OTHERWISE A CALF.

Cromwell Argus, Volume L, Issue 2645, 20 October 1919, Page 2

OTHERWISE A CALF.

“A Bovine animal, in which the grinder, or molar tooth, is not visible.” This definition of a calf was given the other day at the Maidenhead Police Court, and it raises the point of our ignorance. Probably the speaker was the only person in that court who could have described a calf so accurately, yet even he would would have been stumped if queried concerning a highly specialised member of the order Ungulata. Otherwise a horse. Of course, you know that members of the mammalian family Felidae include your cat, but had you the faintest idea that your dog was fissiped and digitigrade ? Or that one of your favourite foods is ovis and mint-sauce ? Or that the yellow cage-bird that calls yon on bright mornings to your cold bath is of the species Fringillidac ? Our ignorance, truly, is disconcerting. Even when we are attacked by the Aphaniptera, we merely remark, “I think I have a flea.”

AN UNFORTUNATE START. A commercial traveller on his first trip called upon a chemist. He was nervous as he put his hand into his pocket and drew out a card. “I represent that concern,” said the young man. “You are fortunate,” replied the chemist. I’hc traveller was encouraged. “I think so, sir,” he said, “and the chemist who trades with us is even more so. My firm has the finest line of cosmetics in the world.” “I shouldn’t have thought it,” slowly responded the man of medicines ; “her complexion looks natural,” and he handed back the photograph which the young man had given him in mistake. The traveller didn’t wait for an order.