228 quotes found
"[city laws were] designed to penalize homeowners for failing to take steps to prevent and control rodents"
"There are so many different roles that the rat plays in human life. When it is an object of admiration it is usually in, say, the show cage at an exhibition, or in a laboratory cage (where is has often been described as a hero/heroine or martyr to science). In the wild, or in the margins of human life, the rat is commonly loathed, the object of vermin control. Either way, one could say that it loses."
"Rats and mice are not generally regarded as pets, but as pests; they have few defenders. Yet the pain a rat or a mouse feels is every bit as real as that of any pet. In laboratories, they suffer, as anybody who has heard them moan, cry, whimper and even scream knows. The experimenters dissimulate about this by insisting that they are merely vocalising."
"If a rat is a good model for your emotional life, you're in big trouble."
"How now? a rat? Dead, for a ducat, dead!"
"The goat with its kids honours you."
"Don't approach a goat from the front, a horse from the back, or a fool from any side."
"It don't take a genius to spot a goat in a flock of sheep."
"The lust of the goat is the bounty of God"
"When the son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left."
"I shoot the Hippopotamus With bullets made of platinum, Because if I use leaden ones His hide is sure to flatten 'em."
"Did you ever see the Rhinoceros, and the Hippopotamus, at the Zoological Gardens, trying to dance a minuet together? It is a touching sight."
"He thought he saw a Banker's Clerk Descending from the bus: He looked again, and found it was A Hippopotamus: 'If this should stay to dine,' he said, 'There won't be much for us!'"
"A man looking at a hippopotamus may sometimes be tempted to regard a hippopotamus as an enormous mistake."
"The broad-backed hippopotamus Rests on his belly in the mud; Although he seems so firm to us He is merely flesh and blood."
"Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair His fair Hippopotamine maid. The Hippopotamus was no ignoramus And sang her this sweet serenade: Mud! Mud! Glorious mud! Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood. So, follow me, follow, down to the hollow, And there let us wallow in glorious mud."
"There is something about a blurb-writer paying his respects to a funny book which puts one in mind of a short-sighted lord mayor raising his hat to a hippopotamus."
"The muckle hippopotamus spelders in glaur apo’ his kite. A solid fact he seems tae some. They arena right. The hippo’s coorse digestive tract erodes through frequent emptying. The KIRK’s the only solid fact that winna ding."
"Behold the hippopotamus! We laugh at how he looks to us, And yet in moments dank and grim, I wonder how we look to him."
"If ever you meet a rhinoceros And a tree be in sight, Climb quick! for his might Is a match for the gods: he could toss Eros!"
"Pity the poor old rhino with A bodger on its bonce."
"Keith Sommerville’s new book, “Africa’s Threatened Rhinos: A History of Exploitation and Conservation” (London: Pelagic Publishing, 2025), is a sweeping chronicle of centuries of slaughter. He reminds us that rhinos have been killed for every conceivable reason or unreason. Early indigenous hunters obtained meat and leather. Taken to the circuses by the Romans, they were killed by gladiators. Sport, with American President Theodore Roosevelt alone killing hundreds. Yemeni dagger culture, where only a rhino-horn handle confers respect. And most devastatingly, Chinese medicine has transformed horn powder into a panacea for everything from fever to cancer. …As animal lovers, Rosita [Šorytė] and I dream of a time when rhinos will no longer need to be dehorned to survive. Sommerville’s book reminds us that conservation is not only about protecting animals—it is about confronting corruption, dismantling myths, and exposing the cynical bureaucrats who profit from extinction."
"The rhino is a homely beast, For human eyes he's not a feast. Farwell, farewell, you old rhinoceros, I'll stare at something less prepoceros."
"An elephant can trumpet and shake the earth but not the self-possession of the ants who hold it."
"Nature's great masterpiece, an elephant, The only harmless great thing."
"His services are like so many white elephants, of which nobody can make use, and yet that drain one's gratitude, if indeed one does not feel bankrupt."
"The torn boughs trailing o'er the tusks aslant, The saplings reeling in the path he trod, Declare his might — our lord the Elephant, Chief of the ways of God."
