ANIMAL CURIOSITIES.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VIII, Issue 635, 17 January 1914, Page 2

ANIMAL CURIOSITIES.

The world has been so thoroughly explored that one might imagine it impossible that any noteworthy species of mammal or bird could still remain unknown. Yet every now and then something new turns up. For example, it was only a short time ago that a first acquaintance was made with the harpy eagle, a fowl native to the region of the Amazon, which feeds chiefly on monkeys. Another curiosity, not long known, is the aye-aye of Madagascar —a mammal which has one finger of each hand most curiously skeletonized and and elongated for the purpose of dragging from their burrows the earthworms on which it feeds. As is well known, it is from Australia and New Zealand that come the flightless birds (some of which readily breed in captivity), while one must go to South America to find a feathered creature, the "steamer duck," which flies when young, but cannot fly when adult. It is a water fowl, and the reason is that its wings do not increase as it grows in proportion to the augmentation of its weight. In the New World the elephant tribe is represented by the tapir—an animal which is easily propagated in captivity. When a baby it is marked by a curious arrangement of longitudinal stripes and spots, which by naturalists are held to prove that anciently this interesting creature was striped and spotted. But, whereas it may be claimed that most of the wild animals may be bred in captivity under suitable management, there are not a few which are hopeless in this regard. The fur-seal is an example in point. The seals that one sees captive and which do such intelligent tricks are hair-seals—belonging to quite a different species. So opposite is the fur-seal to the very notion of deprivation of liberty that it will invariably starve itself to death rather than submit to such a condition. Likewise it is with the Tasmanian devil, a queer little marsupial about two feet long, somewhat resembling in appearance a baby bear, which is found only in Tasmania. It is aIT most incredibly ferocious, preying upon the sheep and poultry of the farmers, and never yet, though captured in earliest infancy, has it responded to kindness by manifesting an amiable disposition.