FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
279 

Htems Mnteresting and Amusing. 

kes The dairymen are discussing the question, ‘ Is but- 
ter of the first rank good butter?’’ Strong arguments are 
made on both sides. 
ges- 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. 
bas 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? 
ge@s- 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. 
BGs 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. 
ges= 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. 
Res THE WRonGa Pors.—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 ber thumb and forefinger. The 
exhibitor took it eagerly, gave one look at it, and then, 
with visible embarrassment, said: ‘*Your Highness will 
pardon me, but this is not the right flea.”’ 
y@s> Poutrry ConDIMENTS oR Tonics.—Mr. Mills, an 
apothecary in France, 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 French 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. 


ges> 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, 
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, Allegash, 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. 
pase Toe Worp “Canarp.’’—The origin of the word 
canard (French 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 
del’ 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 esophagus 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.”’ 
