Naturalist

Alexandra Herald and Central Otago Gazette, Issue 352, 5 February 1903, Page 7

Naturalist

POLA.R BEAR v. WALRUS. HALL, the Arctic ex®*2\\ plorer, is the authority for a deWay scription of the ingenious method Bruin has of tackling its ancient enemy, the walrus. Big and strong as the Polar bear is, the walrus is bigger and stronger. The bear likes walrus beef second only to fat seal, but dares not attack openly. So, on a warm August day, when the slanting beams of the Polar sun may tempt the walrus out of the water, the bear creeps cautiously along the edge of the cliffs above the rocks where his prospective dinner basks. At last a walrus comes in sight, sitting sleepily on a slab a hundred feet below. Then the bear quickly but very quietly rolls a big stone to the edge of the cliff, and, judging distance as well as any man could, drops it plump upon the skull of his unsuspecting victim. THE BaD&EB. A very curious incident ■ happened lately at BaUingarry, county Limerick, where, according to * Country Life/ a badger took possession of a house of a farmer named John Casey while the family were absent. It had taken up its position under a bed, where it had evidently slept comfortably during the night without being noticed, and the visitor was not discovered until the next morning, when it :was found enjoying a quiet nap on the kitchen hearth. None of the family would approach the animal, until a dexterous neighbour was called in, who succeeded in lassoing him and dragging him eut. The badger is more common in Ireland than is generally supposed, but it is most unusual for such a sly animal to venture near a house. A PERSIAN CAT I once bought in Paris a lovely French grey Persian kitten with a bushy tail. She developed into a splendid cat. She was taken home to my residence in Clifton Road East, St. John's Wood, and she became a veritable murderess on the scale of Lucrezia Borgia and Margaret of Burgundy, well known to readers of that splendid old drama ' The Tour de Nesle.' Every morning we looked out of-the window and found our Persian puss sitting up and glaring at half-a-dozen dead torn cats. There was no river Seine into which she could consign the victims of her unholy passion, so they were left there dead on the lawn. The difficulty was that the proprietors of the dead torn cats came to me and claimed damages for their annihilation by my Persian Parisian puss. lam not confident if they obtained what they wanted. I don't think they did. But the cat died. A PLEA FOR THE WASPS. A writer points out that were it not for the wasps the plague of flies each summer would be terrible. It has been observod that a marked wasp paid no fewer than ninety-four visits in one day to a store of honey, its object being to obtain food for the grubs in its nests; but the chief food gathered consists of that ' intrusive, buzzing, pilfering varlet' known as a fly, and we owe our thanks to the maligned wasps for reducing their numbers. Supposing that there is a nest containing two thousand workers, and that each in the course of one day disposes of ninety-four fiies— this wfi! give a totarof one hundred and eighty-eight thousand.