The dodo exists now solely in a few specimens preserved in glass cases in two or at the outside three museums. The mammoth is discovered rarely embedded in blocks of ice under the Arctic Circle. The gigantic moa of New Zealand is recovered only from its scattered bones. The Great Auk was last seen off the coast of Waterford in 1834. Her egg sells for about a hundred pounds. A species of the English milk-maid is said to exist on the High Alps, and is called the _Sennerin_, but is so unlike the milk-maid of English picture and story, that naturalists are disposed to dispute it as a species, and regard it as belonging to a different _genus_. Again, those temperate and frugal beings who frequent the A.B.C. establishments in London, and get a drink of milk for a penny and sandwiches for twopence, will see there very interesting and even charming specimens of the modern milk-maid, but in build, in plumage, and in habit, totally unlike the milk-maid we knew from nursery rhyme, and from illustrations. The old milk-maid—save the mark! the milk-maid was never old, her youth was perennial—I mean the milk-maid who lived and flourished in Britain till about 1834, when she disappeared along with the _alca impennis_—was fresh faced, rosy cheeked, strongly built, wore light cotton gowns and white aprons; carried her arms bare, sang cheerily as she went about her work, and had a tendency to become “bouncing.” Her habitat was a country farm, and she was to be found frequenting the fields, the cowshed, and the dairy. The specimens exhibited by the Aerated Bread Company, on the other hand, are pale complexioned, somewhat lily faced, of a willowy build, always with plumage that is black, except for a white apron, the arms are clothed in black save for neat white cuffs about the wrists; they move silently, and are never seen in country pastures, only in A.B.C. refreshment places in London, and such large towns as can maintain these useful establishments. But the difference extends further. The milk-maid of olden time was not exactly a wading, web-footed being, but she had large feet and shoes of the most solid, broad description, very necessary, as she was constrained to make her way through farm-yards over ankles in mud, or to go through the task of milking cows in byres or linneys that were—well, the reverse of clean. As to the modern milk-maid, it suffices to look at her feet—like those described by Sir John Suckling, “Her feet beneath her petticoat, Like little mice, steal in and out As if they feared the light,”— to be quite satisfied that she is not descended from, nor is a true variant of the milk-maid of olden time. The same Sir John Suckling admirably portrays the latter— “No grape that’s kindly ripe could be, So round, so plump, so soft as she, Nor half so full of juice.” It is obvious this does not describe the A.B.C. milk-lass. The latter is a banana, the former an apple.