"In the High and Far-Off Times the Elephant, O Best Beloved, had no trunk. He had only a blackish, bulgy nose, as big as a boot, that he could wriggle about from side to side; but he couldn't pick up things with it. But there was one Elephant — a new Elephant — an Elephant's Child — who was full of 'satiable curiosity, and that means he asked ever so many questions."
"When you have got an elephant by the hind leg, and he is trying to run away, it's best to let him run."
"Th' unwieldy elephant, To make them mirth, us'd all his might, and wreathed His lithe proboscis."
"Elephant-ear-witnesses-to-be of hymns and glorias, these ministrants all gray or gray with white on legs or trunk, are a pilgrims'pattern of revery not reverence — a religious procession without any priests, the centuries-old carefullest unrehearsed play."
"Not that I think much depends On how we treat our feathered friends, Or hold the wrinkled elephant A nobler creature than my aunt. It's simply that I'm sure I can Get on without my fellow man."
"Early one morning the sub-inspector at a police station the other end of the town rang me up on the phone and said that an elephant was ravaging the bazaar. Would I please come and do something about it?"
"The people deck him like a docile king of elephants."
"Women and elephants never forget an injury."
"That is like people blind by birth in, when viewing an elephant."
"The elephant hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flexure."
"I saw a peanut stand, heard a rubber band, I saw a needle that winked its eye. But I think I will have seen everything When I see an elephant fly.I saw a front porch swing, heard a diamond ring, I saw a polka-dot railroad tie. But I think I will have seen everything When I see an elephant fly.I seen a clothes horse, he r'ar up and buck And they tell me that a man made a vegetable truck I didn't see that, I only heard But just to be sociable I'll take your wordI heard a fireside chat, I saw a baseball bat And I just laughed till I thought I'd die But I'd be done see'n about everything when I see an elephant fly."
"With four parameters I can fit an elephant, and with five I can make him wiggle his trunk."
"A elephant's life is tedious, laborious and slow; I've been an elephant all me life so I blooming well ought to know."
"I'm an Introverted, Elephocentric, Hypochondriac, And I'll stick in the Elephant's nursing home Till I get me memory back!"
"I suffer from Schizophrenia It comes on me in spells Sometimes I'm King of Armenia At others I'm Orson Welles. I tell them I'm Napoleon and all that sort of bunk They never guess that all the time I'm laughing up me trunk!"
"Keep five yards from a carriage, ten yards from a horse, and a hundred yards from an elephant; but the distance one should keep from a wicked man cannot be measured."
"It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven."
"CAMEL, n. A quadruped (the Splaypes humpidorsus) of great value to the show business. There are two kinds of camels -- the camel proper and the camel improper. It is the latter that is always exhibited."
"Some days past I have found a curious confirmation of the fact that what is truly native can and often does dispense with local color; I found this confirmation in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon observes that in the Arabian book par excellence, in the Koran, there are no camels; I believe if there were any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this absence of camels would be sufficient to prove it is an Arabian work. It was written by Mohammed, and Mohammed, as an Arab, had no reason to know that camels were especially Arabian; for him they were part of reality, he had no reason to emphasize them; on the other hand, the first thing a falsifier, a tourist, an Arab nationalist would do is have a surfeit of camels, caravans of camels, on every page; but Mohammed, as an Arab, was unconcerned: he knew he could be an Arab without camels. I think we Argentines can emulate Mohammed, can believe in the possibility of being Argentine without abounding in local color."
"A camel's hump is an ugly lump"
"'Take my camel, dear,' said my aunt Dot, as she climbed down from this animal on her return from High Mass."
"The camel has a single hump, The dromedary, two; Or else the other way around; I'm never sure. Are you?"
"Thee, then, O Pūṣan, like a swift one on his way, I urge with lauds that thou mayst make the foemen flee, drive, camel-like, our foes afar. As I, a man, call thee, a God, giver of bliss, to be my Friend, So make our loudly-chanted praises glorious, in battles make them glorious."
"As such, O Aśvins, find for me my share of new-presented gifts, As Kasu, Cedi's son, gave me a hundred head of buffaloes, and ten thousand kine."
"Kakuha hath reached up to heaven, bestowing buffaloes yoked in fours, And matched in fame the Yadavas."
"Steeds sixty thousand and ten thousand kine, and twenty hundred camels I obtained; Ten hundred brown in hue, and other ten red in three spots: in all, ten thousand kine."
