name of Timkins. By what process of reasoning
we arrived at the resolution, nem. con., that
Timkins was the man for our money, I am
wholly unable to say; but certain it is, that we
did come to that resolution, and Timkins was
appointed. It may have been that, overlooking
the main circumstance of the case, viz.
bankruptcy, we were entirely carried away by the
compliments paid to Timkins by the
commissioner, and the gratifying fact that, though
Timkins had not paid anything worth mentioning
to his creditors, he nevertheless had left the
court without a stain on his character.

Timkins proved to be the man for our money,
as we anticipated. Our former secretary had
enforced the rules of the society with so much
strictness and so little discretion, that many
members were compelled to resign, while others
formed themselves into a league to resist what
was stigmatised as the sharp practice of the
management. Under the milder sway of
Timkins, all cause of discord disappeared. No
one forfeited his membership, there was no
complaint of a harsh enforcement of the rules,
and all went pleasant with us—until the first
audit.

The two auditors, when they came forth from
the back office, where they had been closeted
with Timkins for five hours, examining vouchers
and balancing the accounts—the two auditors,
I say, when they presented themselves in the
committee-room, appeared to be radiant with
satisfaction. What it was that caused them so
much inward joy we were duly informed when
the accounts had been passed—the total at the
bottom of the credit side was precisely the
same as that at the bottom of the debit side, so
it was all right—and a vote of thanks had been
passed to Timkins by acclamation.

When Timkins, flushed with honest pride, had
retired to his domestic hearth, there to share
his gratified feelings with the partner of his
bosom, the auditors, unable to withhold the joyful
tidings any longer, informed us that the rules had
never been enforced at all, that half the members
of the society were in arrear, and that Timkins,
after having had every allowance given him for
postages, sundries of various kinds, and vouchers
which he had lost, was indebted to the society
in the sum of fifteen pounds eight and sevenpence.
This announcement was quite enough
to excite the sympathies of all of us. If we had
heard that Timkins had been instrumental in
reducing our taxes, in emancipating us from
some dreadful bondage, in sustaining the glory
of our arms in foreign parts, in scattering our
enemies and making them fall—if, in fact, we
had been assured that Timkins was the greatest
benefactor that we and the human race had ever
had, we could not have been more spontaneously
of opinion that he deserved a testimonial. The
way in which we all said at once, "Timkins must
have a testimonial," was suggestive of a passage
in a chorus, "rendered with great precision."

Timkins, having at this time manifested a
taste for scientific pursuits in the entomological
direction, it was proposed by a committee-man
of kindred sympathies that our testimonial should
take the form of a microscope, and, there being
among the other members, not scientific, a vague
notion that a microscope was a thing that cost
about eighteenpence, the proposal was agreed to
with alacrity. To our great surprise and dismay,
however, the microscope, when sent home by the
optician, turned out to be a huge machine with
brass wheels and funnels like a miniature steam-
engine, and cost, with its mahogany case and
complimentary inscription, eleven guineas
sterling. Nevertheless, we paid the money
cheerfully, and presented the testimonial to Timkins,
who thanked us from the bottom of his heart,
and said that he would never forget the day, &c.
I have only to add that Timkins is still "the
man for our money," to the extent of fifteen
pounds eight and sevenpence, and I am sure
none of us would be mean enough even to hint to
him that he was bound to make good the
deficiency.

That Timkins may live to receive many more
testimonials in token of his eminent
inefficiency in every relation of life, is my earnest
wish. I am sure there are hundreds of silver
teapots and elegantly-chased goblets dying to be
inscribed with his illustrious name, and on the
very slightest pretence to throw themselves into
his arms.

ANTLERS.

DEER are four-footed mammals, chewing the
cud, and having horns which fall off. The Latin
nations call them "necks." Remarkable for the
length of their necks, they are called cervidæ,
cervi, cerfs, from the Latin word for neck,
cervix. When men or women with notably long
necks pass among the promenaders of the
Elysian Fields, in Paris, on Sundays or holidays,
lively Parisians may be heard calling upon their
companions to look at a "cerf." The English
word deer, the students of language tell us,
changing according to Grimm's law, is in Gothic
dius; in Old High German, tior; in Anglo-
Saxon, deor; in Greek, ther or pher; and in
Latin, fera, signifying a wild beast. The English
word forest is derived from the Latin fera,
and did not, in old times, any more than in the
highlands of Scotland at the present day, mean
a great wood, but a chase for wild beasts or
deer.

Deer are cud-chewers. Belonging to the
backboned division of animals, and having teats,
they are included in the first great group of this
division, the mammals, whilst the characteristic
of chewing the cud arranges them apart with a
smaller group represented by deer, sheep, oxen,
goats, and camels. Nearly all the cud-chewing
animals, instead of cutting teeth, have pads in
the upper jaw. When browsing on leaves, or
grazing on grass, they press the leaves or grass
against the pads, and cut them from below, with
the front or incisive teeth of the lower jaw.
They do not bite their fodder as we do our food,
with cutting-teeth above and below; they cut it