Centre Democrat. [volume] (Bellefonte, Pa.) 1848-1989, 1881-05-12
CLIPPINGS FOR THE CURIOUS.

Sharks generally turn on their sides
to eat.
The razor-hsk, though it lives in salt
water, seems to abhor salt.
The ancients believed that the lynx
could see through stone walls.
The tusks in full-grown male Gle
phant sometimes are ten feet long.
A turtles head that had been cut OFF
several days lately bit ducks neck and
killed the fowl, in Talbotton, Ga.
Butter was first made by the Scythians
and Thracians, and was at first used as
an ointment for baths and rs medicine.
Whenever any one of herd Of hyenas
IN their native state is wounded, its
companions tear it to pieces and devour
il.
In the growth of all animals thev
pass from the simple to the complex.
The young of the higher animals repre-
sent the full growth of the lower ami
mails
1t is said on the best authority that
toad frequented the steps before the
hall door of gentleman's house in
Devonshire for upward of thirty-six
years.
NJ. st. Pierre once saw vast number
OF ants overcome n centipede. They
seized it by its legs and bore it along as
workmen would have done large piece
of timber.
An English baronet says that an i'm
mense army cf I" snow" geese flying
against Southern California sky pre-
sent spectacle which is worth years
voyage to see.
flea will eat ten times its own weight
OF provisions in day, and will drag
after it a chair hundred times heavier
than itself. 1t leaps n distance of at
least two hundred times its own length.
Suppose a sapphire as large as an
olive of ordinary French size. 1t would
be worth here $1,000 an emerald of
that size would be worth S., 900, dia-
mond $4,000, a ruby $40, 200; an opal
of fine color of that size would be
worth only $1,000.
AHungarian chemist has been show
ing in Paris some remarkable expert.
ments with new hght-giving substance
that burns with so little heat that il will
not set fire to the most inflammable
fabric. The burning liquid can be held
in the bare hand without discomfort.
This new Illuminating fluid is one form
of that Protean substance, petorlum.
Japanese auctions are conducted on a
novel plan, but one which gives rise to
none of the noise and confusion which
attend such sales in America. Each
bidder writes his name and bid upon
slip of paper, which he places in a box.
When the bidding is over the box is
opened by the auctioneer, and the goods
declared the property of the highest
bidder.
1t is well known that certain fowls
fill their digestive apparatus with gravel
and pebbles, which act as millstoncs
in grinding up their iood Recent in
vestigations show that other animals are
addicted to similar habits on a larger
scale. Seals swallow stones weighing
from one to two and sometimes even
three pounds each, while one inyestiga-
tor found, not long since, ten pounds
of these boulders in the stomach of n
sea-lion.
The lion has often been seen TO
despise contemplate enemies and par
don their insults when il was in his
power to punish them. He has been
seen to spare the lives of such as we're
thrown to be devoured by him, to live
peaceably with them, to afford them part
of his subsistence, and sometimes to
want food himself rather than deprive
them of that life which his generosity
had spared. The lion is not usually
cruel; heis only so from necessity, and
never kills more than he consumes.
When satiated he is perfectly gentle.
----
Manners.
Naunnra ara I,NN..