"And in the grazing herd he made a hundred camels bleat for me, And twenty hundred mid the white."
"Like two plough-bulls ye move along in traces, and seek like eager guests your bidder's banquet. Ye are like glorious envoys mid the people: like bulls, approach the place where ye are watered."
"Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By the mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed."
"The voice of any camel has a wide range in pessimistic eloquence; beyond question a camel has a vocabulary and can say many things, all of them discontented."
"Looking athwart the burning flats, far off Seen by the high-necked camel on the verge Journeying southward"
""A tradtionalist told me from one who had told him from Muhammad b. Talha from Uthman v. Abdul-Rahman that in the raid of Muharib and B. Thalaba the apostle had captured a slave called Yasar, and he put him in charge of his milch-camels to shepherd them in the neighborhood of al-Jamma. Some men of Qays of Kubba of Bajila came to the apostle suffering from an epidemic and enlarged spleens, and the apostle told them that if they went to the milch camels and drank their milk and their urine they would recover, so off they went."
"Narrated Anas: Some people from the tribe of 'Ukl came to the Prophet and embraced Islam. The climate of Medina did not suit them, so the Prophet ordered them to go to the (herd of milch) camels of charity and to drink, their milk and urine (as a medicine)."
"Anas b. Malik reported that some people belonging (to the tribe) of 'Uraina came to Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) at Medina, but they found its climate uncongenial. So Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) said to them: If you so like, you may go to the camels of Sadaqa and drink their milk and urine. They did so and were all right."
"‘Son, son!’ said Mother Jaguar ever so many times, graciously waving her tail, ‘a Hedgehog is a Hedgehog, and can’t be anything but a Hedgehog; and a Tortoise is a Tortoise, and can never be anything else.’"
"I've never seen a Jaguar, Nor yet an Armadill- o dilloing in his armour, And I s'pose I never will, Unless I go to Rio These wonders to behold-- Roll down--roll down to Rio-- Roll really down to Rio! Oh, I'd love to roll to Rio Some day before I'm old!"
"The ancient owls' nest must have burned. Hastily, all alone, a glistening armadillo left the scene, rose-flecked, head down, tail down"
"For a single armadillo, you will own, On Salisbury Plain in summer is comparatively rare, And a pair of them is practically unknown."
"Dada doubts everything. Dada is an armadillo. Everything is Dada, too. Beware of Dada."
"[O]n the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons."
"No more exulting o'er the buoyant sea High shall I raise my head in gambols free; Nor by some gallant ship breathe out the air, Pleas'd with my own bright image figur'd there. The storm's black mist has forc'd me to the land, And laid me lifeless on this couch of sand."
"Round thee sport in joyous rout Lightly leaping, gleaming, glancing, Tossing in their finny dancing Bristly mane and flattened snout, Dolphins, whom the Muse enthrals— Playmates ’neath the briny waters Chasing Amphitrite’s daughters In the Nereids’ halls."
"Dolphins are not automatic air-breathers like we are. Every breath is a conscious effort. If life becomes too unbearable, the dolphins just take a breath and they sink to the bottom. They don't take the next breath."
"I, I wish you could swim Like the dolphins, like dolphins can swim Though nothing, nothing will keep us together We can beat them, forever and ever Oh, we can be heroes just for one day."
"And yet I swear by the sacred name of my creator that it was true. It was true sunshine; the true music; the true splash of the fountains from the mouth of stone dolphins."
"... On a research trip in , I broke my foot. Undeterred, the next day I entered the water with my swollen foot. I was with about a dozen other s. Two s approached us and headed straight for me. I felt an intense "buzz" of , which vibrated through my injured foot then dissipated as it travelled up my leg. The dolphins then moved on to investigate the rest of our group, as if my foot was the only interesting thing about me. No one else indicated that they were echolocated on during that encounter."
"Though pleased to see the dolphins play, I mind my compass and my way."
"Then, cleaving the grass, gazelles appear (The gentler dolphins of kindlier waves)."
"Write by WASTE. The government will open it if you use the other. The dolphins will be mad. Love the dolphins."
"Once I sat upon a promontory, And heard a mermaid, on a dolphin's back, Uttering such dulcet and harmonious breath, That the rude sea grew civil at her song."
