Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1890-01-03
ANIMAL IRREGULARITIES.
Tortoises and turtles have no teeth.

Tortoises and turtles have no teeth.
All animals which chew the cud have
cloven feet.
Both mandibles of the parrots beak are
movable, but most birds are able to move
oaly one.
The horse has no eyebrows The appear
ance of much white in the eye of horse in
dicates a vicious nature.
The stork is partial to kittens as an article
of food, and finds them an easy and whole
some prey and the cats reciprocate by a love
for young storks.
The frog, owing to its peculiar structure,
cannot breathe with the mouth open, and if
it were forcibly kept open the animal would
die of suffocation.
Whalebone is found in the mouth of the
whalebone whale, where it forms the sub
stitute for the teeth, of which otherwise the
animal is destitute
Pigs are poor swimmers, their forelegs be-
ing set closely under them, and when they
fall into the water they sometimes cut their
threats with the sharp points of their cloven
/ feet.
The eyes of hares are never closed, as they
are unprovded with the eyelids. Instead
thereof they have thin membrane, which
covers the eye when asleep, and probably
also when at rest.
The deer is furnished with supplementary
breathing places in addition to the nostrils,
and this would appear to be an extraordinary
provision of nature giving the beast of the
chase freer respiration.
Fishes swallow their food hastily and with
out mastication because they are obliged I'M
ceasingly to open and close the jaws for the
purpose of respiration, and cannot long re-
tain food in the mouth when quite shut.
The faculty the chameleon has of changing
its color has been attributed to the protective
instinct of the ANIMAL by which it seeks to
render itself less observable by enemies by
assuming the color of the bed on which it
lies.
The hump on the back of the dromedary is
an accumulation of a peculiar species of fat
which is store of nourishment beneficenty
provided against the day of want to which
the animal is often exposed. The dromedary
or camel can exist for a long period upon this
lump without any other food.
The owl has no motion in the eye, the
globe of which is immovaby fixed in its
socket by strong elastic hard, cartilaginous
case, in the form Of truncated cone but in
order to compensate for this absence of
motion in the eye, it is able to turn its head
round in almost a complete circle without
moving its body.
Sheep have no teeth in the upper jaw. In
some parts of the world there are sheep that
have most of their fat in their tails. These
tails weigh so much that they have to be tied
on small carts, which the sheep draw after
them when they walk The carts are made
of fiat boards on two wheels. The fat of the
tail is very soft, and is used as butter.
The crocodile devours all kinds of birds it
can get but one, the zic-zac. 1t is said that
when the crocodile comes on shore he opens
his jaws and this bird enters and swallows
the leeches which are found about the animals
jaws and teeth, and which have collected
there owing to the creature being for so long
a time in the water. The relief afforded by
having the leeches withdrawn induces the
crocodile to tolerate the presence of the bird
The Zcologist.