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in their accounts of the load which a camel can carry. Sandys, in his Travels in the Holy Land, says, hundred weight is his ordinary load, yet will he carry a thousand." The caravans are distinguished as light or heavy, according to the load which the camels bear. The average load of the heavy, or slow-going camel, as stated by Major Rennell, who investigated their rate of travelling with great accuracy, is from 500 to 600 lbs. The camel sometimes carries large panniers, filled with heavy goods; sometimes bales are strapped on his back, fastened either with cordage made of the palm-tree, or leathern thongs; and sometimes two, or more, will bear a sort of litter, in which women and children ride with considerable ease.

The expense of maintaining these valuable creatures is remarkably little: a cake of barley, a few dates, a handful of beans, will suffice, in addition to the hard and prickly shrubs which they find in every district but the very wildest of the desert. They are particularly fond of those vegetable productions which other animals would. never touch, such as plants which are like spears and daggers, in comparison with the needles of the thistle, and which often pierce the incautious traveller's boot. He might wish such thorns eradicated from the earth, if he did not behold the camel contentedly browsing upon them; for he thus learns that Providence has made nothing in vain. Their teeth are peculiarly adapted for such a diet. Differing from all other ruminating tribes, they have two strong cutting teeth in the upper jaw; and of the six grinding teeth, one on each side, in the same jaw, has a crooked form: their canine teeth, of which they have two in each jaw, are very strong; and in the lower jaw the two external cutting teeth have a pointed form, and the foremost of the grinders is also pointed and crooked. They are thus provided with a most formidable apparatus for cutting and tearing the hardest vegetable substance. But the camel is, at the same time organized so as to graze upon the finest herbage, and browse upon the most delicate leaves; for his upper lip being divided, he is enabled to nip off the tender shoots, and turn them into his mouth with the greatest facility. Whether the sustenance, therefore, which he finds, be of the coarsest or the softest kind, he is equally prepared to be satisfied with and enjoy it.

THE REINDEER AND THE LAPLANDER.

THE Laplander and his reindeer appear to have been created for each other; for without the assistance of the reindeer, there could be no human inhabitants in Lapland. Nothing could compensate for its loss. Its flesh and its milk, prepared in various ways, afford luxury and nourishment, supplying every other article of food; its furry skin. furnishes, in a simple manner, comfortable clothing, and the means of resisting the severity of an arctic winter, which nothing else could do. Wrapt in this fur, the Laplanders sleep on the snow or frozen ground, with their infants, in comfort and safety. When the change in the season requires their removal from one hut to another, the reindeer offers the ready means for transporting them with their families and goods.

There is no part of a reindeer useless to its master. Besides the food it furnishes, as already stated, its sinews supply thread, cordage and harness; and its bones and horns are manufactured into furniture and ornaments. Of the instinct and docility of the reindeer, some pleasing instances are recorded by Mr. Bullock, whose interesting exhibition of the Laplanders and their friends, has attracted more than sixty thousand persons to see them.

When Mr. Bullock arrived at a town on the coast, it was found necessary to remove the deer to an island about two miles from the town, for the purpose of keeping them quiet. They were marched to the shore opposite to the island, where large boats were prepared by lashing them together. The deer walked immediately to the quay, but the leader, observing the boats move, stopped and examined them very minutely: he hesitated, and the herd became instantly alarmed: it was the first time they had seen a boat. After some further hesitation, and a little fear, the leader walked in. The eyes of the whole herd were instantly fixed upon him, and they distinctly expressed their fears for his safety; and some of them turned their eyes towards the mountains.

The leader was at this time examining the planks with his feet: the motion did not please him. Salva, the mountaineer, who had the care of them, seated himself by the leader's head, patted his neck, and laid his face to that of

the deer. Another Laplander was, by this time, in the other boat; upon seeing him, the leader turned his head, looked attentively at his followers, and in a kind of snort, gave the signal for them to come in. It was not, for a moment, obeyed; and he repeated it in rather an angry manner, stamping with his foot. In a moment, the boats were both filled. In jumping in, a weakly dear fell, and lay in the bottom of the boat in such a situation, that its destruction was considered inevitable; yet it received no injury. Their care and love for each other are truly admirable.

As soon as they were in, the leader, observing there were more in one boat than in the other, looked at one of the old males, which appearing perfectly to understand him, instantly went into the other boat. The ropes were then cast off; they remained perfectly quiet till they reached the island; when, following their leader, they leaped on the rock, ascended the side of a small hill, and got a plentiful supply of their favorite white moss. The deer are as fond of brandy as their masters; and it is often given them, in cases of extreme fatigue, or loss of appetite, with considerable effect.