"Where, like Arion on the dolphin’s back, I saw him hold acquaintance with the waves So long as I could see."
"I saw the porpus how he bounced and tumbled... They say they’re half fish, half flesh."
"When you drove the course for Divodāsa and for Bharadvāja, Aśvins, urging your steeds onward, your accompanying chariot conveyed wealth. A bull and a river dolphin were yoked to it.Conveying wealth with good rule and a full lifetime with good descendants and good men, Nāsatyas, you two of one mind journeyed here with the prizes of victory to the wife of Jahnu, who was setting your portion three times a day."
"In our own lifetime we are witnessing a startling alteration of climate…Activities in the nonhuman world also reflect the warming of the Arctic-the changed habits and migrations of many fishes, birds, land mammals, and whales."
"I really didn't dare to send it across the Atlantic — the whales are so inconsiderate. They'd have been sure to want to borrow it to show to the little whales, quite forgetting that the salt water would be sure to ruin it."
"The bottle-nosed whale is a furlong long"
"If there aren't any whaling ships, then whales may survive. Anything short of that is so much hot air."
"After hearing a steady stream of reports of yachts being damaged in this region, plus seeing evidence of yachts on the hardstanding with rudder damage in virtually every marina since leaving La Coruna [in Spain], we were of course very concerned"
"Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Polonius: By th' Mass, and 'tis like a camel, indeed. Hamlet: Methinks it is like a weasel. Polonius: It is backed like a weasel. Hamlet: Or like a whale. Polonius: Very like a whale."
"Why not? It’s mating season. And I’m feeling lucky!"
"But what's this long face about, Mr. Starbuck; wilt thou not chase the white whale! art not game for Moby Dick?" "I am game for his crooked jaw, and for the jaws of Death too, Captain Ahab, if it fairly comes in the way of the business we follow; but I came here to hunt whales, not my commander's vengeance. How many barrels will thy vengeance yield thee even if thou gettest it, Captain Ahab? it will not fetch thee much in our Nantucket market."
"All visible objects, man, are but as pasteboard masks. But in each event — in the living act, the undoubted deed — there, some unknown but still reasoning thing puts forth the mouldings of its features from behind the unreasoning mask. If man will strike, strike through the mask! How can the prisoner reach outside except by thrusting through the wall? To me, the white whale is that wall, shoved near to me. Sometimes I think there's naught beyond. But 'tis enough. He tasks me; he heaps me; I see in him outrageous strength, with an inscrutable malice sinewing it. That inscrutable thing is chiefly what I hate; and be the white whale agent, or be the white whale principal, I will wreak that hate upon him. Talk not to me of blasphemy, man; I'd strike the sun if it insulted me. For could the sun do that, then could I do the other; since there is ever a sort of fair play herein, jealousy presiding over all creations. But not my master, man, is even that fair play. Who's over me? Truth hath no confines."
"Aye, aye! It was that accursed white whale that razeed me; made a poor pegging lubber of me for ever and a day!" Then tossing both arms, with measureless imprecations he shouted out: "Aye, aye! and I'll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition's flames before I give him up. And this is what ye have shipped for, men! to chase that white whale on both sides of land, and over all sides of earth, till he spouts black blood and rolls fin out."
"It does seem to me, that herein we see the rare virtue of a strong individual vitality, and the rare virtue of thick walls, and the rare virtue of interior spaciousness. Oh, man! admire and model thyself after the whale! Do thou, too, remain warm among ice. Do thou, too, live in this world without being of it. Be cool at the equator; keep thy blood fluid at the Pole. Like the great dome of St. Peter's, and like the great whale, retain, O man! in all seasons a temperature of thine own. But how easy and how hopeless to teach these fine things! Of erections, how few are domed like St. Peter's! of creatures, how few vast as the whale!"
"One often hears of writers that rise and swell with their subject, though it may seem but an ordinary one. How, then, with me, writing of this Leviathan? Unconsciously my chirography expands into placard capitals. Give me a condor’s quill! Give me Vesuvius’ crater for an inkstand! Friends, hold my arms! For in the mere act of penning my thoughts of this Leviathan, they weary me, and make me faint with their outreaching comprehensiveness of sweep, as if to include the whole circle of the sciences, and all the generations of whales, and men, and mastodons, past, present, and to come, with all the revolving panoramas of empire on earth, and throughout the whole universe, not excluding its suburbs. Such, and so magnifying, is the virtue of a large and liberal theme! We expand to its bulk. To produce a mighty book, you must choose a mighty theme. No great and enduring volume can ever be written on the flea, though many there be who have tried it."
