Part 1
# Heads and tales : $b or, Anecdotes and stories of quadrupeds and other beasts, chiefly connected with incidents in the histories of more or less distinguished men. ### By Unknown
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HEADS AND TALES.
PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON
[Illustration: The Tasmanian Wolf. (_Thylacinus Cynocephalus._)]
HEADS AND TALES;
OR,
ANECDOTES AND STORIES OF QUADRUPEDS AND OTHER BEASTS,
CHIEFLY CONNECTED WITH INCIDENTS IN THE HISTORIES OF MORE OR LESS DISTINGUISHED MEN.
COMPILED AND SELECTED BY
ADAM WHITE, LATE ASSISTANT IN THE ZOOLOGICAL DEPARTMENT, BRITISH MUSEUM.
Second Edition.
LONDON: JAMES NISBET & CO., 21 BERNERS STREET. MDCCCLXX.
PREFACE.
In this work, a part of which is, so far as it extends, a careful compilation from an extensive series of books, the great order mammalia, or, rather, a few of its subjects, is treated anecdotically. The connexion of certain animals with man, and the readiness with which man can subdue even the largest of the mammalia, are very curious subjects of thought. The dog and horse are our special friends and associates; they seem to understand us, and we get very much attached to them. The cat or the cow, again, possess a different degree of attachment, and have "heads and hearts" less susceptible of this education than the first mentioned. The anecdotes in this book will clearly show facts of this nature. In the Letter of the Gorilla, under an appearance of exaggeration, will be found many facts of its history. We have a strong belief that natural history, written as White of Selborne did his Letter of Timothy the Tortoise, would be very enticing and interesting to young people. To make birds and other animals relate their stories has been done sometimes, and generally with success. There are anecdotes hinging, however, on animals which have more to do with man than the other mammals referred to in the little story. These stories we have felt to be very interesting when they occur in biographies of great men. Cowper and his Hares, Huygens and his Sparrow, are tales--at least the former--full of interesting matter on the history of the lower animal, but are of most value as showing the influence on the man who amused himself by taming them. We like to know that the great Duke, after getting down from his horse Copenhagen, which carried him through the whole battle of Waterloo, clapped him on the neck, when the war-charger kicked out, as if untired.
We could have added greatly to this book, especially in the part of jests, puns, or cases of _double entendre_. The few selected may suffice. The so-called conversations of "the Ettrick Shepherd" are full of matter of this kind, treated by "Christopher North" with a happy combination of rare power of description and apt exaggeration of detail, often highly amusing. One or two instances are given here, such as the Fox-hunt and the Whale. The intention of this book is primarily to be amusing; but it will be strange if it do not instruct as well. There is much in it that is _true_ of the habits of mammalia. These, with birds, are likely to interest young people generally, more than anecdotes of members of orders like fish, insects, or molluscs, lower in the scale, though often possessing marvellous instincts, the accounts of which form intensely interesting reading to those who are fond of seeing or hearing of "the works of the Lord," and who "take pleasure" in them.
CONTENTS.
MAMMALIA.[1]
PAGE MAN 1
Gainsborough's Joke--Skull of Julius Cæsar when a boy 2
Sir David Wilkie's simplicity about Babies 3
James Montgomery translates into verse a description of Man, after the manner of Linnæus 4
Addison and Sir Richard Steele's Description of Gimcrack the Collector 5
MONKEYS 9
The Gorilla and its Story 9
The Orang-Utan 11
The Chimpanzee 12
Letter of Mr Waterton 20
Mr Mitchell and the Young Chimpanzee 22
Lady Anne Barnard pleads for the Baboons 24
S. Bisset and his Trained Monkeys 25
Lord Byron's Pets 26
