of joy and gratitude, nor fail to recognise in their construction some evident design. The Zamia horrida, though seen in the Botanic Gardens at Kew, seems to meet us here under a new aspect, and, from the force of contrast with more graceful plants, leads us to observe its evident destination, namely, that of a vegetable fortress for large birds and lesser animals, as the zamia often covers a large extent of land.

Adjoining to the gardens, or rather within them, are exhibitions of American plants and roses, than which it is scarcely possible to see anything more lovely. Oh, the splendour of those rhododendrons, and azalias, and magnolias; that wilderness of sweets, wherein is concentrated all that is most rich and delicate