St. Landry democrat., 1892-03-05
CURIOUS FACTS
A snail has 80, 600 teeth.

A S11dl Has oo,O tSS"A'
Splders usually live two or three
years.
A coal black deer was recently seen
by party of hunters in the woods of
Maine.
White deer, which was once extremely
rare, are now said to be plentiful IN east
ern Maine.
A prominent indianapolis lnd.) busl-
ness man has two cats that are better
retrievers than most dogs.
Each year about $50, 900 is expended
in sprinkling the asphalt-paved streets OF
London, England, with sand to prevent
the horses from slipping.
A valuable tind of skeletons belonging
to the fourth dynasty was recently made
in Egypt. This is the earliest known
date of Egyptian remains.
Chess was played by the Chinese l7o
wears before the Christian era, and proba-
bly long before that, for the ancient
Persians are supposed to have known 1t.
The Hindoos have cocoanut festival
every year at the end of the monsoon.
During the festival athletic contests take
place and wandering MINISTRIES reclte their
tales aud poems.
IEsop's fables were not written by
their author They were related and
handed down until the fourteenth CEN
tury, When they were collected and pub
lished by a monk.
ir Of tho mt lrO
pets at the Central Park (New York;,
menagerie. 1t has taste for devourlng
other snakes and it is feared by them all
even the poisonous.
Acorns are priced as an article of diet
among some tribes of Indians. They are
pounded into meal, which IS mixed with
water and kneaded into dough for baking
in the style of hoecake.
An enormous crab of the Malay Islands
lives upon the fruit of the coconut which
it secures by climbing the tree. 1t breaks
the nuts either by hauling them down or
by beating against the rocks.
On the old Boston and New Haven
turnpike, in the southern part OF New
London County, Conn, is an old mile
stone, notched and mossgroWn, that was
set there by Benjamin Franklin.
The Government of Victoria has de
cided to entirely prohibit the destruc
ton of the Australian bustard or wllt
turkey, on the ground of its usefulness
as destroyer OF insects, particular.
locusts.
A number of the mining companle
operating in the Black Hills, South Da
kota, have adopted system OF aggrega
ting their shipment of ore, and sending
to the smelling works in Illinois long
train of loaded oars of ore drawn by two
locomotives, and eacn Car decorated and
marked with the name of the mine iron
which 1t came.
The first IRON mined in this country Is
generally supposed to have been II
Saugus. Mass, about 1643. Iron or
and smelted iron have just been found II
North Beverly. This puzzles the "oldes
, inhabitaut," as no person living eve
, knew that iron existed there. In
smelling must have been done at an earl,
; date, very possibly before lo43 as there
were settlements there as early as lb4O.
The female wasp spends the winter IL
torpid condition, and when sprla
arrives she hunts up some sort OF snel
tered spot appropriate for nest. Havln
selected the retreat, she proceeds to Ia
within the formation of home. Fo
this object earth will not serve her turr
The substance of which the walls an
chambers of the house are to be compose
must be none other than the finest paper
made of wood pulp, mixed with sort
sizing, worked to paste and hnel
spread into sheets.