The Lebanon express. (Lebanon, Linn County, Or.) 1887-1898, 1890-11-14
FREAKS OF NATURE.
Certain Animals Have Characteristira FoI
Which No Reaaon Can Ht Fpund

Nnieh no henson Can Hr Pound.
Prof. Agassiz used 10 tell good
story about his friend Buckland the
British naturalist. who on one Of his
visits to the London 200. was attacked
by babiruussa. or horned boar. aud
had to save himself by 4 I1eatliong re-
! treat
THAT brute would have knocked
| you down II he had struck you with
his horns remarked synipathizing
| friend
"Oh. don't care. "said the philosopher;
but IL Worries me TO notice that ne
never does use his horns. rs you call
them. They are horn-shaped tlisks and
curved too much backward to be of
any service in lighting. What Ia the
world can be their practical purpose p''
Naturalists OF that sort are liable to
n good deal of worry. SAYS Felix l..
Oswald IN the N. Y. ledger Nature
abonnds with unexplained phenomena.
Ot what use, for instance. Is the long
tall of the male pheasant to bird that
has often TO save itself by fiightp In
some varieties Gas In the Chinese silver
pheasant the problemailc appendawe
Is nearly six feet long, aud makes IL
almost impossible for Its proprietor TO
take wing at short notice. In running
through the tangled underbrush OF a
tropical forest the tail Is hardly less
q tructive. and is certainly not or
henental enough 10 compensate its
/" desirable tendencies. And. again.
what benefit 10 its owner arc the
aarnous horns of the Wapiti stag
antlers with spread of SO inches aud
a weight OF 25 pounds? Besides stretch
ing lett and right almost as far as q
man of average Size could extend his
arms. they send out number of lateral
branches, forming a system OF hooks
and prongs exquisiteiy adapted TO
catch against every brush rs the in-
numbered animal dashes along through
the maze of It's native woods.
Il would not cis'e for the bite of a
mosquito IL II wasn't for its Internal
whine / have heard many people say;
| and il seems. indeed. not quite easy 10
understand of what profit the droning
aud buzzing sound OF lis wings can lie
10 any blood-sucking insect IL merely
serves to warn or annoy its intended
/ victims. 20 whom II can hardly be more
aggravating than TO the whining lit
tie vampire itself
A still greater enigma is the deadly
virus of the African tsetse iy. In
| southern Nubia there are districts
/ where herdsnien have 10 drive their
/ cattle hundreds of miles every spring
to avoid the bite of the little pest,
whose private purpose is limited TO the
extroetion of a few drops OF blood, and
| whose interests have no imaginable
connection with the subsequent agony
of its victims. a day or two after a
stout steer has been bitten strange
sweilings appear under his jaw and
about the groins; the animal shiVers
aud twitehes as II Ia extreme distress,
and hnally dies in convnlsions. often
attended with outbreaks of fury similar
to those observed in an advanced stage
of hydrophobia. The testimony of
such travellers rs DIR. Livingstone and
Sir Samuel Baker leaves no doubt about
| yet. il wasp should be provided with
an apparatus 10 poison every pear II
nibbles the arrangement could hardly
appear more preposlerous.
The gratuitous destruetiveness of
certain earnivercus animals presents \
very similar problem. An otter In
well-stocked fishpond will kill about
/ fifty fishes for one it eats, and the
murlerous instinct of the weasel aud
/ the European pine marten far exceeds
| the needs and conceivable interests OF
the little demons. An amateur poultry
/ faueSer of my acquaintance once lost
twenty-eight imported chickens in
single night. all of them having been
killed by small, sharp bite into the
base of the brain. In three or four
cases the murderer had gnawed the
skull of its prey and torn open the neck
in quest of blood. but with those ex-
ceptions the massacre seemed to have
been prompted by sheer wanton love
of havoc. With little more prudence
.&e poultry-loving marten could have
| repeated his visits aud banquets for a
long series of nights, and have all his
| depredations credited TO one or the
other of the half-huudred different dis
orders fowls are heir to. for the hem
house harbored an army of feathered
( bipeds. some of them on the sick list.
But that one nights mischief ended
the game. The iiend was tracked to
his loophole and trapped the very next
| evening.
As a rule defenseless animals are
dressed in the colors best adapted to
| conceal them from their enemies, and
| kind nature goes so far as to vary the
protective hue of certain creatures
with the different seasons of the year,
as in the case of the Norwegian grouse.
whose plumage is brown In summer.
but turns white at the approach of
winter. But this close study of that
rule reveals some curious exceptions.
In the Arctic regions, where snow
white would be the best possible pro-
tective color. several species of seal are
dressed in suits of black and dark
brown that contrast strikingly with the
bleak surface of the ice-iields. and at
tract polar bears and other connois-
seurs of sealskin from n distance of
many miles. Sparrow-hawks often
pursue tanagers or summer redbirds,
that try their best to escape by darting
into a thicket of tangled vines, but are
betrayed again and again by a color
that FLAMES as if it was going to set
the woods aflre." as Henry Thoreau
expresses 1t. Several species of tropical
finches are attired in even more risky
Lues-a glaring combination of white
and scarlet or of yellow and dark blue
-colors that can not possibly escape
the attention of even a casual observer.
Butterflies fight the struggle for exist
encc under similar disadvantages. and
many species of their helpless eaterpil-
lars seem to have been colored express
ly for the convenience of their chiei
enemies. the predatory inchneumon
wasps that can hardly fail to see coil
of red and dark brown worms on a
green tree.
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Digestion and the Brain.
The dyspeptic who, of course. eats