"The skeleton of the whale furnishes but little clue to the shape of his fully invested body."
"Now, by all odds, the most ancient extant portrait anyways purporting to the whale's is to be found in the famous cavern pagoda of Elephanta, in India .... The Hindoo whale referred to, occurs in a separate department of the wall, depicting the incarnation of Vishnu in the form of leviathan, learnedly known as the Matse-Avatar.... That wondrous oriental story is now to be rehearsed from the Sashras which gives us the dread Vishnoo, one of the three persons in the godhead of the Hindoos; gives us this divine Vishnoo hirnselffor our Lord: - Vishnoo, who, by the first of his ten earthly incarnations, has forever set apart and sanctified the whale. When Brahrna, or the God of Gods, saith the Shaster, resolved to recreate the world after one of its periodical dissolutions, he gave birth to Vishnoo, to preside over the work; but the Vedas, or mystical books, whose perusal would seem to have been indispensable to Vishnoo before beginning the creation, and which therefore must have contained something in the shape of practical hints to young architects, these Vedas were lying at the bottom of the waters; so Vishnu became incarnate in a whale, and sounding down in him to the utter-most depths, rescued the sacred volumes. Was not this Vishnoo a whaleman, then? Even as a man who rides a horse called a horseman?"
"After much thought, I can come up with no other animal whose reputation is so at odds with the reality, not even the rat, which, despite widespread dislike, has many admirers, and apparently makes a charming pet. Hyenas are not reptiles or invertebrates - the usual kinds of creatures that incite widespread disgust - but are furry, warm-blooded animals that nurse their young (and, in this, there are parallels between our feelings about the hyena and our feelings about other ambiguous carnivores, such as the jackal and the wolf). Surely very few of those people who claim to despise hyenas can have lived through a traumatic encounter with one, even at a zoo. And why are hyenas so reviled when in many respects they look very similar to dogs, which are widely beloved? Most people's aversion to hyenas, clearly, has less to do with real hyenas than the context in which they are generally depicted, the misinformation that circulates about their habits and - as with rats and bats - the things they are associated it."
"Real hyenas, unknown to most of us, are far more diverse and fascinating that the dull, one-dimensional creatures most people think of when they hear the word 'hyena'. Spotted hyenas are courageous and intelligent; striped hyenas are quiet and shy; brown hyenas are bold and sociable; aardwolves are gentle and small. They are all strange and remarkable animals with much to teach us. The hyena's night music may be an unusual melody, but for those who choose to listen, it has a secret splendour all its own."
"It seems likely that the image of spotted hyenas as "cowardly scavengers" is fundamental to their reputational problems … It is also of particular interest that the prejudice was so powerful it clouded the perception of otherwise knowledgeable people (like Roosevelt and Heller) to what was happening in front of their eyes. When they came upon hyenas feeding at a carcass, they merely assumed that the animal had originally been killed by lions or other predators. When they found a cluster of distressed hyenas surrounding some feeding lions, they assumed that the prey had been dispatched by lions and that the hyenas were awaiting their turn to scavenge. When they actually witnessed kills, or observed hyenas fighting to hold their prey against intruding lions, these were assumed to be exceptions, and the reputation of hyenas as cowardly scavengers was maintained."
"As several distinguished authors of the present age have undertaken to reconcile the world to the Great Man-Killer of Modern times; as Aaron Burr has found an apologist, and almost a eulogist; and as learned commentators have recently discovered that even Judas Iscariot was a true disciple, we are rather surprised to find that some one has not undertaken to render the family of Hyenas popular and amiable in the eyes of mankind. Certain it is, that few marked characters in history have suffered more from the malign inventions of prejudice."