The Ettrick Shepherd's Monkey 27
The Findhorn Fisherman and the Monkey 29
"We ha'e seen the _Enemy_!" 29
The French Marquis and his Monkey 30
George IV. and Happy Jerry.--Mr Cross's Rib-nosed Baboon at Exeter Change 31
The Young Lady's pet Monkey and the poor Parrot 33
Monkeys "poor relations" 34
Sydney Smith on Monkeys 34
Mrs Colin Mackenzie on the Apes at Simla 35
The Aye-Aye, or Cheiromys of Madagascar 36
BATS 38
One of Captain Cook's Sailors sees a Fox-Bat, and describes it as a devil 39
Fox Bats (_with a Plate_) 41
Dr Mayerne and his Balsam of Bats 47
HEDGEHOG 48
Robert Southey to his Critics 48
MOLE 49
Mole, cause of Death of William III. 49
BROWN BEAR 56
The Austrian General and the Bear--"Back, rascal, I am a general!" 58
Lord Byron's Bear at Cambridge 59
Charles Dickens on Bear's Grease and Bear-keepers 59
A Bearable Pun 60
A Shaved Bear 61
POLAR BEAR 61
General History and Anecdotes of Polar Bear, as observed on recent Arctic Expeditions (_with a Plate_) 61
Nelson and the Polar Bear 67
A Clever Polar Bear 67
Captain Ommaney and the Polar Bear 70
RACCOON 71
"A Gone Coon" 71
BADGER 71
Hugh Miller sees the "Drawing of the Badger" 72
The Laird of Balnamoon and the Brock 75
FERRET 75
Collins and the Rat-catcher, with the Ferret 76
POLE-CAT 76
Fox and the Poll-Cat 77
DOG 77
Phrases about Dogs 77
Cowper's Dog 79
Cowper and his dog Beau 81
Burns's "Twa Dogs" 81
Dog of Assyrian Monument 86
Bishop Blomfield bitten by a Dog 88
Sydney Smith's Remark on it 88
Bishop of Bristol--"Puppies never see till they are nine days old" 88
Mrs Browning, the Poetess, and her dog Flush 89
Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton, Bart., and his dog Speaker 93
Lord Byron and his dog Boatswain 94
Lady's reason for calling her dog Perchance 96
Collins the Artist and his dog Prinny--the faithful Model 96
Soldier and Dog 97
Bark and Bite!--Curran on Lord Clare and his Dog 98
Mrs Drew and the two Dogs 98
Gainsborough and his Wife and their Dogs 100
Sir William Gell's Dog, which was said to speak 101
The Duke of Gordon's Wolf-hounds 102
Frederick the Great and his Italian Greyhounds 104
The Dog and the French Murderers 104
Hannah More on Garrick's Dog 105
Rev. Robert Hall and the Dog 106
A Queen (Henrietta Maria) and her Lap-Dog 106
The Clever Dog that belonged to the Hunters of Polmood 107
The Irish Clergyman and the Dogs 108
Washington Irving and the Dog 108
Douglas Jerrold and his Dog 109
Sheridan and the Dog 109
Charles Lamb and his dog "Dash" 110
French Dogs of Louis XII. 110
Martin Luther observes a Dog at Lintz 111
Poor Dog at the Grotta del Cane 111
Dog a Postman and Carrier 113
South and Sherlock--Dog-matic 113
General Moreau and his Greyhound 113
Duke of Norfolk and his Spaniels 114
Lord North and the Dog 115
Perthes derives Hints from his Dog 115
Peter the Great and his dog Lisette 116
The Light Company's Poodle and Sir F. Ponsonby 118
Admiral Rodney and his dog Loup 119
Ruddiman and his dog Rascal 119
Mrs Schimmelpenninck and the Dogs 120
Sir Walter Scott and his Dogs 122
Sheridan on the Dog-Tax 123
Sydney Smith dislikes Dogs.--An ingenious way of getting rid of them 124
Sydney Smith on Dogs 125
Sydney Smith.--"Newfoundland Dog that breakfasted on Parish Boys" 126
Robert Southey on his Dogs 126
A Dog that was a good judge of Elocution.--Mr True and his Pupil 127
Dog that tried to please a Crying Child 128
Horace Walpole's pet dog Rosette 128
Horace Walpole.--Arrival of his dog Tonton 129
Horace Walpole.--Death of his dog Tonton 130
Archbishop Whateley and his Dogs 131
Archbishop Whately on Dogs 132
Sir David Wilkie.--A Dog Rose 133
Ulysses and his Dog 133
WOLF 135
Polson and the Last Wolf in Sutherlandshire 135
"If the tail break, you'll find that" 137
FOX 138
An Enthusiastic Fox-hunting Surgeon 138
Hogg, the Ettrick Shepherd, on the Pleasures of Fox-hunting, and the gratification of the Fox 139
Arctic Foxes converted into Postmen, with Anecdotes (_with a plate_) 142
JACKAL 148
Burke on the Jackal and Tiger 149
CAT 149
