Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1894 — ODD ANIMAL LIFE. [ARTICLE]

ODD ANIMAL LIFE.

Queer Things Done by Birds, Fowls Beasts and Insects. The greyhound runs by sight only. This is a fact. The carrier pigeon flies his hundreds of miles homeward by eyesight, noting from point to point objects that he has marked. This is only conjecture. The dragon fly, with 12,000 lenses in his eye, darts from angle to angle with the rapidity of a flashing sword and as rapidly darts back, not turning ’in the air, but with a clash reversing the action of • his four wings and instantaneously calculating the distance of the objects, or he would dash himself to pieces. But in what conformation of the eye does this power consist? No one can answer. Ten thousand mosquitoes dance up and down in the sun, with the minutest interval beween them, yet no one knocks another headlong on the grass or breaks a leg or a wing, long and delicate as they are. Suddenly a peculiar, high-shouldered, vicious creature, with long and pendant nose, darts out of the rising and falling cloud and settling on your cheeks, inserts a poisonous sting. What possessed the little wretch to do this? Did he smell your blood while he was dancing? No one knows.

A carriage comes suddenly upon some geese in a narrow road and drives straight through the flock. A goose was never yet fairly run over, nor a duck. They are under the very wheels and hoofs and yet they continue to flap and waddle safely off. Habitually stupid, heavy and indolent, they are, nevertheless, equal to any emergency. • Why does the lonely woodpecker, when he descends from his tree and goes to drink, stop several times on his way and listen and look around before he takes his draught? No one knows. How is it that the species of an ant which is taken in battle by other ants to be made slaves should be the black or negro ant? No one knows. The power of judging of actual danger and the free and easy boldness that results from it are by no means uncommon. Many birds seem to have a correct notion of a gun’s range and are scrupulously careful to keep beyond it. The most obvious resource would be to fly right away out of sight and hearing, but this they do not choose to do.

A naturalist of Brazil gives an account of an expedition that he made to one of the islands of the Amazon to shoot spoonbills, ibises and other magnificent birdsjwhich are abundant there. His design was completely baffled, however, by a wretched little sand-piper, which preceded him, continually uttering his tell-tale cry, which at once aroused all the birds within hearing. Throughout the day did this individual bird continue its self-imposed duty of sentinel to others, effectually preventing the approach of the hunter to the game and yet managing to keep out of the range of his gun.—[Philadelphia Times.

Artificial flowers are coming into use-in Paris for corsage decoration. They are perfect imitations of nature and are selected of a tint to match the trimmings of the costume. A cluster is worn near the right shoulder and at the left side of the waist.