I 
1 
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EXCELSIOR 
5 Ilcelunan St., New York 
S~ Bullnlo St., Hocliemer. 
terms : \ 
FOR THE WEEK ENDING SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 23,1871 
[Entered according to Act of Congress, In the year 1S71, by If. D. T. Moore, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.) 
to fail. Give plenty of green food—duck¬ 
weed, lettuce, or cabbage leaves, chopped 
fine, and cold water baths daily. 
Bear, ( Oi'yet&'Opus Capensis,) in having a body 
nearly destitute of hair, and a much longer 
tail, head and ears. In habits and food the 
animals agree closely. The teeth are not en¬ 
tirely wanting in these too-culled edentate or 
toothless animals, the canines and incisors 
animal subsists. The nourishment it con¬ 
tains cannot escape absorption as it passes 
along the intestinal canal, for this tube is of 
the extraordinary length of 45 feet. 
Cuniiry Killing Mm Feather*. 
Having long been a render of your valna- 
. ble paper, and having 
( / 'llj/ frequently observed the 
' ; i ' Fnf./J good recipes, ad vice, &c., 
>.)V ,jjJ^jj 1 take the libertyofstib- 
W W x W7>C milting a question con* 
cerliing my canary. Tic 
• is a great eater of his 
feathers, having eaten 
W f.Wr ’ ■ all off his legs, his back 
/■""* aud the upper part of liis 
wings. Some tell me 
iCii ■' •' is molting, hut, I am 
■ satisfied that such is not 
. the case, lie is an al- 
'tffliftu most incessant, singer, 
day and night, and looks 
through Rural 
Canaries are seldom 
)picus J given to eating or pull¬ 
ing out their leathers uu- 
less they are affected with vermin. Look care¬ 
fully about the body of your bird lor vermin ; 
examine his cage. You will probably find it 
infested with red miles. If so, ut once remove 
the bird, aud give him frequent baths of di¬ 
luted tobacco water—a quarter of an ounce 
of tobacco to three half pints of water. Bee 
that he is quite free from mites before you 
return him to his cage, which of course 
must likewise be thoroughly cleansed. Dur¬ 
ing the past twenty years we have had our 
birds more or less troubled in the way you 
described, and never knew the tobacco bath 
l \t jf atitralist 
THE TAMANDUA ANT-EATEE, 
jerbsuum 
Tfuuautlun. Telrudnctyln. 
This animal is a native of South Ameri¬ 
ca. Piso’s “ Natural History of Brazil” says 
of Die habits of this ant-eater :—“ It lives ill 
Brazil, comes out at night, sleeping during 
the day with its head buried between the 
forearms; when angry, it seizes hold of a 
stick: snores, sitting on its hind legs. The 
extremity of the tail Is bare, by which means 
it can suspend itself from the branches of 
trees.” 
Buiimeisteu, in his work on the animals 
of Brazil, gives the following account of the 
Tunnmdua ant-eater. He writes :—“ The 
color of this animal is somewhat variable; 
ordinarily, the head as far ns the nape, as 
well as the feet and tail, are pale yellowish 
gray; on the neck, by the shoulder,a black 
stripe commences, which is drawn in a 
crooked line to the hack, and ends in the 
neighborhood of the false ribs. This stripe 
is never entirely wanting in the Brazilian 
animal, although it Is not present on the 
hinder part of the hack. I brought back 
three specimens, of which the most adult 
only has a brownish tinge on the hips, the 
small of the back, and Die caudal region. 
The young animals,on the other hand, have 
this portion up to the sides, near the fore 
legs, of a blackish gray color, the hairs being 
at their base broadly black, but the points 
light yellow. A very old individual in our 
collection, received from Berlin, is in those 
parts plain blackish brown, the hairs being 
at the base paler colored, at the points dark¬ 
er. Specimens entirely blackish brown also 
occur. Azaka figures such a one, though 1 
have never seen one in Brazil. The small 
ant-eater is found as of¬ 
ten in the woods as in 
the plains; like the 
other species, it feeds Njga 
only ou termites and 
ants, which it procures n# 
chiefly on the trees, 
untl it is therefore a 
good climber, and 
mounts the forest trees 
by means of its strong 
pointed claws, its pre- 
hensile tail acting as a 
support. I have never 
seen this animal alive, - 'Ipsse.fp 
but have examined - 
fresh-killed and still V. ; ' 
warm examples, and I - - ^ 
have received three 
skins aud a skeleton 
from Lagoa Santa.” 
