NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY.

Patea Mail, Volume IV, Issue 331, 19 June 1878, Page 3

NOTES ON NATURAL HISTORY.

(To the Editor of the Patea Mail.)

Sin, —Being moved with the immense ignorance of Natural History which seems to exist in your noble County, .1 take np my pen to give you a few of my ideas. I will begin with our Mother Eve. So fur from having- a tail, or appearing in that very neglige costume in which those wicked artists delight to paint her. she generally wore becoming second mourning, with a veil of honiton lace, and the only instance I can call to memory of ladies wearing tails, is some SO years ago in Yorkshire, when the •fashion was to wear long pink sashes. I was most delightfully enveloped in pink satin tails, in the midst of a waltz. Byron had two horns on his head, but no tail. Burns was never examined for ■either horns or tail, and Mrs Beecher St W’s children are believed to have rudimentary wings. If Mr Moody has wings, ho has hitherto kept them very •quiet, so as not to make the regular clergy jealous. Cows have horns and a

tail, while horses have no horns. The large man-like apes have no tail, but strike with their fore paws if approached by any animal which they deem to be not the orthodox -gorilla. The true gorillas have a process crossing both eyebrows, rather like the ornaments of Dutch sailing vessels. The gorilla has no beard, while the Orang-Otang has a large beard, and is deficient in the extraordinary eyebrow of the gorilla. The smaller kinds of monkeys have long tails, and do not strike with their paws if angry, but bite with their teeth.—l am, &c., ENTILLUS. Vulcan Cottage, June 14th.