"It was funny to M'Cola [my African guide] to see a hyena shot at close range. There was that comic slap of the bullet and the hyena's agitated surprise to find death inside of him. It was funnier to see a hyena shot at a great distance, in the heat shimmer of the plain, to see him go over backwards, to see him start that frantic circle, to see that electric speed that meant he was racing the nickelled death inside him. But . . . the pinnacle of hyenic humor, was the hyena, the classic hyena, that- hit too far back while running, would circle madly, snapping and tearing at himself until he pulled his own intestines out, and then stood there, jerking them out and eating with relish."
"No more than a hyena abandons carrion does a Marxist abandon treason."
"Hyenas are slow in their pace, and altogether inactive; I have often seen a few terriers keep them at bay, and bite them severely by the hind quarters; their jaws are exceedingly strong, and a single bite, without holding on, more than a few seconds, is sufficient to kill any type of dog. They stink horribly, make no earths of their own, but lie under rocks, or resort to the earths of wolves, as foxes do to those of badgers, and it is not uncommon to find wolves and hyenas in the same bed of earths."
"Feet that make no noise; eyes that can see in the dark; ears that can hear the winds in their lairs, and sharp white teeth, all these things are the marks of our brothers except Tabaqui the Jackal and the Hyaena whom we hate."
"There is a magic about hyaenas which can only be understood by those of us who have watched them, for some time. There is now a growing band of us, who came to the African bush with all our prejudices, with all that 'common knowledge' about hyaenas which proved so totally wrong, and who just fell for the spell of animals which were so totally different."
"Why we should so despise scavenging is not clear, since it is a lifestyle at which our own ancestors were adept. In addition, like many popular images, that of hyaenas is distorted. It is not, and never has been, true that the Hyaenidae is a family distinguished by scavenging. Of the four species alive today - the Aardwolf and the Spotted, Striped and Brown Hyaenas - only the latter two are full-time scavengers. Furthermore, members of all eight Carnivore families will scavenge given the chance, and many make a living from it."
"The Magi have held in the highest admiration the hyaena of all animals, seeing that they have attributed even to an animal; magical skill and power, by which it takes away the senses and entices men to itself."
"Hyaenas have earned a reputation for cowardice, due partly to the caution they exhibit in refraining from attacking other animals that might hurt them, partly to their fear of man,and to their offering no resistance when pursued and speared on horseback, a method of assault they can have no instinct to deal with. But in their favour it may be pointed out there are records of a single hyaena driving a panther from its "kill"."
"In the dark night the deep bass of the hyena is heard ; and then it laughs aloud, in a weird, shrill, shrieking treble. This laugh, seldom uttered, but when heard making one's heart shudder, is not a thing to forget ; on feverish nights it plagues one still in memory. No one need jest about it who has not himself heard it. He who has heard it understands how the Arabs take the hyenas to be wicked men living under a spell."
"It has always appeared to me that the qualities and characteristics of the African spotted hyaena have met with somewhat scant recognition at the hands of writers on sport, travel, and natural history, for this animal is usually tersely described as a cowardly, skulking brite, and then dismissed with a few contemptuous words. Yet I think that the spotted hyaena of Africa is quite as dangerous and destructive an animal as the wolf of North America, which is usually treated with respect, sometimes with sympathy, by its biographers, though I cannot see that wolves are in any way nobler in character than hyaenas. Both breeds roam abroad by night, ever crafty, fierce, and hungry, and both will be equally ready to tear open the graves and devour the flesh of human beings, should the oppurtunity present itself, whether on the shores of the Arctic Sea, where men's skins are yellow brown, or beneath the shadow of the Southern Cross, where they are sooty black. There is nothing really noble, though much that is interesting, in the nature of either wolves or hyaenas, but neither of these animals ought to be despised."
"I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry. I will laugh like a hyena, and that when thou art inclined to sleep."
"The ewe with its lambs expresses deep affection."
"The shepherd adorns the plain with his ewes and lambs."
"Mary had a little lamb Its fleece was white as snow, And everywhere that Mary went The lamb was sure to go."
"A is a biting beast."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism while the wolf remains of a different opinion."
"She walks — the lady of my delight — A shepherdess of sheep. Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She guards them from the steep. She feeds them on the fragrant height, And folds them in for sleep."
"Sheep run to the slaughterhouse, silent and hopeless, but at least sheep never vote for the butcher who kills them or the people who devour them. More beastly than any beast, more sheepish than any sheep, the voter names his own executioner and chooses his own devourer, and for this precious "right" a revolution was fought."
