Curious Creatures in Zoology

“Travellers see strange things,” more especially when their writing about, or delineation of, them is not put under the microscope of modern scientific examination. Our ancestor...

To this extent, then, has nature, when she produced in man, in common with the wild beasts, a taste for human flesh, thought fit to produce poisons as well in every part of his...

Aristotle says that they lived in holes under the earth, and came out in the harvest time with hatchets, to cut down the corn, as if to fell a forest, and went on goats and lamb...

We can find a very great analogy between them and the Tierra del Fuegans, when Darwin visited them, while with the surveying ships _Adventure_ and _Beagle_, a voyage which took...

“It is certaine, that the devills do many waies delude men in the likeness of _Satyres_; for, when the drunken feasts of _Bacchus_ were yearely celebrated in _Parnassus_, there...

“To leave therefore these fables, and come to the true description of the _Lamia_, we have in hand. In the foure and thirty chapter of Esay, we do find this called a beast _Lili...

Topsell, from whom I have quoted so much, is especially voluminous and erudite on Unicorns; indeed, in no other old or new author whom I have consulted are there so many facts (...

“The Bears watch diligently for the passing of Deer; and chiefly, the Shee-Bear when she hath brought forth her Whelps; who not so much for Hunger, as for fearing of losing her...

“The liver of a sow, a lamb, and a bear put togither, and trod to pouder under one’s shoos, easeth and defendeth cripples from inflamation: the gall being preserved and warmed i...

“And this is the nature of this beast, that he feareth no kind of weapon except a stone, for, if a stone be cast at him, he presently falleth downe to avoide the stroke, for it...

Aldrovandus gives us a picture of a curly-legged Cat, but, beyond saying that it was so afflicted (or ornamented) from its birth, he gives no particulars. Topsell, too, is singu...

“Musing, anon through crooked Walks he wanders, Round-winding rings, and intricate Meanders, Fals-guiding paths, doubtfull beguiling strays, And right-wrong errors of an end-les...

“The Duke de R---- related to me, a few days ago, that in Sweden, the swallows, as soon as the winter begins to approach, plunge themselves into the lakes, where they remain asl...

Terrestrial and Aerial animals were far more familiar to the Ancients than were the inhabitants of the vast Ocean, and not knowing much about them, their habits and ways, took “...

“As a great Carrak, cumbred and opprest With her-self’s burthen, wends not East and West, Star-boord, and Lar-boord, with so quick Careers As a small Fregat, or swift Pinnass st...

This sketch of Gesner’s, he describes as a one-horned monster with a sharp nose, devouring a Gambarus. Olaus Magnus dismisses the Narwhal very curtly:--“The Unicorn is a Sea Bea...

“The other particulars which the same author has given, appear still more closely to border upon the marvellous. At Carteia, in the preserves there, a Polypus was in the habit o...

“It is also reported by _Ælianus_ that _Egemon_ in his verses, writeth of one _Alena_, a _Thessalian_ who, feeding his Oxen in _Thessaly_, neere the Fountaine _Hæmonius_, there...

“The heir of Lambton, fishing, as was his profane custom, in the Wear, on a Sunday, hooked a small worm or eft, which he carelessly threw into a well, and thought no more of the...

On the contrary, the Crocodile has a tongue, and a very large one too. As to the fable of its weeping, do we not even to this day call sham mourning, “shedding crocodile’s tears...

“On the other hand, again, in the left side of this reptile there is another bone, they say, which, when thrown into water, has all the appearance of making it boil, and the nam...

Men, _tailed_, 4, 5, 17; _one-eyed_, 8, 18; _with legs reversed_, 9; _with sea-green eyes_, 10, 15; _with white hair_, 10, 14, 16; _eat every other day_, 10; _those whose touch...