In Lapland, herds of these animals are extremely numerous. Their greatest enemy is the wolf, which sometimes breaks into a fold, and destroys twenty or thirty at a time. The Laplander holds him in the greatest detestation, and is almost in a rage when his name is mentioned. The first question put to Mr. Bullock by a Laplander,was, "Are there wolves in England ?" And when told they were entirely extirpated, he clapped his hands and said, “If it had snow, mountains, and rein-moss, what a happy country it would be.”

THE GIRAFFE.

THE height of a full grown giraffe varies from eighteen to twenty feet, although some specimens, in their natural state, have been seen exceeding this by several inches. One half of this elevation consists of the neck, from the ears to its junction with the projecting angle of the chest; and the other half consists of the fore legs, ascending to

that

the same point. Casual observers are apt to suppose the fore legs of the giraffe are very disproportionably longer than its hind legs; yet they are in reality of equal length, the apparent difference arising from the height of the shoulder, or rather, perhaps, from the great length of the spinous processes of the scapular vertebræ, which descend in an angle of inclination nearly equal to the back of a stag thrown upon its haunches or rising from its lair. And this effect is so much enhanced by the dorsal protuberance above the shoulder, that few persons are undeceived but by deliberate inspection. The front view of this singular animal is unique and rather uncouthly grotesque. Its neck appears too thin, mounting lankly aloft, as it does from a capacious orbicular duo-convex chest, like a tall iron crane from the box of its windlass. And the tout ensemble of this, in connexion with the very long, thin legs, which perpendicularly sustain so odd a superstructure, is not unlike the front aspect of a real ornithological crane, as it sometimes stands forlorn on the margin of a pool, innocent of eels, and bolt upright in its excursive meditations. Yet no animal exhibits a more gracefully majestic attitude and richly flowing outline than this otherwise uncouth giraffe, when beheld in its side view, cropping the topmost leaves of high branches, or lifting its airy, vivacious head, attentive to distant sounds. Its aspect is then a charm to the eye of taste, and excites the admiration of the most indifferent spectator.

The eyes of the giraffe are singularly large, full and clear, soft and rich as the famed gazelle's, and fringed with very long lashes. They are situated so prominently on the sides of the head, as to excel, in advantage of position, those of the hare; and it is supposed that the giraffe can command a wider view of the horizon than any other creature. The surface of its skin is smooth, the hair being short, close and flatly laid. The ground color is a dull white, warming to a rich cream tint, and deepening with age to a very faintly-red brown. The spots are of a much darker brown, and of so generally regular a form and arrangement as to give the hide the appearance of being cross-barred with whitish stripes.

Another singularity in the giraffe is, that it has neither a muzzle nor lachrymal sinuses. It has no incisors in the upper jaw, but twelve grinders: in the lower jaw it has

twelve grinders and eight incisors. But the most instructive singularity in the physiology of the giraffe, and the one which, above all others, determines its geographical insulation and scarcity, is the remarkable adaptation of its tongue to the food which it chiefly prefers and seeks. This coincidence seems to have escaped the attention of naturalists, and was, perhaps, first observed by Mr. Clayton, the intelligent gentleman who captured the giraffes now in this country. The organ, in these specimens, is about thirty inches in length, tapering nearly to a sharp point, and endowed with greater contractility, extensibleness, and flexibility, than the tongue of any creature but the ant-eater. It is coated on the upper surface and round its point, with a skin so hard and impervious, that it cannot be cut or pierced even with a sharp knife, without great pressure. The food on which the giraffe principally subsists, in its natural state, is the foliage and juicy branches of a species of mimosa or acacia, called by the natives kameel-doorn, which is said to be peculiar to the vallies in which the animal is only known to have been seen, and to constitute their almost exclusive vegetation. This variety of the acacia abounds with very long and exceedingly sharp spines, whose puncture is as subtile as that of a needle. Yet, protected by its wonderfully impermeable covering, the flexile tongue of the giraffe securely threads its way through the foliaged danger, winds around the branches amid the spines, culling each particular leaf with more than manual dexterity, and incurring neither puncture nor laceration.

THE BOA CONSTRICTOR.

THE Boa-constrictor, a native of India, the larger Indian islands, and of South America, attains the enormous length of thirty or forty feet. It has a compressed body, thickest in the middle, a prehensile tail, small scales on the head, scuta or undivided plates on the belly and under the tail. The ground color of its skin is yellowish grey, on which is distributed along the back, a series of large chainlike reddish brown, and sometimes perfectly red variations, with other small and more irregular marks and