Jeremy Bentham and his pet cat "Sir John Langborn 150
S. Bisset and his Musical Cats 152
Constant, Chateaubriand, and their Cats 153
Liston, the Surgeon, and his Cat 153
The Banker Mitchell's Antipathy to Kittens 154
James Montgomery and his Cats 155
David Ritchie's Cat 157
Sir Walter Scott's Visit to the Black Dwarf 157
Southey, the Poet, and his Cats 158
Archbishop Whateley and the Cat that used to ring the Bell 160
TIGER AND LION 161
Bussapa, the Tiger-slayer, and the Tiger 162
John Hunter and the Dead Tiger 164
Mrs Mackenzie on the Indian's regard and awe for the Tiger 165
Jolly Jack-tar on Lion and Tiger 166
Androcles and the Lion 167
Sir George Davis and the Lion 170
Canova's Lions and the Child 171
Admiral Napier and the Lion in the Tower 173
Old Lady and the Beasts on the Mound 173
SEALS 174
Dr Adam Clarke on Shetland Seals 175
Dr Edmonstone and the Shetland Seals 176
The Walrus or Morse (_with a Plate_) 182
KANGAROO 188
Charles Lamb on its Peculiarities 188
Captain Cooke's Sailor and the first Kangaroo seen 189
Charles Lamb on Kangaroos having Purses in front 189
Kangaroo Cooke 189
TIGER WOLF 190
SQUIRREL, &c. 194
Jekyll on a Squirrel 195
Pets of some of the Parisian Revolutionary Butchers 195
Sir George Back and the poor Lemming 196
McDougall and Arctic Lemming 197
RATS AND MICE 198
Duke of Wellington and Musk-Rat 200
Lady Eglinton and the Rats 200
General Douglas and the Rats 201
Hanover Rats 202
Irishman Shooting Rats 203
James Watt and the Rat's Whiskers 204
Gray the Poet compares Poet-Laureate to Rat-catcher 204
Jeremy Bentham and the Mice 205
Robert Burns and the Field Mouse 206
Fuller on Destructive Field Mice 208
Baron Von Trenck and the Mouse in Prison 209
Alexander Wilson, the American Ornithologist, and the Mouse 211
HARES, RABBITS, GUINEA-PIG 212
William Cowper on his Hares 213
Lord Norbury on the Exaggeration of a Hare-Shooter 220
Duke of L. prefers Friends to Hares 221
S. Bisset and his Trained Hare and Turtle 221
Lady Anne Barnard on a Family of Rabbits all blind of one eye 222
Thomas Fuller on Norfolk Rabbits 222
Dr Chalmers and the Guinea-Pig 223
SLOTH 224
Sydney Smith on the Sloth--a Comparison 224
THE GREAT ANT-EATER (_with a Plate_) 225
ELEPHANT 229
Lord Clive--Elephant or Equivalent? 230
Canning on the Elephant and his Trunk 232
Sir R. Phillips and Jelly made of Ivory Dust 233
J. T. Smith and the Elephant 234
Sydney Smith on the Elephant and Tailor 235
Elephant's Skin--a teacher put down 236
FOSSIL PACHYDERMATA 236
Cuvier's Enthusiasm over Fossils 236
SOW 238
"There's a hantle o' miscellaneous eatin' aboot a Pig" 238
"Pig-Sticking at Chicago" 238
Monument to a Pig at Luneberg 239
WILD BOAR (_with a Plate_) 239
THE RIVER PIG (_with a Plate_) 245
S. Bisset and his Learned Pig 250
Quixote Bowles fond of Pigs 251
On Jekyll's treading on a small Pig 251
Good enough for a Pig 251
Gainsborough's Pigs 252
Theodore Hook and the Litter of Pigs 253
Lady Hardwicke's Pig--her Bailiff 253
Pigs and Silver Spoon 253
Sydney Smith on Beautiful Pigs 254
Joseph Sturge, when a boy, and the Pigs 255
RHINOCEROS 229
The Lord Keeper Guildford and the Rhinoceros in the City of London 230
HORSE 256
Horse shot under Albert 256
Bell-Rock Lighthouse Horse 257
Edmund Burke and the Horse 257
David Garrick and his Horse, "A horse! a horse! my kingdom for a horse!" 258
Bernard Gilpin's Horses stolen and recovered 260
The Herald and George III.'s Horse 261
Rev. Rowland Hill and his Horse 261
Holcroft on the Horse 263
Lord Mansfield, his Joke about a Horse 267
Sir John Moore and his Horse at Corunna 268
Neither Horses nor Children can explain their Complaints 269
Horses with Names 270
Rennie the Engineer and the Horse Old Jack 270
Sydney Smith and his Horses 271
Sydney Smith.--He drugs his Domestic Animals 273
Horseback, an Absent Clergyman 273
Judge Story and the Names he gave his Horses 274
Short-tailed and Long-tailed Horses at Livery, difference of Charge 275
ASS AND ZEBRA 276
Coleridge on the Ass 276
Collins and the old Donkey at Odell 276
