Miscellaneous.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1193, 4 November 1882, Page 4 (Supplement)

Miscellaneous.

A CAT ATTACKED BY TWO BLACKBIRDS. A correspondent writes :—“ The following extraordinary and touching scene was witnessed by a gentleman in his garden at Maldon. A fledgling blackbird, evidently just escaped from its nest close by, had with some difficulty fluttered from a fence into the overhanging branches of a lime tree. A cat also had observed the young ‘ flyer,’ and immediately gave chase, rushing up the stem of the tree with the intention of getting on the branch to obtain her prey ; but meanwhile the parent birds had come upon the scene, and seeing the situation of their nestling, attacked the cat with the utmost bravery, trying to prevent her crawling on the branch. They kept alternately flying at her, using their beaks and wings incessantly with the utmost fury, and getting fearlessly within range of the cat’s claws, and while one was pouncing at her head, the other would execute a ‘ flank’ attack, both of them keeping up all the time that continuous, noisy, angry chatter which blackbirds so well know how to make on occasion. These bold, strategic movements confused the cat very much, as her position in the tree was not advantageous, but she kept snarling and striking out with her talons whenever an opportunity occurred. The interested observer tried to help the birds, but, from the lower branches of the tree intervening, missiles were not of much use. He was obliged to leave the exciting scene, but after a long absence returned, and found the combat still going on, and a person who had watched during the interval said the two birds had kept up the attack without ceasing, forcing the enemy to keep on the defensive only; and this desperate struggle kept on for two hours, till the birds were completely exhausted, and sat ‘ all in a heap,’ looking as though they had lost half their feathers. But they had kept the destroyer from their little fledgling, and their friend at last managed with some trouble to disloge the cat. In the afternoon the birds seemed to have quite recovered themselves, and were singing victoriously in the garden, in celebration of {what, perhaps, was one of the longest and pluckiest fights of the kind that has ever been known.” A WARNING TO MUGGERS. There is a “ case ” on the practice book of a well-known physician of West Oakland, which ought to constitute a warning, and is, beside, an interesting surgical example of “ the discohesive yielding of the flexions in old age ” —as the doctor has it. Some months ago a young man arrived in Oakleigh from Montana. He proceeded at once to the home of his parents. The door was opened by the young man’s grandmother, then nearly 70 years of age, and for whom he entertains a most commendable affection. The young man was a great favorite with the old lady ; when he was a mere child she had made much of him, had sympathised with his boyish troubles, and had furnished him with the sinews of war for many a youthful frolic. He had been a good and grateful grandson, and naturally, as they had been parted for several years, the greeting wes an effusive one. But the old lady failed to realise that her favorite was no longer a budding stripling. The full-grown bearded man before her, with brawn on his shapely limbs, and toiltoughed muscle an his sinewy arms, was thirty pounds heavier and more than a little stronger than the boy whom she had kissed and sent to bed for the last time eight years before. And on his part, the young man did not realise that “ gran’ma ” was no longer the vigorous lady whom he had played with rompingly as a merry schoolboy in their faroff eastern home. To his glad, grateful, grand-filial breast he caught her aged form and hugged her tight with the warm impulsiveness of tempestuous > youth. Had she been the usual sweetheart, there might have been no .worse result than a fractured section of the whaleboned stays, or a momentary cessation of not too necessary respiration. As it was, the old lady said, simply, “Oh, my!” and sank back upon his shoulder in a dead faint. When she recovered from that she complained of a grievous pain in her right side. A physician was seqt for, and his examination showed that three ribs had been dislocated by the “ grand filial hug,” and that the situation was a critical one, owing to the lady’s extreme age, and to the fact that she was rather portly, and bandaging would, therefore, be deprived of much of its effectiveness. The old lady has been under medical treatment ever since, and is not at present suffering much pain. Her disconsolate and unreasonably self-reproach-ful grandson is her most devoted attendant.— San Francisco Chronicle. SURVIVAL OF A MAN INTO WHOSE BRAIN A BREECHPIN HAD PASSED. There appeared in the rotunda of the Windsor Hotel, last evening, a gentleman who attracted no little attention and comment. Not that he was odd in make-up, or eccentric in demeanour, bnt because he bore upon his

