The Manitowoc pilot. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1859-1932, 1890-08-28
FREAKS or NATURE.
Certain Animals Have Characteristics foi
which No Reason Can BE Found.

kIOIt dDOuI HE 1k1Cu0 O0CAtA0us tu0
British naturalist. who. on one of his
visits to the London zoo. was attacked
by babiroussa, or horned boar. and
had to save himself by a headlong re-
treat.
That brute would have knocked
you down if he had struck you with
his HORNS" remarked a sympathizing
friend.
s'Oh. l don't care, said the philosopher;
but it worries me to notice that he
never does use his horns, as you call
them. They are horn-shaped tusks and
curved too much backward to be of
any service in fighting. What in the
world can be their practical purpose?"
Naturalists of that sort are liable to
a good deal of worry, says Felix l..
Oswald In the n. Y. Ledger. Nature
abounds with unexplained phenomena.
OF what use, for instance, is the long
tail of the male pheasant to bird that
has often to save itself by flight? In
some varieties Gas in the Chinese silver
pheasant) the problematic appendage
is nearly six feet long, and makes it
almost impossible for its proprietor to
take wing at short notice. In running
through the tangled underbrush of o
tropical forest the tail is hardly less
obstructive, and is certainly not or
namental enough to compensate its
undesirable tendencies. And. again.
of what benefit to its owner are the
enormous horns of the Wapiti stag
antlers with spread of Sc inches and
a weight of % pounds? Besides stretch
ing leSt and right almost as far as .
man of average size could extend his
arms, they send out number oflateral
branches, forming system of hooks
and prongs exquisitely adapted to
catch against every brush as the in.
numbered animal dashes along through
the maze of its native woods.
Il would not care for the bite of a
mosquito if it wasn't for its Internal
whine" have heard many people say;
and il seems, indeed, not quite easy to
understand of what profit the droning
and buzzing sound Of its wings can be
to any blood-sucking insect. 1t merely
serves to warn or annoy its intended
victims, to whom it 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 fly. In
southern Nubia there are districts
where herdsmen have to drive their
cattle hundreds of miles every spring
to avoid the bite of the little pest,
whose private purpose is limited to the
extraction of few drops of blood, and
whose interests have no imaginable
connection with the subsequent agony
of it's victims. A day or two after a
stout steer has been bitten strange
swellings appear under his jaw and
about the groins; the animal shivers
and witches as if in extreme distress,
and finally dies in commissions, often
attended with outbreaks of fury similar
to those observed in an advanced stage
of hydrophobia. The testimony of
such travellers as DR.. Livingstone and
Sir Samuel Baker leaves no doubt about
the actuality of the described results;
yet, if wasp should be provided with
an apparatus to poison every pear it
nibbles the arrangement could hardly
appear more prepoSterOuS.
The gratuitous destructiveness of
certain carniverous animals presents q
very similar problem. An otter in a
well-stocked fishpond will kill about
fifty fishes for one it eats, and the
murGerous instinct of the weasel and
the European pine marten far exceeds
the needs and conceivable interests of
the little demons. An amateur poultry
fancier of my acquaintance once lost
twenty-eight imported chickens in a
killed by a 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
the poultry-loving marten could have
repeated his visits and banquets for a
long series of nights, and have all his
depredations credited to one or the
other of the half-hundred 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 tiend was tracked to
his loophole and trapped the very next
evening.
As 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-fields, and at
tract polar bears and other connois-
seurs of sealskin from distance of
many miles. Sparrow-hawks often
pursue tanagers or summer redbirds.
that try their best to escape by dartipg
into thicket of tangled vines, but are
betrayed again and again by a color
that Flames as if it was going to set
the woods afire." as Henry Thoreau
expresses it. Several species of tropical
tinches are attired in even more risky
hues-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
ence under similar disadvantages, and
many species OF their helpless caterpil-
lars seem to have been colored express
ly for the convenience of their chief
enemies. the predatory inchneumon
wasps. that can hardly fail to see coil
of red and dark brown worms on q
green tree.
The people who are making such a
fuss over the youthful escapades and
alleged extravaganza of Nj. Georges
Hugo have. says Galigaani, evident
ly not read every incident in the life of
the great poet. Who has not heard of
Nine. Blouette and Mile. Drouet, the
creatrice of ''Lucrezia Borgia?" The
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