Gainsborough kept one to Study from 277
Irishman on the Ramsgate Donkeys 278
Douglas Jerrold and the Ass's Foal 278
The Judge and the Barrister 279
Ass that loved Poetry 279
Warren Hastings and the refractory Donkey 279
Northcote, an Angel at an Ass 281
Sydney Smith's Donkey with Jeffrey on his back 281
Sydney Smith on the Sagacity of the Ass 283
Sydney Smith's Deers, how he introduced them into his Grounds to gratify Visitors 284
Asses' Duty Free 284
Thackeray on Egyptian Donkey 285
Zebra, a Frenchman's _double-entendre_ 287
CAMELS 287
Captain William Peel, R.N., on Camel 287
Captain in Royal Navy measures the progress of the Ship of the Desert 289
Lord Metcalfe on a Camel when a Boy 290
RED DEER 291
Earl of Dalhousie and the ferocious Stag 291
The French Count and the Stag 293
FALLOW DEER 294
Venison Fat, Reynolds and the Gourmand 294
Goethe on Stag-trench at Frankfort-on-Maine 294
GIRAFFE 295
"Fancy Two Yards of Sore Throat!" 295
SHEEP AND GOAT 295
How many Legs has a Sheep? 296
Goethe on Roos's Etchings of Sheep 296
Lord Cockburn and the Sheep 298
Erskine's Sheep--an Eye to the Woolsack 298
Sandy Wood and his Pet Sheep and Raven 298
General Carnac and She-goat 299
John Hunter and the Shawl-goat 300
Commodore Keppel _beards_ the Dey of Algiers 303
OX 304
Irish Bulls 304
A great Calf! "The more he sucked the greater Calf he grew!" 304
Veal _ad nauseam!_ too much of a good thing 304
James Boswell should confine himself to the Cow 305
Rev. Adam Clarke and his Bullock Pat 305
Samuel Foote and the Cows pulling the Bell of Worcester College 306
The General's Cow at Plymouth 308
Gilpin's Love of the Picturesque carried out--a reason for keeping three Cows 308
King James on a Cow getting over the Border 309
Duke of Montague and his Hospital for Old Cows and Horses 309
Philip IV. of Spain in the Bull-ring 310
Sydney Smith and his "Universal Scratcher" 311
Rev. Augustus Toplady on the Future State of Animals--the Rev. William Bull 312
Windham on the Feelings of a Baited Bull 313
WHALE 315
A Porpoise not at Home 315
Whalebone 315
"What's to become o' the puir Whales?" 316
Very like a Whale! 316
Christopher North on the Whale 316
FOOTNOTES:
[1] There are many anecdotes in this book not included in this list, which gives however, the principal.
HEADS AND TALES.
MAN.
In this collection, like Linnæus, we begin with man as undoubtedly an animal, as opposed to a vegetable or mineral. Like Professor Owen, we are inclined to fancy he is well entitled to separate rank from even the Linnæan order, _Primates_, and to have more systematic honour conferred on him than what Cuvier allowed him. That great French naturalist placed man in a section separate from his four-handed order, _Quadrumana_, and, from his two hands and some other qualities, enrolled our race in an order, _Bimana_. Surely the ancients surpassed many modern naturalists of the Lamarckian school, who would derive him from an ourang, a chimpanzee, or a gorilla. One of them has nobly said--
"Os homini sublime dedit, coelumque tueri."
Our own Sir William Hamilton, in a few powerful words has condensed what will ever be, we are thankful to suppose, the general idea of most men, be they naturalists or not, that mind and soul have much to distinguish us from every other animal:--
"What man holds of matter does not make up his personality. Man is not an organism. He is an intelligence served by organs. _They are_ HIS, _not_ HE."
As a mere specimen, we subjoin two or three anecdotes, although the species, _Homo sapiens_, has supplied, and might supply, many volumes of anecdotes touching on his whims and peculiarities. As a good example of the Scottish variety, who is there that does not know Dean Ramsay's "Reminiscences?" Surely each nation requires a similar judicious selection. Mr Punch, especially when aided by his late admirable artist, John Leech, shows seemingly that John Bull and his family are as distinct from the French, as the French are from the Yankees.
THOMAS GAINSBOROUGH THE ARTIST, AND THE TAILOR.
