FANCIERS’ JOURNAL AND POULTRY EXCHANGE. 
507 
tice the young, and these are mostly those which breed the 
longest-eared rabbits, therefore you must have your nurse- 
does ready to receive them. A cap on the ears was at one 
time very frequently used, but in place of this 1 would rec- 
ommend that they be gently pulled and worked once or twice 
a day, commencing when quite young. 
It is not well to breed with two broken colors ; it is better 
that one should be a self-color. To get heavily-marked 
black and whites, a black is a good color to breed from ; for 
tortoise-shell a sooty fawn, for yellow and white a fawn, and 
let the other be of the color desired. It is impossible to 
breed true to color, but by judicious crossing a great deal 
may be done towards it. The eye should be particularly 
large, full, and prominent. In shape the animal should be 
broad and low in shoulder, with good, strong, and straight 
forelegs. — A. Hudson , in Fancier's Gazette. 
LONGEVITY OF BIRDS. 
Among the feathered creation, the eagle and raven, the 
swan and parrot, are each centenarians. An eagle kept in 
Vienna died after a confinement of one hundred and fourteen 
years, and on an ancient oak in Shelbourne, still known as 
the “raven tree,” the same pair of ravens are believed to 
have fixed their residence for a series of more than ninety 
years. Swans upon the river Thames, about whose age there 
can be no mistake, since they are annually nicked by the 
Vintners’ Company, under whose keeping they have been 
for five centuries, have been known to survive one hundred 
and fifty years and more. The melody of the dying swan 
is entirely mythological. Upon the approach of death, the 
bird quits the water, sits down upon the banks, lays its head 
upon the ground, expands its wings a trifle, and expires, 
uttering no sound. 
The extreme longevity of the parrot is equally authentic. 
In the Zoological Gardens of London, there is a macaw that 
was admitted to the Tower in the year 1764. At Versailles, 
during the reign of Charles X, there was always hanging a 
cage in the (Eil-de-boeuf which contained a parrot purchased 
by the Regent Orleans for the Duchess de Berri. There is 
not a collection of birds in any of the royal aviaries of Europe 
that has not its ancient parrot. The writer purchased a gray 
African parrot in 1856, whose residence in Wales was au- 
thenticated for seventy-seven years. The bird, more won- 
derful for variety of speech than for her age, learning every- 
thing and forgetting nothing, accomplished alike in the 
Welsh tongue and the English, born in Africa, living more 
than three-quarters of a century in Europe, and dying in 
America, might have been alive now but for heedlessness. 
In 1867 she had certainly approached, if she had not reached 
and passed her one hundredth year. Upon a severely cold 
night in December of that year she was sent from New York 
to Washington, and perished by the way. She was in per- 
fect health, had never known a day of sickness, showed no 
decrepitude, enjoyed life to the utmost, demanded no allow- 
ances or concessions on the score of advanced years, and 
might, but for an exposure to the rigor of an unaccustomed 
climate, have been alive to-day . — Sunday Press. 
The acme has been reached in the pathos of titles by 
a music publisher, who has produced a touching piece of 
mew-sick under the pathetic name of “ Mother, Bring My 
Little Kitten.” We propose getting out as a companion 
piece, “ Daddy, Have you Drowned the Puppies?” 
I 1* E JVI S « 
In order to make our “Item ” column as interesting as possible, we 
would be obliged to our readers for contributions of original matter, how- 
ever short — yes, let it be condensed and to the point, in a variety of 
style — facts and fancies interesting to fanciers. 
Many breeders thoughtlessly allow the droppings of 
their fowls to go to waste, as well as to breed pestilence and 
fleas, which might, with a little care, be easily composted 
with loam, and grow the finest fruit trees, free from grubs, 
right in the chicken yards. Try it. 
Bggf“UP 0 N the whole, we are not surprised to hear that 
she is dead. She ate three hair-pins ; a rubber ball ; a cro- 
chet needle ; four knitting needles; and six stones. There 
was a digestive muddle, and before the unpleasantness could 
be settled to suit her, the cow died. It was a cow once liv- 
ing in Providence; and we have sung above the tune she 
died of. 
$ gy* “ Our boy Fred,” says a correspondent, “ has a fine 
lot of hens, and takes great care of the eggs. One night, 
on coming from school, he found the cook had rifled every 
nest of its contents— even to the nest eggs. Fred was in a 
terrible state of mind, and sobbed out: ‘And oh, father, if 
you’ll believe it, Bridget even cooked up the hen’s patterns, 
and they won’t be able to lay a good-shaped egg this sum- 
mer.’ ” 
Mr. Butler did not die of Hydrophobia. — 
In noticing the death of the late Francis Butler, in our last 
issue, we expressed a doubt as to his case being one of 
hydrophobia. This doubt has been confirmed by the fol- 
lowing paragraph in the Sun of Saturday last : 
“ In Plympton Hall, last evening, Mr. G. Will Johnston 
said that Mr. Francis Butler’s was a case of death from 
tetanus, and not hydrophobia. The speaker was an intimate 
acquaintance of Mr. Butler, and knew that he was bitten by 
rabid dogs twenty years ago. If rabies was communicable 
by inoculation, Mr. Butler would have died when compara- 
tively a young man. Mr. Johnston added that the stories 
of death following in from five to twenty years after the 
bite were purely imaginative, as no authenticated case is on 
record of death being separated from the inoculation by 
more than three months.” — Turf, Field, and Farm. 
jgHjy* A Savage Monkey. — Considerable excitement was 
caused recently by the freaks of an enraged monkey at the 
residence of George Wambold, on Ashland Street, near 
Wharton Street, this city. Wambold has nine trained dogs 
and two monkeys, with which he gives exhibitions at theatres 
and other places of amusement. A few days ago he left the 
city, and while he was absent Mrs. Wambold let the monkey 
(which is quite a large one) out of the cage to exhibit it to 
some friends. The animal was in an ill-humor, and at once 
made an attack on Mrs Wambold. Her screams and those 
of her little son attracted the attention of three men, who 
came in, and after a severe struggle succeeded in getting the 
monkey back into the cage. Wm. Buckley, one of the men, 
was bitten by the monkey. Mrs. Wambold had an arm and 
two fingers badly lacerated, and a small boy who came in 
from curiosity was bitten over the eye. During the melee 
the dogs became excited and bit the men who were fighting 
the monkey quite severely in the legs. 
