The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1881-10-12
FACTS FOR THE CURIOUS.

WHEN reduced to extremity by hum
ger, the wolf will swallow mud in order
to allay the uneasy sensations OF his
stomach.
THERE is a species OF crow in Flor
ida that gives vent to series of haw !
haws il exact imitation Of the human
voice
A WILD elephant may generally be
tanned, so as to be conducted from
place to place unfettered, IL about six
months.
In the Guildford Endowed Grammar
School, in England, where the school
master is held re,ponslble for every vol
ume. which, if lost, he is bound to re-
place, one master, to decrease his risk,
carefully packed all the books under the
floor, where they proved a banquet for
the rats and mice.
THE curious library of old Samuel
Pepys, the well.known diarist, is I'M
prisoned IN its original bookcases at
Magdalene College, Cambridge. No
one can gain admission to it except in
the company of two Fellows of the col-
lege, and, ii single book Is lost, the
whole collection goes to neighboring
college.
The Norwegian lemming is an animal
about the size OF mouse. They live
under the stones in summer, under the
snow i'll winter. They hiss and bite.
About once in ten years they migrate in
large armies. They M arch in straight
line. They cross lakes an! rivers.
They go straight through hay-stacks
rather than go aroGnd. Nothing stops
them, not fires, cascades nor swanips.
II man stands in their way they will
!rnp at him rs high as his knee. Ii
struck they will turn around and bark
and bite like dog. Foxes, lynxes, owls,
hawks and weasels will follow them and
destroy large numbers Of them, but it
does not check them. They continue
their course until they reach the sea,
into which they plunge, ~ persistent
and progressive as ever, until the waves
eItermlnate them.
The microscope shows variation in
the thickness of human hair from the
l250th to the l-G0Oth part of an inch;
but, Notwithstanding such tineness, it is
q massive cable III comparison with
other tbers. Thus the thread OF tho
silk-worm is many times finer, being
from the IL, Tooth to the l-2, 0O0th of an
inch. This, however. is nothing to the
slenderness OF the spiders thread, which
has been found in some instances to be
no more than 100, 0O0th of an inch in
diameter. The hbers yielded by the
vegetable kingdom are al Of astonish-
ing mlnutenoss. Thus, every fiber OF
flax is found to be composed of bundle
of other fbriIs, which are about
IL, 500th of an inch i'll diameter. SINH
lar hbers obtained from the pineapple
plant have been ascertained to be no
more than Is, 000th or oven l-7,000th Of
al inch i'll diameter.
IN the British House OF Lords Lord
Brougham once mentioned two some
what-remarkable facts showing the ne
cessity OF having safe place for the
deposit Of wills. The first case is one in
which one OF his noble friends, as heir
at-law, lost, and another OF his noble
friends, as devisee, gained, $50, 900 q
JthI. liOW Vic lIlob lOSG u, huN bllo llSb
gained it, was 10y will being found in
an old rusty box, in an old travelling
carriage, and which, therefore, might
have been very naturally lost by acct
dent or destroyed by ignorance. The
second case was one, also, IN which
some of his noble friends were con-
cerned, and the sum in question was no
less than flG0,00 This sum would
have been entirely lost for the purposes
for which it was intended il the inquiries
relative to the existence of will with
respect to it had been instituted in win
ter instead Of in the summer. The will
was searched for everywhere, but could
nowhere be found, until, ut last, it was
discovered in CRATE, and stuffed like q
piece Ct waste paper through the bars;
If it had been winter instead OF summer,
in all probability when the fire had been
lighted it would have been destroyed.