Rensselaer Gazette, Volume 2, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 February 1859 — Curious Facts. [ARTICLE]

Curious Facts.

The difference between the skull of th* I domestic hog and wild boar is as great as that - between the European and negro skull. Do- ' mesticated animals that subsequently run • wild in the forest, after a few generations* ; lose all traces of their domestication, and ; are, physically, different from their tame j originals.

It is not natural for a cow, any more than for other female animals, to give milk when she lias no young to nourish. The permanent production of milk is a modified animaj function, produced by an artificial habit for several generations. Jn Columbia, the practice of milking cows having been laid aside the natural state of the function has been restored. The secretion of the milk continues only during the sucking of the calf, and is only an occasional phenomenon. If the calf dies, the milk ceases to flow. The barking of a dog is an acquired hereditary instinct, supposed to have originated in an attempt to imitate the human voice. Wild dogs and domestic breeds becoming wild never bark, but howl. Cats, whieh-so disturb civilized communities by their midnight • “caterwaul,” in the wild state in South America, are quite silent. The hair bf the negro is not wool, but a curled and twisted hair. The distinction between hair and wool is clearly reve .led by , the microscope. Tli ’..dark races have less nervous sensibility than the while. They are not subject to nervous disease. They sleep sound in |in every disease, nor docs any mental disturbance keep them awake. They bear j chirurgical operations much better 1 than the white people. A certain : species of fungus has been known to attain tfie size of a gourdj in ohm night; and it is calculated that the cellules, jof which it-is composed, must amount to lorty-seven thousand millions. If it grew in twelve hours, this would give four thou- ■ sand millions each minute. Animalcules have been discovered so small that one million would not exceed a grain .of sand, and five hundred millions would sport in a drop of water. Yet each of these ; must have blood-vessels, nerves, muscles, •circulating fluids, i!co., like larger animals.