Eccentricities of the Animal Creation.

"Another consideration leading me to the same conclusion, is the fact, that beauty in animals is placed on prominent parts, or on parts which by erection or expansion are easily...

M. St. Hilaire describes the pairings, or as he calls it, "the loves of the Moles." As soon as the Mole has finished the galleries he brings his mate along with him, and shuts h...

The most wonderful thing in the construction of these nests is the method to which the little bird has recourse to keep united the living leaves of which it is composed. The sol...

Even up to a late period Bats were considered as forming a link between quadrupeds and birds. The common language of our own ancestors, however, indicates a much nearer approach...

"I then tried my third and last Running Toad. I began to keep him on Sept. 13th. He was a very fine specimen, and larger than the two former. He fed well, and amused me exceedin...

The utility of this vast pachydermatous, or thick-skinned animal, to man is considerable. That he can be destructive has already been shown in his clearance of the cultivated ba...

Some Crabs, truly aquatic, as the Vaulted Crab of the Moluccas, have the power of drawing back their limbs, and concealing them in a furrow, which they closely fit; and thus, in...

It was long thought that the Chameleon, like most of the lizard tribe, was produced from an egg. The little animal is, however, most clearly viviparous, and not oviparous, altho...

Of this animal some strange things are recorded. It is placed by Cuvier at the head of the insect-devouring Mammifera. It is found in Europe, Africa, and India. Its body is cove...

Much as the nature and habits of fish have been studied of late years, the economy of some is to this day involved in obscurity. The Herring is one of these fishes. The Swedish...

In Merollo's "Voyage to Congo," in 1682, Mermaids are said to be plentiful all along the river Zaire. In the "Aberdeen Almanack" for 1688, it is predicted that "near the place w...

"The hollow winds begin to blow; The clouds look black, the glass is low; The soot falls down, the spaniels sleep; And spiders from their cobwebs peep. Last night the sun went p...

In December, 1833, Captain Walter Smee exhibited to the Zoological Society of London the skins of a Lion and Lioness killed by him in Guzerat, and distinguished from those previ...

He believed, like Lamarck, that the whole family of birds had existed one time as fishes, which, on being thrown ashore by the waves, had got feathers by accident; and that men...

Azara states that they attack even the solid nests of the white ants, when the clay of which their nests are formed becomes moistened with the rain; they break them up with thei...

Birds, as "denizens of the air," are the surest indicators of weather changes. Thus, when swallows fly high, fine weather is to be expected or continued; but when they fly low,...

Modern zoologists, disgusted as they well may be with fables, such as we have glanced at, disbelieve, generally, the existence of the Unicorn, such, at least, as we have referre...

This passage was long looked upon as a pleasant story, and nothing more; until M. Geoffroy St. Hilaire, during his long residence in Egypt, ascertained the story of Herodotus to...

The Surrey Zoological Gardens were established in 1831. Thither Cross removed his menagerie from the King's Mews, where it had been transferred from Exeter Change. At Walworth a...

Sir Thomas Browne hints at the probability of the Pelican occasionally nibbling or biting itself on the itching part of its breast, upon fulness or acrimony of blood, so as to t...

Natural History in Scripture, and Egyptian Records, 11.--Origin of Zoological Gardens, 12.--The Greeks and Romans, 12.--Montezuma's Zoological Gardens, 13.--Menagerie in the Tow...

Mr. Robertson has communicated to "Jameson's Journal," No. 101, the results of his opportunities of studying the Pholas, during six months, to discover how this mollusc makes it...