THE CAMEL.

The height of this animal is, in general, about six feet, and the body is covered with dusky or ash'-col-oured hair. It has a short head, small ears, and a long bending neck; and is rendered re-mark'-a-ble not only by the lumps on its back, but by large hard swel'-lings at the bottom of the breast, on the knees, and on the in'-side of each leg.

In A-ra'-bi-a and other countries, where the cam'-el is trained to use'-ful pur'-pos-es, it is con-sid'-ered as a sa-cred animal, without which, the na'-tives could neither traffic, trav'-el, nor sub-sist'; its milk forms a consid'-er-a-ble part of their nour-ish-ment; they clothe them-selves' with its hair, which is shed reg'-u-lar-ly once a year; and on the ap-proach' of en'-e-mies, they may, by mounting their cam'-els, flee to the dis'-tance of a hundred miles in a sin'-gle day. It must also be ob

served' that these quad'-ru-peds are so extreme-ly tem'-per-ate, and ca'-pa-ble of such long ab'-sti-nence, that in those vast des'-erts, -where the earth is every where dry and sandy,—where there are neither beasts nor birds, neither in'-sects nor veg'-e-ta-bles, they post for'-ward without re-qui'-ring either drink or pas'-ture for five or six days together.

In Tur'-key, Per-si-a, A-ra'-bi-a, Bar'-bary, and E'-gypt, com'-merce is almost entire-ly carried on by means of camels; no car'-riage being so speedy and reason'-a-ble in those countries. Mer'-chants and trav/-el-lers u-nite' them-selves' into a body furnished with camels, to se-cure themselves from the in'-sults and dep-re-da-tions of rob'-bers. This assem'-blage is called a car-a-van', in which the numbers have been some/-times known to a-mount' to eight or ten thousand.

THE BEAR.

The common bear is a heav'-y looking quad'-ru-ped, of a large size, and covered with shag'-gy hair. It has a prom'-i-nent snout, a short tail, and treads on the whole sole of its foot. It is a na'-tive of nearly all the northern parts of A'-si-a and Eu'-rope, and it is said to be found in Cey-lon' and other In'-di-an islands, and also in some parts of Af'-ri-ca and A-mer’i-ca.

In northern cli'-mates, it is of a brown colour; in other parts of Eu'-rope, it is black; in Nor-way it is found grey and even white. The black bear confines itself almost en-tire'-ly to veg'-e-ta-ble food; but the brown, fre'-quently attacks lambs, kids, and even cattle, and sucks their blood like the weasels. Bears are fond of honey, and often seek for it in trees, of which they are ex'-cel-lent climb'-ers, in spite of their awk'-ward ap-pear-ance. bear is not nat'-u-ral-ly a fierce animal; but it

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be-comes a very for'-mi-da-ble en'-e-my when attacked or when de-prived of its young.

In its habits, this animal is sav'-age and sol'-i-ta-ry. It either re-sides' in the hol'-low of a tree, or some un-fre-quent'-ed wood, and takes up its a-bode' in those moun'-tain-ous steeps that are so dif'-fi-cult of ac-cess to the hu'-man foot. In these lone'-ly re-treats', it pass'-es several months in the winter in a state of tor-pid'-i-ty, without motion or sense, and never quits them till it is compelled by hun'ger to search for a fresh supply of food.

Al-though' the bear is of a surly dis-po-siti'on, yet when taken young, it submits, in a certain degree, to be tamed; and by being taught to e-rect' itself upon its hind'-er legs, moves about to the sound of music in a clumsy, awkward kind of dance. But no hu-mane' person would have any pleasure in looking at dancing bears, if they considered that, in making them learn this ac-com'-plish-ment the

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greatest cru-el-ty is prac'-tised, such as setting

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the poor creatures on plates of hot i'-ron. such in-flic'-tions of suffering for the sake of mere a-muse'-ment should be dis-cour-aged.

THE FOX.

The fox is a quad'-ru-ped of the dog kind. This animal is found in almost every quar'-ter of the world. His col'-our is brown; he has a sharp muz'-zle; his ears are e-rect' and pointed; and his tail is straight and bush'-y, and tipped with white. His gen'-er-al res'-i-dence is a den or large bur'-row, formed under the sur'-face of the ground, or in some deep crev'-ice of a rock. This he seldom leaves till the evening; and then he prowls about the woods and fields for food, till the morning. He feeds on hares, rab-bits, pōul'-try, feath'-ered game, moles, rats, and mice; and is known to be very fond of fruit. He runs down hares and rabbits by