forehead, the ghastly mark of a miraculous escape from death. Everybody who noticed the long red line, looked a second and third time, and looking, suggested that the man had' something interesting in his history. An inquiry at the desk, revealed the fact that he was a New York journalist, the editor of the Gastronomist, and that his name was John J. Kempster. Upon solicitation. Mr. Kempster told a reporter the story of the wound. It occurred while was duck shooting in New Jersey, on the 23rd of September, 1880. Said Mr. Kempster: “ I wandered into the marshes about a mile and a half from the little village, and finally obtained a good shot at a flock of ducks who were swimming in a shallow slough. I fired, and that was the last I remembered for some time. When I recovered consciousness, I was lying flat on my back; the sun beating down on me. I knew that I was wounded, but for many minutes could not imagine where the injury was. Better sense came to me slowly, and with it strength. I felt something trickling down my forehead, and, putting up my hand, touched a thin coating, that proved to be mingled blood and brains. Then I understood that the gun had exploded or discharged itself through the breech, and something had penetrated my forehead. I raised my hand a second time, and felt the smaller end of a breechpin protruding from my head. I immediately thought all was up, and commenced to make my peace with God in prayer. I grew stronger and more conscious of my condition however, and in the hope of securing medical aid that might save my life, I struggled to my feet. A heaviness, as if my brain cavity was loaded with lead, was all that I suffered. Everything appeared natural to me; the trees, the shrubbery, and the marshes, and even the path I had taken, was distinct to my mind. I was even thoughtful enough to take up the broken gun and examine it. The stock was separated from the barrels—imbedded in my brain was the absent breechpin. “ I walked back to the ,village. It seemed an age before I got there, the invisible weight on my head bending me to the ground. I never rested though, but kept on, with only a vague hope for life encouraging me. When I arrived at the hotel where I was stopping, the people seeing me, fled as if a ghost were approaching through the daylight. When I told the clerk to go for a surgeon, he stood as if palsied. I grew mad, and shouted to him to find a surgeon or I should die, and then I fell to the floor speechless. I was again unconscious until the operation had been performed, and the iron pin was taken off my brain. It was a bungling piece of work, two country physicians, who knew as much about surgery as I do of Choctaw, hacking and hewing, and sawing my head until they had opened it, as you can see, more than two and a half inches. Then I was put on the train and sent to New York. Until unconsciousness came to my relief again, I was in the most terrible agony, my brain aching as though a thousand daggers were piercing it. I remember being placeci in the hospital ambulance; the remarks of bystanders that I could not live ; the jolting noise through the streets; the ringing of the ambulance bell, which sounded like a death-knell to me; and after that, all was blank. It was several days before I came to, and well I recollect the first query I made to the doctor: “Was there any probability that my life would be safe?” Four months afterward I was once more at my desk, grinding away as if my brains were intact.” Where the breechpin entered Mr. Kempster’s head, there is a space of about half an inch in diameter, where the cuticle touches the brain, and moves with each pulsation of the organ. A cutting of the skin would expose the brain.— Denver (Col.) Tribune. SONG OF THE SPUING. De Spring time is on us, an’ de March wind squallin’, De lorg rollin’ cornin’ an’ de dead tree’s fallin; De lan’ is dryin’ an’ de new groun’s callin’, Callin’ mighty strong I De red head peckerwood’s beatin’ an’ a drummin’, De butterflies swarmin’ an’ de bumble bee bummin’; De apple trees buddin’ an’ do peach blossoms cornin’, Cornin’ right erlong! De breeze keep a blowin’ an’ de pine trees rockin’, De sap sucker peckin’ an’ de yaller hammer knockin’; De bull frog’s jumpin’ an’ de black bird’s flockin’, Flockin’ up de tree ! Don’t you hear de music dat de spring time bringin’? De fiel’s gittin’ green an’ de bushes keep a ringin’, De sparrer hawk is sailin’ an’ de morkin’ bird Bingin’, Singin’ mighty free ! Oh I wake up, wake up, ’arly in de mornin’, De time is cornin’ for to get dat corn in; Go, hitch dem mules while de daylight dawnin’, Dawnin’ in de sky. Go, git dem colters when de teams done drinkin’, Start dat plantin’ while de jew draps’ blinkin’; An’ wuk till do ebenin’ sun go to sinkin’, Sinkin’ bimeby! —J. A. Macon, in Scribner's Monthly.