ANIMAL ANECDOTES. 
An old Texas negro owns a ferry-boat which 
used to have a horse and a mule 
to work the paddles. One day 
both these animals came to an 
untimely end, and the poor ferryman thought 
that his career was at an end. But one night 
soon afterwards he thought he heard the familiar 
sound of the paddle-wheels turning, so he went 
to look, and there, sure enough, was one wheel 
of the boat churning the water into foam 
and making the boat strain at its moorings. 
Cautiously he looked over the side to ascertain 
the cause, and there, to his astonishment, saw a 
large alligator which had fallen into the stall 
formerly occupied by the horse, and in its 
attempts to run away was turning the wheel! 
That gave the negro an idea, and for some 
days afterwards that unfortunate alligator was 
employed to propel the boat. But this meant, 
of course, that the boat had to work on one 
wheel, so another alligator was captured and 
placed in the vacant stall, and soon the boat 
was plying to and fro as in the old days. The 
novelty attracted great attention. The boat is 
now a familiar sight on the river, with its two 
industrious alligators paddling away vigorously. 
D/O 
ANOTHER animal used in a similar way is the 
water-buffalo. When their river 
is flooded the natives of Mindanao, 
in the Philippine Islands, ‘‘drive” 
across. These animals are equally at home on 
land or in water, a peculiarity of which the in- 
genious natives are not slow to take advantage. 
Dy 
Lorp Linrorp, amongst the collection of live 
animals which he kept, had two 
pet ravens, “Sankey” and ‘‘Grip”’ 
byname. ‘Sankey’ unfortunately 
went blind and died a few years afterwards, but 
“Grip,” if not so familiar and so sociable, was 
quite as amusing as the ‘‘late lamented,” whose 
name he constantly repeated, and apparently 
took to himself. After “Sankey’s’’ death, “Grip” 
had, as a mate, another raven, from Spain, 
whom he rapidly instructed in every sort of 
mischief and ‘ deyilment.” “One afternoon,” 
says their owner, in “Lord Lilford on Birds,” 
A Queer 
Ferry. 
Towed by a 
Buffalo. 
Ravens versus 
Falcon. 
an ornithological book edited by Mr. Trevyor- 
Battye, “I heard these ravens making a very 
unusual clamour close in front of the house, 
and, on looking out of the window, perceived 
that they had got hold of and nearly killed a 
peregrine falcon; I sent out a servant, who 
secured the falcon without difficulty. We found 
that it was an old wild bird suffering from a 
sort of asthma known to faleoners as the ‘croaks,’ 
and somewhat poor in flesh. I would willingly 
have tried to keep this falcon alive and restored 
it to liberty, but the ravens had injured it so 
severely that it was only common merey to kill 
it. How or why it allowed itself to be seized 
and worried by its antagonists we can never 
know.” 
We" 
“‘T was driving in my victoria along the sea-front 
of a big town,” writes an Anglo- 
Indian, “and about a hundred 
yards in front a coolie ‘was 
running on the road, carrying upon his head a 
basket of small fish about the size of a herring. 
On these half-a-dozen crows were making a 
sumptuous banquet without the robbed man 
being aware of his misfortune. I watched the 
tactics of the depredators. Had the crows rudely 
swooped down on the basket, the attention of the 
victim would have been at once attracted. But, 
one at a time, the wily birds advanced on 
noiseless wings, lighted on the road-way just at 
the man’s heels, and then by a single gentle hop 
were enabled to spring aloft and pull out a fish 
by the tail without so much as touching or giving 
the slightest jog to the basket. In this way I 
saw a score of fish abstracted before I deemed it 
time at last to shout out to the unconscious 
Hindu. The man’s expression of face when he 
looked first at his half-emptied basket, and then 
at the line of thievish crows devourimg the 
plunder at intervals along the road, was not to 
be forgotten.” 
The Crow’s 
Cunning. 
We 
Tue following story also illustrates the cunning, 
or perhaps intelligence, of the crow, 
this time an English one. A dog 
was once enjoying a bone, when two crows made 
an attempt to rob him of it. The dog showed 
his teeth: the birds retired. In a short time one 
Ditto. 
314 
