believed that he saw it, but strongly doubted its existence. M. Vaillant
never saw it, nor believed that any one ever did, but was as sure of its
existence as if it had slept in his bosom, and been unto him as a daughter.
Mr. Russel had one, which he milked twice a day, and drove in a curricle
to visit the Queen of Madagascar. Doctor Lyall is writing a quarto from
Madagascar, to deny the statement in toto; admitting, however, that there
is a rumour of the being of some nondescript of the kind in the mountains,
somewhat between the size of the elephant and the Shetland pony; but that
he and we think the subject-matter will turn out asinine. But now a Mr.
Ruppell, after a long sojourn in the north-east of Africa, comes at once
to cheer and dishearten us by the discovery, that in Kordofan, if any one
knows where that is, the unicorn exists; stated to be of the size of a
small horse, of the slender make of the gazelle, and furnished with a long,
straight, slender horn in the male, which was wanting in the female.
According to the statements made by various persons, it inhabits the
deserts to the south of Kordofan, is uncommonly fleet, and comes only
occasionally to the Koldagi Heive mountains on the borders of Kordofan.
This, it must be acknowledged, is a sad falling off from the rival of the
lion, that we have honoured so long in the arms of England. But we
sincerely hope, that by the next arrival, it will not degenerate into a
cow, or worse, a goat. But he tells us, that to our knowledge of the
giraffe he has added considerably. He obtained in Nubia and Kordofan five
specimens, two of which were males and three females. He regards the horns
as constituting the principal generic character, they being formed by
distinct bones, united to the frontal and parietal bones by a very obvious
suture, and having throughout the same structure with the other bones. In
both sexes one of these abnormal bones is situated on each branch of the
coronal suture, and the male possesses an additional one placed more
anteriorly, and occupying the middle of the frontal suture. The anomalous
position of this appendage furnishes a complete refutation of the theory