"[It] is better to live one single day as a lion than a hundred years as a sheep E' meglio vivere un giorno da leone che cent'anni da pecora"
"My sheep were straying on all the mountains and on every high hill; my sheep were scattered over all the surface of the earth, with no one searching for them or seeking to find them."
"I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves."
"What man shall there be among you, that shall have one sheep, and if it fall into a pit on the sabbath day, will he not lay hold on it, and lift it out? How much then is a man better than a sheep? Wherefore it is lawful to do well on the sabbath days."
"If a man have an hundred sheep, and one of them be gone astray, doth he not leave the ninety and nine, and goeth into the mountains, and seeketh that which is gone astray? And if so be that he find it, verily I say unto you, he rejoiceth more of that sheep, than of the ninety and nine which went not astray."
"When the son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory: And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink? When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee? Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee? And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me."
"These are the ones who did not defile themselves with women; in fact, they are virgins. These are the ones who keep following the Lamb no matter where he goes. These were bought from among mankind as firstfruits to God and to the Lamb."
"An army of sheep led by a lion is better than an army of lions led by a sheep."
"Hannibal Lecter: I will listen now. After your father's murder, you were orphaned. You were ten years old. You went to live with cousins on a sheep and horse ranch in Montana. And...?"
"Mad Hatter: Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at! Up above the world you fly, Like a tea tray in the sky. Twinkle, twinkle, little bat! How I wonder what you're at!"
"Criminals are a superstitious cowardly lot, so my disguise must be able to strike terror into their hearts. I must be a creature of the night, black, terrible... a... a... [...] a bat! That's it! It's an omen... I shall become a bat!"
"I assume we all believe that bats have experience. After all, they are mammals, and there is no more doubt that they have experience than that mice or pigeons or whales have experience. I have chosen bats instead of wasps or flounders because if one travels too far down the phylogenetic tree, people gradually shed their faith that there is experience there at all. Bats, although more closely related to us than those other species, nevertheless present a range of activity and a sensory apparatus so different from ours that the problem I want to pose is exceptionally vivid (though it certainly could be raised with other species). Even without the benefit of philosophical reflection, anyone who has spent some time in an enclosed space with an excited bat knows what it is to encounter a fundamentally alien form of life."
"I was much entertained last summer with a tame bat, which would take flies out of a person's hand. If you gave it anything to eat, it brought its wings round before the mouth, hovering and hiding its head in the manner of when they feed. The adroitness it shewed in shearing off the wings of flies, which were always rejected, was worthy of observation, and pleased me much. Insects seemed to be most acceptable, though it did not refuse raw flesh when offered: so that the notion, that bats go down chimneys and gnaw men's bacon, seems no improbable story. While I amused myself with this wonderful quadruped, I saw it several times confute the vulgar opinion, that bats, when down on a flat surface, cannot get on the wing again, by rising with great ease from the floor. It ran, I observed, with more despatch than I was aware of; but in a most ridiculous and grotesque manner."
"The sun was set; the night came on apace, And falling dews bewet around the place; The bat takes airy rounds on leathern wings, And the hoarse owl his woeful dirges sings."
"Far different there from all that charm'd before, The various terrors of that horrid shore; * * * * * * Those matted woods where birds forget to sing. But silent bats in drowsy clusters cling."
"Ere the bat hath flown His cloister'd flight."
"On the bat's back I do fly After summer merrily."
"Man is a great blunderer going about in the woods, and there is no other except the bear makes so much noise."
"Not unlike the bear which bringeth forth In the end of thirty dayes a shapeless birth; But after licking, it in shape she drawes, And by degrees she fashions out the pawes, The head, and neck, and finally doth bring To a perfect beast that first deformed thing."
"He who shareth honey with the bear hath the least part of it."
"The grizzly bear is huge and wild; He has devoured the infant child. The infant child is not aware He has been eaten by the bear."
"Make ye no truce with Adam-zad—the Bear that walks like a man."
"When the Himalayan peasant meets the he-bear in his pride, He shouts to scare the monster, who will often turn aside. But the she-bear thus accosted rends the peasant tooth and nail. For the female of the species is more deadly than the male."
