In France, said the learned professor, this race
Had so noxious become, in some centuries' space,
From their numbers and strength, that the land was o'errun with 'em,
Every one's question being, "What's to be done with em?"
When, lo! certain knowing ones--_savans_, mayhap,
Who, like Buckland's deep followers, understood _trap_,[4]
Slyly hinted that naught upon earth was so good
For _Aris_tocratodons, when rampant and rude,
As to stop or curtail their allowance of food.
This expedient was tried and a proof it affords
Of the effect that short commons will have upon lords;
For this whole race of bipeds, one fine summer's morn,
Shed their coronets, just as a deer sheds his horn,
And the moment these gewgaws fell off, they became
Quite a new sort of creature--so harmless and tame,
That zooelogists might, for the first time, maintain 'em
To be near akin to the _genius humanum_,
And the experiment, tried so successfully then,
Should be kept in remembrance when wanted again.
[1] A term formed on the model of the Mastodon, etc.
[2] The zooelogical term for a tithe-eater.
[3] The man found by Scheuchzer, and supposed by him to have witnessed the
Deluge ("_homo diluvii testis_"), but who turned out, I am sorry to
say, to be merely a great lizard.
[4] Particularly the formation called _Transition_ Trap.
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