THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2396, 1 February 1900, Page 58

THE NATURALIST.

Bites of Animals Because

of Woiulfi'i'ul Jaw Power.

Apart from the concomitant danger of blood poisoning, the severity ol the bites of flesh-eating animals is out of all proportion to the weapons by which they are inflicted. The teeth, even of the largest carnivora, are merely the " spearheads," but the force which " works " the?e inatiuments is prodigious. It seems as if for the moment the animal threw all its bodily energy into the combination of muscular action which we call a ''bite." In moist cases the mere shock of impact, as the am-

mal hurls itself on its enemy is entirely demoralising, or inflicts physical injury. A muzzled mastiff will hurl a m t in to the ground in the effort to fasten his teeth in his throat or shoulder. Then, the driving and crushing force of the jmv muscles if astonishing. The snapping power of an alligator's jaws is more or less intelligible. They are long ,aiid furnished with a row of pointed teeth from end to end. But the jawjs of a lion, leopard, tiger, otter, ferret, or baboon .are .short, and the long and pointed teeth are few. Yet each of their .species has a, biting power which m proportion to its size is t>imcst incredible.

Sir Samuel Baker, who hid a long and varied experience with the bites of the carnh ord, noticed that the tiger usually seized an Indian native by the shoulder, and with one javi on one side and the other on the other bit clean through the chest and back. "The fatal wound was the bite which, through back and chest, penetrated to the lungs." Europeans are killed by the tiger's Lite, as well as lacerated by its claws. AMr Liwes, son of a missionary of that name, was killed after being shaken for a few momeuls by a titrrss*,

which then left him. He died next day. In nearly all cases the bite penetrates ta the Jungs. This kind of wound is characteristic of the attacks of many of vhe felidfe. Scarcely any bird recovers from the cat's bite for the same reason. The feline teeth are almost instantly driven through the lung, under the wing. The cheetah, which has a very small mouth, always bites through the black buck's chroat. The leopard, when seizing smaller animals, such as dogs, crushes the head ; when attacking men it aims at biting through the lungs. — Spectator.

Struggle With an Octopus. — Mr John tfickerdyke gives an account, in the Field, of an exciting adventure he had with an octopus, when fishing for whiting, in company with Mr H. G. Lake, of IJemptown, at Brighton, on October 7. — Quite the event of o\n morning was the capture by Mr Luke of the largest octopus I have seen outside an aquarium. We were catching whiting rapidly ; in fact, we were not two minutes without a bite at any time, when Mr Lake suddenly called out, " Confound it" (or words to that effect), "I've fouled the anchor rope." Finding 'he could not reel in, he put down his rod and worked in the line with his hand. Presently it appeared that the rope was not the culprit, and after some careful handling a ghastly, writhing, brick-red, mottled horror came up through the green water to the side of the beat. We had no landing net, and the beast was too heavy to lift in on the single gut, so it lay there grinning horridly at us and pumping water into the air out of its spout-hole. I quickly emptied our mussels out of the pail, but at that moment -the gut broke. The octopus had its chance of liberty but lost it ; tiie second's hesitation gave me time to pop the pail under it and haul it in. Then we had an unplea-

rsant five minutes, for this horror of the whiting ground reared itself out of the pail and came tentacling along the floor of the boat towards my ankles, passed under the after thwart on which I v t .is sitting, and was about to march overboard, a\ hen I restored him to the pail. Then we covered him up with the flannel seat wiper, tied round all fast. Ten minutes later a pallid sucker pushed up through the hole in the flannel, swelled larger and larger, widened the hole a little ; another sucker followed, then half-a-dozen, and finally the v hole body squeezed through, fell in a lump on the floor of the boat, stretched out its tentacles far and wide, and again reached out towards me. This nightmare of an October morning was finally put to rest again in the pail, covered up securely with a duster of stout texture. In the afternoon Mr Lake took his hideous capture to the Brighton Aquarium, where it rivalled^ if not excelled, .in size its imprisoned brethren. The attendant informed Mr Lake that the capture of an octopus off Brighton is far from common, the aquarium usually receiving its supplies from : the neighbourhood of the Channel Islands. Immediately our ugly friend was dropped into the tank, two of the octopods in possession, doubtless thinking that the attendant had come with the usual basket of green crabs for their dinner, fell upon the newcomer, and the three, in one great writhing, jellylike, tentacular mass stuck to the window. " They're just making friends," said the attendant. ; Sale of a Keek's Egg. — An egg of the /Epyornis maximus, an extinct bird known by Marco Polo as the reek, was sold at Mr J. C. Sfcevens's London auction rooms on a recent Tuesday. The only place where such eggs have been found is Madagascar, and the present specimen was discoveied there. Although in capacity the egg is equal to six of those of the ostrich, the bird itself, the skeleton of which may be seen in the British Museum, was not phenomenally large, though very thick and heavy. Only some 20 specimens of the egg, which measures more than a foot in length, and pearly a £a«l in circyunf.eycncjfc are fcgjgwu

to be in existent**, so thai it is rarer than the egg of the great auk. However, it did not fetch anything like the sum which was paid for the lnttcr cuiiosity when it last came on the market. The bidding started at lOjrs, and stopped at 42gs, ab which price the cuiio was sold io IMr Middkbrook, a well-known licensed victualler in the North-west of London who possesses a well-stocked museum.