as striking a characteristic of the beast as
the stork's bill is of the bird, that essential
feature shrivels and wrinkles and grows
limp under the stuffer's hand, and conveys no
notion of the original clear and even elegant
outline of the Ant-bear's head, and of the firmness
of its bone and bristle. Then the forelegs
and the tremendous claws are marred
inevitably. The forelegs even in the young
living specimen of which we speak are
models of animal strength that would delight
the eye of any artist. There is a size of bone,
a manifest firmness and tension of muscle in
them, that recal to the mind many an old ideal
sculpture. They end in huge claws retracted inwards,
as we should say of fingers bent towards
the palm, and the animal, walking in a strange
way, treads upon them so; he does not spread
the foreclaws out, but walks, as it were, upon
his knuckles. In the stuffed specimen the
claws are spread out carefully as they are
never to be seen in nature. The outer crust
of the ant-hills becomes often hard as stone,
and the use of those massive claws and of the
huge power in those forelegs is to enable the
Ant-bear to rend them asunder, as the oak
was rent by Milo. The hind legs of the
Ant-bear although strong are altogether
weaker, and they end in feet like human
feet, which are of great use in supporting
him while he is at work with his foreclaws.
In the stuffed specimen again the
marvellous tail is turned in the wrong direction.
In the living creature it resembles
nothing so much in form as a peacock's
tail, with the sweep reversed. A peacock's
tail without the gaiety, made of grey hairs
instead of gaudy feathers.

We remained for some time with the young
Brazilian, during which there arrived only one
visitor, a gentleman to whose ears the report
of it had come. He saw the Ant-bear eat an
egg and scratch itself, then went away. It
scratches and pulls its hair about with its hard
foreclaws precisely as it would if they were
horny fingers, and turning its head round
always when it does so to bring one bright
eye to bear upon its work, its mouth is
brought at the same time into the neighbourhood
of its hind feet or of its tail. We heard
two little sons of St. Giles, asking outside
whether that was where the show was and
what was the charge for seeing it, but they demurred
at threepence and retired. An object
of attraction that in proper hands would draw
half London was of no account in Bloomsbury.
Few seemed to care for " the Antita." When
that young Brazilian had in a leisurely way
refreshed himself with eggs and milk,
properly scratched himself with each of his four
legs, and made inspection of our trousers, he
determined to lie down. Not, however, until
he had made his bed. When he had arranged
the straw to his satisfaction, he lay down on
one side, and holding out an arm for his long
head, took it to his breast, and cuddled it as
though it were a baby that he had to bed
with him. Then he drew over all his long
tail in the fashion of a counterpane, and
remained thereunder as quiet as death.

A CHILD'S HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

              CHAPTER XL.

Before sunset on the memorable day on
which King Charles the First was executed,
the House of Commons passed an act declaring
it treason in any one to proclaim the
Prince of Wales—or anybody else—King of
England. Soon afterwards, it declared that
the House of Lords was useless and dangerous,
and ought to be abolished, and directed that
the late King's statue should be taken down
from the Royal Exchange in the city and
other public places. Having laid hold of
some famous Royalists who had escaped
from prison, and having beheaded the Duke
of Hamilton, Lord Holland, and Lord
Capel, in Palace Yard (all of whom died
very courageously), they then appointed a
Council of State to govern the country. It
consisted of forty-one members, of whom five
were peers. Bradshaw was made president.
The House of Commons also re-admitted
members who had opposed the King's death,
and made up its numbers to about a hundred
and fifty.

But, it still had an army of more than forty
thousand men to deal with, and a very hard
task it was to manage them. Before the
King's execution, the army had appointed
some of its officers to remonstrate between
them and the Parliament; and now the
common soldiers began to take that office
upon themselves. The regiments under
orders for Ireland mutinied: one troop of
horse in the city of London seized their
own flag, and refused to obey orders. For
this, the ringleader was shot: which did not
mend the matter, for, both his comrades and
the people made a public funeral for him, and
accompanied the body to the grave with
sound of trumpets and with a gloomy
procession of persons carrying bundles of rosemary
steeped in blood. Oliver was the only
man to deal with such difficulties as these,
and he soon cut them short by bursting
at midnight into the town of Burford, near
Salisbury, where the mutineers were sheltered,
taking four hundred of them prisoners,
and shooting a number of them by sentence
of court-martial. The soldiers soon found, as
all men did, that Oliver was not a man to be
trifled with. And there was an end of the
mutiny.

The Scottish Parliament did not know
Oliver yet; so, on hearing of the King's
execution, it proclaimed the Prince of Wales
King Charles the Second, on condition of his
respecting the Solemn League and Covenant.
Charles was abroad at that time, and so was
Montrose, from whose help he had hopes
enough to keep him holding on and off with