Rensselaer Standard, Volume 1, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 September 1879 — Curiosities of Animal Life. [ARTICLE]

Curiosities of Animal Life.

Nature. About twelve years ago I was residing on the coast of County Antrim, Ireland, at the time th&telegraph wires were set up along that charming road which skirts the sea for twenty-five miles between Lame and Cushendail. During the winter months large flocks of starlings always migrated over from Scotland, arriving early in the morning. The first winter after the wires were stretched along the coast I frequently found numbers of starlings lying dead or wounded on the roadside, they having evidently in their flight in the dusky mom struck against the telegraph wire, not blown against them, as these accidents often occurred when there was but little wind. I found that the peasantry nad come to the conclusion that these unusual deaths were due to the flash of the telegraph messages, killing any starlings that happened to be perched on the wires when working. Strange to say, that throughout the following and succeeding winters hardly a death occurred among the startings on theiHarrival. It would thus appear that the birds were deeply impressed and understood the cause of the fatal accidents among their fellow-travelers that* previous year, and hence carefully avoided the telegraph wires; not only so, but the young birds must have acquired this knowle lge and perpetuated it, a knowledge which they could not have acquired by experience or even instinct, unless that instinct was really inherited memory derived from the parents whose brains were first impressed by it.

A plague of rats visited the higher coffee districts of Ceylon during the year 1875, doingjgreat damage to young and old plantations alike. It is remarkable that the invasion of rate was simultaneous with the flowering and death of the Nilloo (Strobilantkes), which forms the greater part of the underwood of Ceylon forests, and it is said to flower and die once every seven years. The most remarkable part of the plague was that the rate did not seem to devour any part of the branches they cut off. but to nip ofl and leave them untouched upon the ground. So serious indeed was the damage done that on some coffee estates rewards were given to coolies for every rat they caught, and It was not an uncommon thing to hear of 300 or 400 rate being destroyed, on one estate only, per week. About 3 o’clock on the 11th of June T picked up a female butterfly, the head of which had recently been plucked off by a bird and was lying near the body. Thinking it was dead, T carried it home to examine the wing scales. On clipping off a bit of wing about four hours afterward the legs moved and an egg was laid. In about two minutes another egg was laid. Others followed, till five-and-twenty had been expelled. The laying then ceased, and the headless mother seemed depd. Next morning, on touching her, the laying was resumed. On close examination a heaving of the wings and rings of the abdomen could be observed, with about the frequency of human breathing. At the end of twenty-nine and a half hours from the time of finding laying ceased, seventyeight eggs were laid by the butterfly with her head off.