Nurse McCully of the Royal infirmary, Liverpool, has an Armadillo as a pet. This little animal, which is a native of South America, was given to the nurse by a sailor when it was quite a baby, weighing only three pounds. It was most advantageously reared on peptonized milk,—ordinary cow's milk being too strong,—and the little creature now weighs 11 pounds. Its present diet is peculiar, consisting of bread and milk, bacon, apples, and sardines. Also, it supports its adopted country by eating English tomatoes, but rejecting American ones. It sleeps all day, rising at 6 p. m. and running all over the ward. Its chief amusement seems to be tearing to pieces the patients' slippers. It knows its mistress, and will readily come to her. The little Armadillo sleeps in a warm barrel, furnished with bran and flannel. It has now been at the Royal infirmary for about four years.—Strand Magazine.
AFRICAN FOLK LORE.
African Literature is very rich in fables of animals, which may be divided into the two categories of moral apologues and simple narrations. In the former such an identity is noticeable with stories of the peoples of Asia and Europe as almost to cause us to think that both proceed from a common source whence they were drawn in prehistoric times. To this may, however, be opposed the hypothesis of an original and simultaneous origin in different places; a question for the discussion of which we have not yet all the elements. One of the most brilliant of the African apologues comes from Somaliland, and is perhaps better than the corresponding European fable: "The Lion, the Hyena, and the Fox went hunting, and caught a Sheep. The Lion said, 'Let us divide the prey.' The Hyena said, 'I will take the hinder parts, the Lion the fore parts, and the Fox can have the feet and entrails.' Then the Lion struck the Hyena on the head so hard that one of its eyes fell out, then turned to the Fox and said, 'Now you divide it.' 'The head, the intestines, and the feet are for the Hyena and me; all the rest belongs to the Lion.' 'Who taught you to judge in that way?' asked the Lion. The Fox answered, 'The Hyena's eye.'"—Popular Science Monthly.
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| From col. F. M. Woodruff. | RED SQUIRREL. ⅔ Life-size. | Copyright by Nature Study Pub. Co., 1898, Chicago. |
THE RED SQUIRREL.
CHICKAREE is the common name of the Red Squirrel, so called from the cry which it utters. It is one of the most interesting of the family, and a pleasing feature of rural life. During the last weeks of autumn the Squirrel seems to be quite in its element, paying frequent visits to the nut trees and examining their fruit with a critical eye, in anticipation of laying up a goodly store of food for the long and dreary months of winter; as they do not, as was formerly asserted, hibernate, but live upon the stores they secure. A scarcity may mean much suffering to them, while an abundance will mean plenty and comfort. In filling their little granaries, they detect every worm-eaten or defective nut, and select only the soundest fruit, conveying it, one by one, to its secret home. Feeding abundantly on the rich products of a fruitful season, the Squirrel becomes very fat before the commencement of winter, and is then in its greatest beauty, the new fur having settled upon the body, and the new hair having covered the tail with its plumy fringe.