THE CUNNING WOOD-PIGEONS.
NE who loves our feathered friends has described a curious instance of their instinct. On the back lawn at a gentleman's house, they have a feeding-box for the pheasants, which opens on their perching upon it, but remains shut if any lesser bird than a hen pheasant perches there, which saves the contents from the thefts of these, and of rats, mice, and other vermin. But the gentleman discovered that the contents of the box was being more rapidly emptied than the wants of the pheasants warranted. So he kept a watch on the box, and soon discovered a wood-pigeon perch on the box, but his weight not being sufficient to open the lid, he beckoned to another pigeon, and their combined weight made the lid fly open, and after each had taken what they required, they flew away, and the box closed with a “click.”
SEA REPTILES.
T
HERE were in the sea in very ancient times—long before the flood—two very large and wonderful reptiles. Of them we present striking illustrations. One of them has been named the Ichthyosaurus, which means Fish Reptile. Its head somewhat resembled that of the crocodile, except that the orbit was much larger, and had the nostril placed close to it, as in the whale, and not near the end of the snout. It had four paddles and a powerful tail, and was very active in its movements and a rapid swimmer.
The other huge reptile was the Plesiosaurus, the meaning of which is “Near to a Reptile.” Its structure was very singular and its character very strange. In the words of Buckland: “To the head of a lizard, it united the teeth of the crocodile, a neck of enormous length, resembling the body of a serpent, a trunk and a tail of the size of an ordinary quadruped, the ribs of a chameleon, and the paddles of a whale.”