Concerning one of 
these animals in the S ^ ^ 
possession of the Brit- JP^g| 
ish Zoological Society, Jr J^P 
the London Field says: -w jgmjtt 
1'h weight does not -. ~~M 
exceed six or seven /T 
pounds. On its first M ' 
arrival Air. Bartlett jF ' 
allowed it the free 
range of his room, sit- 
Uug perfectly quiet in gffijf; ) 
order to observe its ac- wj 
tions. Using its pow- % 
ei f 1 ' 1, hook-like claws ^ 
and prehensile tail, it ^ ~* 
rapidly climbed up the 
different articles of fur- 
nIl "re, and then, be- 
c °ming more bold, rail 
ll P on to Air. Bart- 
I ' ErT ’ 3 shoulder, 
thrusting its pointed 
®m»ut and long worm- 
hke tongue first into all 
,li e folds of liis dress, 
AlileriivyN mid JuMi'y I'mile. 
F. F. B. is informed that there is no dif¬ 
ference between Alderney and Jersey cattle. 
Tbe names are regarded synonymous. There 
is really little distinction between the Alder¬ 
ney, Jersey and Guernseys—all coming from 
the British Channel Islands bearing these 
names. 
A Cow’s Tent with Two Oi'iticeff. 
I have a fine, high-grade, red Durham 
heifer that dropped a fine (still higher grade) 
calf Aug. 81. One teat is funnelled with 
two outlets for milk; one in Die proper 
place, the other on the side, an inch higher 
up. Can a false outlet in a cow’s teat he 
successfully closed, and how?—D. D. No¬ 
ble, Van Bun u, Co.. Mich. • 
Ayrshire Blood for Dniry ('own. 
Ohas BiricfARP, Ogdensburgii, N. Y., 
writes to the Live Stock Journal:—“ My ex¬ 
perience in raising cows strictly for the dairy 
is, that the move Ayrshire blood in the grades, 
the more the product of butler and cheese 
from our ordinary pastures. For twenty 
years 1 have discarded all bulls in my herd 
except full-blooded Ayrshircs, purchased 
sometimes at fancy prices—say $300 for a 
bull calf.” 
NOTES FOE NATUEALISTS, 
I*. \V. Hnhhin’s Short-Korn Cuttle Hudly 
Rente u. 
Your published a statement from L. W. 
Babbitt of Potfawattaine e Co., Iowa, in 
which it is stated that he sold a two yenr and 
two months old Short- 
Horn Bull weighing 
1030 pounds, and a calf 
four months and seven 
days old weighing 509 
pounds. Now 1 wish 
to state that I sold a 
Bull, Short-Horn, one 
: : § year four months and 
27 days old, which 
_'i„ 7 — weighed 1007 pounds. 
C 1 have a calf of the 
• 'v same breed 4 months 
and 10 days old which 
weighs 577 pounds. 
.1 Old Stephenson Co., 
wv-7 , III., can discount Pot- 
- tawftttamic Co., Iowa. 
Try it again “ L. AY. 
- i v B.” — AY. L. Beebe, 
.~ /Stephenson Co., 111. 
Ethiopian Ant Denr*— (Oryctoropu* 
/Etliiopieus.^ 
Tins is another of those curious eden¬ 
tates, or toothless animals, a native of Ethi¬ 
opia. This animal differs from the Cape Ant 
Spaying Heifers. 
I wish some of the 
readers of the Bubal 
New - Yorker, who 
have spayed or kept 
spayed heifers, would 
state what, If any, real 
advantages are to be 
derived from spaying 
heifers. Is it any gain 
to spay them for milk¬ 
ing purposes—or, in¬ 
deed, any other? —P. 
S, R, Columbus, O. 
Lewis F. Allen 
says it is an admirable 
way of converting 
heifers or cows into 
r i p e, delicate beef. 
“ Where a surplus of 
heifers exists, and beef 
cattle are numerously 
reared, the practice 
may be resorted to as 
both necessary aud 
Ir'ET. 1 
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bjyyj 
If,70 J , !l 
