"Very good, indeed," answered the other; "Turtle, is it not? I only ask because I did not find any green fat." The Doctor shook his head. "I think it has somewhat of a musky taste," said another; "not unpleasant, but peculiar." "All alligators have," replied Buckland. "The Cayman peculiarly so. The fellow whom I dissected this morning, and whom you have just been eating--" There was a general rout of the whole guests. Every one turned pale. Half-a-dozen started up from table. Two or three ran out of the room and vomited; and only those who had stout stomachs remained to the close of an excellent entertainment. "See what imagination is," said Buckland. "If I had told them it was turtle, or terrapin, or birds'-nest soup--salt water amphibia or fresh, or the gluten of a fish from the maw of a sea bird, they would have pronounced it excellent, and their digestion been none the worse. Such is prejudice." "But was it really an alligator?" asked a lady. "As good a calf's head as ever wore a coronet," answered Buckland. The worthy Doctor, however, was sometimes the object, as well as the practicer of jokes and hoaxes. I remember hearing him make a long descriptive speech regarding some curious ancient remains which had been displayed to him by Mr. B----, who was neither more nor less than a notorious _charlatan_. They consisted in conical excavations, at the bottom of which were found various nondescript implements, which passed with the worthy Doctor as curious relics of an almost primæval age. One third of the room at least was in a laugh during the whole time; for the tricks of the impostor who had deceived the professor--very similar to those of Doctor Dousterswivel--had been completely exposed about a year before at Lewis, in Sussex; and witty Barham, the well-known Tom Ingoldsby, handed about the room some satirical verses struck off upon the occasion. Indeed, though eminent as a geologist and palæontologist, Buckland went out of his depth when he dabbled in antiquarian science. But with a weakness common to many Englishmen of letters, he aimed greatly at universality; and in the same day I have heard him deliver a long disquisition upon the piercing of stone walls by a peculiar sort of snail, and a regular oration upon the spontaneous combustion of pigeons' dung.