THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2009, 25 August 1892, Page 44

THE NATURALIST.

Respecting 1 the Eascal Raven.

Most animals are no match at all for the raven's cleverness. There was once a poor hare that allowed herself to be completely bamboozled. The raven pounced at the leveret — as the baby hare is called — but the mother drove the rascal away. But did the raven cease from troubling ? Not a bit of it. He slowly retreated, encouraging the hare to follow him up, and pretending even that he was afraid of her.

In this fashion he led the unhappy mother to a considerable distance jfrom her young one, and then, all of a sudden — loug before the hare had time to realise the danger of the triek — rose in the air, flew swiftly back, caught the leveret in his beak, and bore it away.

A similar plan was adopted by some ravens that wished to steal food from a dog They teased him till he grew so angry that. he chased them from the spot. But the wicked birds turned sharply round, ea&ilj reached the dish before him, and carried off the choicer bits in triumph.

As to the raven's power of speech, the following story — which is given on the authoiity of Captain Brown, who vouches for its truth — will show how aptly it can talk. A gentleman, while travelling through a wood in the South of England, was suddenly alarmed by hearing a shout of " Fair play, gentlemen ! fair play ! " uttered very earnestly in loud tones. The cry being repeated presently, the wayfarer thought it must proceed from someone in distress, and at once began to search for him. In due course he came upon a couple of ravens attacking a third in the most brutal manner. He was so struck with the oppressed bird's appeal that he rescued it without delay. It turned out that the bullies' victim was a tame raven belonging to a house in tbe neighbourhood. Happily, it knew how to use the catch-words that it had so adroitly learned. — " Little Folks " Magazine.

Large Spider Webs.— Ceylon hag a spider which spins a yellow web, the threads of which are almott as large as buttonhole twist. Its w^bs are often from 6ft to Bft across.

Captain op the Lobster?. — Lobsters often travel in r?gire:entß, seeking new feeding grounds. Xijeir migiatirg armies are always led by the biggest and strongest ones, while the maimed and weakly stiugglo along behind.

Wikgs of Insects. — An eminent authority on entomological and ornithological physiology says that an ordinary house-fly makes 330 strokes with its wings each second ; the humble bee, 2iO ; the honey bee, 19 ; and the wasp, 110. The spairow, he says, strikes the air at tho rate of 13 strokes per second; the wild duck. 8; the pigeon, 8 ; and the osprey, 6. A Koese's FOOT. — The foot of the horse is one of the m.*st irgenious and unexampled pieces of mechanism in the whole range of animal structure. The outside hoof is made up of a series of thin vertical lamit jc of horn, about 500 in number. Into this are fitted about 500 more thin lamitro, which belong to tbe coffin bone, both sets beiDg elastic and adbereni.

Eyes of Insects — The eyes of insects are immovable, and on this account nature has provided them with a sight-seeing apparatus that is cut into a multitude of little planes or facets, like those on a diamond. Each of the facets, tbe naturalists tell us, possesses all the properties of a true eye. Leuenhoeck counted 3181 facets in the cornea of a beetle, and 8017 in the eyo of a horse-fly. Some species of insects have not less than 40,000 facets to each eye.

A Cubious Snake.— An interesting snako has just been added to the collection of the Zoological Society. This creature Hveß exolusively npon a diet of eggs, which its small teeth permit it to swallow unbroken. But there is a remarkable mechanism for extracting the contents'of the eggs quite unique in the animal kingdom, The spines of some of.

the vertebra project through the wall of the gullet and are tipped with enamel, so that they are veritable teeth. With the help of these the eggshell is cracked and the contents liberated into the oesophagus, where there is no risk of any waste ; the shell is then rejected by the mouth. This singular serpent is named Dasypeltis and comes from South Africa.

A NATURAL Tool Box.— The beak of the mosquito is simply a tool box, wherein the mosquito keeps six miniature surgical instruments in perfect working order. Two ot these instruments are exact counter-parts of the surgeon's lance, one is a spear with a double-barbed head, the fourth is a needle of exquisite fineness, a saw and a pump going to make up the complement. The spear is the largest of the six tools, and is used for making the initial puncture; next, thelanses or knives are brought into play to cause the blood to flow more freely. In case this last operation fails of having the desired effect, the saw and the needle are carefully and feelingly inserted in a lateral direction in the victim's flesh. The pump, the most delicate of all six of the instruments, is used in transferring the blood to the insect's " Btomach." — Discovery.

The Humane Instinct of Parbots. — Darwin, in his " Descent of Man," refers to a parrot who took care of a frost-bitten and crippled bird of- another species, cleansed her feathers, and defended her from the attacks of sundry pairots which roamed freely about the garden. The tender regard, too, which birds of this class may have fcr one another is still further shown by the experiences of Wilson, who says, concerning the paroquet, that when, on shooting at a flock, he wounded a number of them, the others did not move off, but continued sweeping around their prostrate companions, manifesting so much sympathy and regard for the wounded as to completely disarm him. — The Strand Magazine.

The New York Zoo. — There are some interesting specimens of babyhood in the Central Park Zoo, Now York. Youcg Fatty, the youthful hippopotamus, has recently been separated from his mother, and made a terrible noise about it. The mother showed her grief by chasing her husband, Caliph, into the water, and making him stay there for two days. Caliph is nearly twice as large as she is, but her's is the master spirit. Tip is the elephant who has killed eight men. His temper is frightful, and he has several times tried to kill his present keeper, Snyder, whose fox terrier, Gyp, is the only being with any influence over Tip when he is in one of his rages. She worries his heels, and barks incessantly, always managing to keep out of thp way of his trunk. The baby moufflon is now five weeks old. It is a small and pretty animal, partaking the characteristics of the bheep, the antelope, and the goat. The moufflon is said by naturalists to be able to see the wind, and to possess a strong desire to get out of its way. Of three baby hyenas, the mother killed one, the keeper rescuing the other two, which he has kept alive on beef stews. A certain malodorous quality repels the interest taken by visitors in these deserted infants. There are three lion cubs in the gardens, and three infant leopards who have just developed their epots. Three nylghaus were born in Central Park last montn. The nylghau is the largest variety of antelope. The young ones are now of a reddith colour and pleaßing manners ; but when they reach maturity they will be quite black, and their manners will be violent and unpleasant.