A Plea for Prodigies 



City of the Sun, " with a multitude of companion 

 birds marvelling at the novelty of the appear- 

 ance." The distinguished stranger was, in fact, 

 being mobbed, as some rooks mobbed a golden 

 oriole some years ago ; and here one comes to 

 the core of truth in the legend. The dates, no 

 doubt, are untrustworthy ; but in all probability 

 some strange bird did now and then appear in 

 Egypt, and met with a not unnatural reception 

 among its fellows ; though, on the other hand, 

 the local ornithologists of the period were 

 so far superior to their modern representatives 

 as to study the bird, instead of slaying it and 

 having it stuffed, or rather mummified. The 

 pity is that their accounts of it were so variable 

 that its personality is hopelessly nebulous ; the 

 only point on which they agreed seemed to be 

 that it wasn't like anything else. But, for all 

 these difficulties, we may yet cherish a belief in 

 the phoenix, in view of the celebrated case of 

 Dinomys Branicki. 



An inhabitant of Peru got up one morning, 

 a good many years back, to find an unknown 

 animal strolling about the backyard. The 

 visitor was not unlike a paca, an overgrown, 

 unseemly-looking rodent, which you may see 

 any day in the large rodents' house at the 

 Zoo. But it had a tail — which appendage is 

 denied to the paca — and was otherwise peculiar. 



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