be made artistically interesting, apart from this or that conventional or imaginative addition. The lion must be presented, not as he is, but as vulgar anticipation expects him to be; not with the savageness and terror which are native to him, but with the savageness and terror which those who have trembled and fled at the echo of his roar invest him with,--which are quite another matter. Zoölogical gardens and museums have their uses, but they cannot introduce us to wild animals as they really are; and the reports of those who have caught terrified or ignorant glimpses of them in their native regions will mislead us no less in another direction. Nature reveals her secrets only to those who have faithfully and rigorously submitted to the initiation; but to them she shows herself marvellous and inexhaustible. The "simple animal" avouches his ability to transcend any imaginative conception of him. The stern economy of his structure and character, the sureness and sufficiency of his every manifestation, the instinct and capacity which inform all his proceedings,--these are things which are concealed from a hasty glance by the very perfection of their state. Once seen and comprehended, however, they work upon the mind of the observer with an ever increasing power; they lead him into a new, strange, and fascinating world, and generously recompense him for any effort he may have made to penetrate thither. Of that strange and fascinating world Mr. Kemeys is the true and worthy interpreter, and, so far as appears, the only one. Through difficulty and discouragement of all kinds, he has kept to the simple truth, and the truth has rewarded him. He has done a service of incalculable value to his country, not only in vindicating American art, but in preserving to us, in a permanent and beautiful form, the vivid and veracious figures of a wild fauna which, in the inevitable progress of colonization and civilization, is destined within a few years to vanish altogether. The American bear and bison, the cimmaron and the elk, the wolf and the 'coon--where will they be a generation hence? Nowhere, save in the possession of those persons who have to-day the opportunity and the intelligence to decorate their rooms and parks with Mr. Kemeys's inimitable bronzes. The opportunity is great--much greater, I should think, than the intelligence necessary for availing ourselves of it; and it is a unique opportunity. In other words, it lies within the power of every cultivated family in the United States to enrich itself with a work of art which is entirely American; which, as art, fulfils every requirement; which is of permanent and increasing interest and value from an ornamental point of view; and which is embodied in the most enduring of artistic materials.