FANCIERS' JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 



279 



items UntMMttafl mA %mmim. 



J8®" The dairymen are discussing the question, " Is but- 

 ter of the first rank good butter?" Strong arguments are 

 made on both sides. 



flgg" The man who remarked that the Prince of "Wales 

 was born with a crown on his head, was not aware that all 

 children are so born. — Toledo Blade. 



8@" A Minnesota paper says that dysentery is raging 

 among the bees in that section, and that a terrible mortality 

 is the result. Why not give the little sufferers hot mus- 

 tard baths, and dose them on hive syrup ? 



jUg- Boarder — " What large chickens these are !" 



Landlady — "Yes, chickens are larger than they used to 

 be. Ten years ago we could'nt get chickens as large as 

 these." 



Boarder (with an innocent air) — "No, I suppose not; 

 these must have grown a great deal in that time." 



Landlady looks as if she had been misunderstood. 



J3Q5?= St. Louis detectives have just solved a fearful 

 mystery. A sickening odor was discovered issuing from a 

 long-unoccupied room in a certain house, and, after great 

 preparation, the door was burst open. A single trunk stood 

 in the far corner, and it, too, was quickly forced open. 

 Horrors ! it was found to contain the mangled remains of 

 the liveliest lot of Limburger cheese that ever the officers 

 had set eyes on. 



gggf A few months since, while Mr. Ezra Burton was 

 spending a night in Newburyport, his dog was stolen from 

 him, during the evening; the next day about four o'clock 

 in the afternoon, the dog, having escaped from his new 

 keeper, presented himself at Mr. Burton's home in South 

 Lancaster, very tired and footsore ; the distance from New- 

 buryport to Lancaster is seventy miles, and the dog had 

 never accompanied his master over the line. 



figg" The Wrong Plea. — A performance of educated fleas 

 is at the present time attracting much attention in Berlin. 

 At a recent exhibition, one of the most accomplished of the 

 insects, obeying a sudden impulse of its nature, sprung from 

 the table, and took refuge on the person of an illustrious 

 lady. The exhibitor was in despair, as the truant was his 

 best performer, and said he would be ruined unless it could 

 be recovered. The lady good-naturedly retired to an ad- 

 joining room, and, after a few minute's absence, returned 

 with the flea between her thumb and forefinger. The 

 exhibitor took it eagerly, gave one look at it, and then, 

 with visible embarrassment, said : "Tour Highness will 

 pardon me, but this is not the right flea." 



8@?° Poultry Condiments or Tonics. — Mr. Mills, an 

 apothecary in Prance, recommends from experience the 

 following as an unfailing tonic or stimulant for debilitated 

 fowls, and especially for young turkeys during the critical 

 stage, when he says its effects are most marked and salutary. 

 The prescription is copied from the Preneh Journal d' Agri- 

 culture Pratique. — Take cassia bark in fine powder, three 

 parts; ginger, ten parts; gentian, one part; anise seed, 

 one part ; carbonate of iron, five parts ; mix thoroughly by 

 sifting. A teaspoonful of the powder should be mingled 

 with the dough for twenty turkeys, each morning and eve- 

 ning. It is of the greatest importance to begin the treat- 

 ment a fortnight before the appearance of the red, and to 

 continue it two or three weeks' after. 



J3gg~ A Paladilhe writer relates that foxes are tormented 

 by fleas, and when the infliction becomes unbearable they 

 gather a mouthful of moss, and slowly walk backward into 

 the nearest stream, until only the mouth is left above the 

 surface of the water. The fleas meanwhile take refuge on 

 the little island of moss, and when the fox is satisfied that 

 they have all embarked, he opens his mouth, and the moss 

 drifting away with its freight, the wily animal regains the 

 bank evidently satisfied at his freedom from his tormentors. 



$3^" Decrease of the Moose. — This noble animal is still 

 found in moderate numbers in the State of Maine, although 

 the great cold of the past winter, the unusual depth of snow, 

 together with the rapacity of hunters, is supposed to have 

 almost exterminated it in that region. According to the 

 laws in that State, the animal cannot be hunted between the 

 15th of March and the first day of October, under the pen- 

 alty of forty dollars for each moose killed. The average 

 number captured during the past six years is estimated to be 

 about one hundred per year, which are killed chiefly on the 

 head waters of the Aroostook, AUegash, and Penobscot 

 rivers. Numerous attempts have been made to domesticate 

 it for use, but so far have been only partially successful. It 

 has, however, been so far domesticated as to be harnessed to 

 sleighs for purposes of travel. Its gait is a long stride or 

 trot, a movement effected with apparently little effort, by 

 which they get over the ground with wonderful speed. 

 It never gallops or leaps. Although remarkably fleet, its 

 motion is rather heavy, and when traveling, the large 

 antlers lie back upon the shoulders, with the head and nose 

 elevated and extended. In winter the moose frequents high 

 regions, wooded hill-sides and mountains, assembling to- 

 gether in large numbers, when they are said to "yard." 

 An abundant hardwood growth furnishes it with food, as 

 it lives mainly on the twigs, branches, and bark of the 

 trees. 



figg- The Word "Canard." — The origin of the word 

 canard (Preneh for duck), when employed to signify some 

 unfounded story, is not generally known. The following 

 are the terms in which M. Quetelet relates, in the Annuaire 

 de V Academie, the manner in which the word became used 

 in its new sense: "To give a sky lift at the ridiculous 

 pieces of intelligence which the journals are in the habit of 

 publishing every morning, Cornelisson stated that an inter- 

 esting experiment had just been made, calculated to prove 

 the extraordinary voracity of ducks. Twenty of these ani- 

 mals had been placed together, and one of them having 

 been killed and cut up into the smallest possible pieces, 

 feathers and all, and thrown to the other nineteen, had been 

 gluttonously gobbled up, in an exceedingly brief space of 

 time. Another was taken from nineteen, and being chop- 

 ped small like its predecessor, was served up to the eighteen 

 and at once devoured like the other ; and so on to the last, 

 who was thus placed in the position of having eaten his 

 nineteen companions in a wonderfully short time. All this, 

 most pleasantly narrated, obtained a success which the writer 

 was far from anticipating, for the story ran the rounds of 

 all the journals in Europe. It then became almost forgotten 

 for about a score of years, when it came back from America, 

 with amplification which it did not boast of at the com- 

 mencement, and with a regular certificate of the autopsy of 

 the body of the surviving animal, whose ajsophagus was 

 declared to have been found seriously injured. Every one 

 laughed at the history of the canard thus brought up again, 

 but the word retains its novel signification." 



