Ornithological and Other Oddities 



The bold Peruvian smote it with the sword, and 

 its remains were subsequently scientifically ex- 

 amined. But the curious part of the story is 

 that the animal was not only unknown to its 

 destroyer, but to everybody else in the district. 

 No one was personally acquainted with the 

 deceased, or could say whence and wherefore 

 he had come. Thus it is fortunate that he 

 fell into scientific hands, and had his obsequies 

 decently performed. For since then until a 

 year or two ago no other specimen turned up. 

 Dinomys Bi-anicki remained unique ; so much 

 so, that, although he has relationships with the 

 everyday guinea-pig and agouti, a special family 

 has been created for his reception. 



If there is any story considered worthy to 

 rank as equally fabulous with that of the phoenix, 

 it is the generation of bees from dead carcases. 

 The schoolboy, painfully ploughing his way 

 through the Fourth Georgic, chuckles at the 

 recipe for producing a swarm therein detailed, 

 and concludes that Virgil did not know a bee 

 from a bluebottle. Wasps were produced, 

 according to classical authorities, from the car- 

 cases of horses ; but as none of them appear to 

 give detailed instructions for vespiculture, we 

 may presume those insects were then considered 

 as great a superfluity as they are at present. 



Science, in the person of Baron Osten-Sacken, 

 252 