Gainsborough, the painter, was very ready-witted. His biographer[2] records the following anecdote of him as very likely to be authentic. The great artist occasionally made sketches from an honest old tailor, of the name of Fowler, who had a picturesque countenance and silver-gray locks. On the chimney-piece of his painting-room, among other curiosities, was a beautiful preparation of an infant _cranium_, presented to the painter by his old friend, Surgeon Cruickshanks. Fowler, without moving his position, continually peered at it askance with inquisitive eye. "Ah! Master Fowler," said the painter, "that is a mighty curiosity." "What might it be, sir, if I may be so bold?" "A _whale's eye_," replied Gainsborough. "Oh! not so; never say so, Muster Gainsborough. Laws! sir, it is a little child's skull!" "You have hit upon it," said the wag. "Why, Fowler, you are a witch! But what will you think when I tell you that it is the skull of _Julius Cæsar_ when he was a little boy?" "Do you say so!" exclaimed Fowler, "what a phenomenon!"
This reminds us of a similar story told of a countryman, who was shown the so-called skull of Oliver Cromwell at the museum in Oxford, and expressed his delight by saying how gratifying it was to see skulls of great men at different ages, for he had just seen at Bath the skull of the Protector when a youth!
SIR DAVID WILKIE AND THE BABY.
A very popular novelist and author of the present day tells the following anecdote of the simplicity of Sir David Wilkie, with regard to his knowledge of _infant_ human nature:--
On the birth of his first son, at the beginning of 1824, William Collins,[3] the great artist, requested Sir David Wilkie to become one of the sponsors for his child.[4] The painter's first criticism on his future godson is worth recording from its simplicity. Sir David, whose studies of human nature extended to everything but _infant_ human nature, had evidently been refreshing his faculties for the occasion, by taxing his boyish recollections of puppies and kittens; for, after looking intently into the child's eyes as it was held up for his inspection, he exclaimed to the father, with serious astonishment and satisfaction, "He _sees_!"
MAN DEFINED SOMEWHAT IN THE LINNÆAN MANNER.
One who is partial to the Linnæan mode of characterising objects of natural history has amused himself with drawing up the following definition of man:--"_Simia sine cauda; pedibus posticis ambulans; gregarius, omnivorus, inquietus, mendax, furax, rapax, salax, pugnax, artium variarum capax, animalium reliquorum hostis, sui ipsius inimicus acerrimus._"
Montgomery translated the description thus:--
"Man is an animal unfledged, A monkey with his tail abridged; A thing that walks on spindle legs, With bones as brittle, sir, as eggs; His body, flexible and limber, And headed with a knob of timber; A being frantic and unquiet, And very fond of beef and riot; Rapacious, lustful, rough, and martial, To lies and lying scoundrels partial! By nature form'd with splendid parts To rise in science--shine in arts; Yet so confounded cross and vicious, A mortal foe to all his species! His own best _friend_, and you must know, His own worst _enemy_ by being so!"[5]
ADDISON AND STEELE ON SOME OF THE PECULIARITIES OF THE NATURAL HISTORY COLLECTORS OF THE DAY.
In one of the early volumes of _Chambers's Edinburgh Journal_, there was a very curious paper entitled "Nat Phin." Although considerably exaggerated, no one who had the happiness of knowing the learned, amiable, and excellent Dr Patrick Neill, could fail to recognise, in the transposed title, an amusing description of his love of natural history pets, zoological and botanical. The fun of the paper is that "Nat" gets married, and, coming home one day from his office, finds that his young wife has caused the gardener to clear out his ponds of tadpoles and zoophytes.
Addison or Sir Richard Steele, or both of them, in the following paper of the _Tatler_ (No. 221, Sept. 7, 1710), has given one of those quietly satiric pictures of many a well-known man of the day, some Petiver or Hans Sloane. The widow Gimcrack's letter is peculiarly racy. Although old books, the _Tatler_ and _Spectator_ still furnish rare material to many a popular magazine writer of the day, who sometimes does little more than dilute a paper in these and other rare repertories of the style and wit of a golden age. We meditated offering various extracts from Swift and Daniel Defoe; but our space limits us to one, and the following may for the present suffice.
"_From my own Apartment, September 6._
"As I was this morning going out of my house, a little boy in a black coat delivered me the following letter. Upon asking who he was, he told me that he belonged to my Lady Gimcrack. I did not at first recollect the name, but, upon inquiry, I found it to be the widow of Sir Nicholas, whose legacy I lately gave some account of to the world. The letter ran thus:--