"The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators."
"Magnificent bears of the Sierra are worthy of their magnificent homes. They are not companions of men, but children of God, and His charity is broad enough for bears. They are the objects of His tender keeping."
"Bears are made of the same dust as we, and breathe the same winds and drink of the same waters. A bear's days are warmed by the same sun, his dwellings are overdomed by the same blue sky, and his life turns and ebbs with heart-pulsings like ours, and was poured from the same First Fountain. And whether he at last goes to our stingy heaven or no, he has terrestrial immortality. His life not long, not short, knows no beginning, no ending."
"I have camped where the grizzly bears were plentiful. It is nice that they are on the planet and all that, but I prefer my grizzlies shy, not too hungry, and far enough away to be picturesque."
"The bears are just being bears. We are way more of a threat to them. Bear attacks are so rare. And fatalities are even rarer. The bears' lives are more at threat than ours in encounters."
"Some days you get the bear. Some days the bear gets you."
"In the night, imagining some fear, How often is a bush suppos'd a bear?"
"O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear!"
"This is the chase: I am gone for ever. [Exit, pursued by a bear.]"
"(After scaring a bear by roaring at it) Yeah, that's right! Keep running, Boo-Boo! Overgrown furball."
"Bears kill bees! How'd you like his big, hairy head crashing through your living room?! Bitin' into your couch! Spittin' out your throw pillows! Rawr, rawr! [to the specialist] Okay, that's enough. Take him away."
"And he went up from thence unto : and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them."
"The LORD that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine."
"All you gotta do is to use your instincts. How do you think a tiger knows how to tackle a gazelle? It's written, it's code written in their DNA, says "Tackle the gazelle." Believe it or not, in every man there's a code written that says "Tackle drunk bitches.""
"Norville Barnes: That kind of person would come back as a wildebeest, or a warthog. No, I think it more likely that you were a gazelle, with long, graceful legs, gamboling through the underbrush. Perhaps we met once, a chance encounter in a forest glade. I must have been an antelope or an ibex. What times we must have had. Foraging together for sustenance, snorfling water from a forest stream, picking the grubs and burrs from one another's coats. Or perhaps we simply touched our horns briefly and went our separate ways. Amy Archer: I wish it were that simple, Norville. I wish I was still a gazelle, and you were an antelope or an ibex. Norville Barnes: Well, can I at least call you deer?"
"Then, cleaving the grass, gazelles appear (The gentler dolphins of kindlier waves) With sensitive heads alert of ear; Frail crowds that a delicate hearing saves."
"I never nursed a dear Gazelle to glad me with its soft black eye, but when it came to know me well, and love me, it was sure to marry a market-gardener."
"The gazelles so gentle and clever Skip lightly in frolicsome mood."
"I never nurs'd a dear gazelle, To glad me with its soft black eye, But when it came to know me well And love me, it was sure to die."
"I never had a piece of toast particularly long and wide, But fell upon the sanded floor, And always on the buttered side."
"John Joven: Where Is The Rabbit? Frank Donaldson: Who aren’t you’re wears that’s stupidity hum an suitable?"
"A certain man had one pair of rabbits together in a certain enclosed place, and one wishes to know how many are created from the pair in one year when it is the nature of them in a single month to bear another pair, and in the second month those born to bear also. Because the abovewritten pair in the first month bore, you will double it; there will be two pairs in one month. One of these, namely the first, bears in the second month, and thus there are in the second month 3 pairs; of these in one month two are pregnant, and in the third month 2 pairs of rabbits are born, and thus there are 5 pairs in the month; in this month 3 pairs are pregnant, and in the fourth month there are 8 pairs, of which 5 pairs bear another 5 pairs; these are added to the 8 pairs making 13 pairs in the fifth month; these 5 pairs that are born in this month do not mate in this month, but another 8 pairs are pregnant, and thus there are in the sixth month 21 pairs; to these are added the 13 pairs that are born in the seventh month; there will be 34 pairs in this month; to this are added the 21 pairs that are born in the eighth month; there will be 55 pairs in this month; to these are added the 34 pairs that are born in the ninth month; there will be 89 pairs in this month; to these are added again the 55 pairs that are born in the tenth month; there will be 144 pairs in this month; to these are added again the 89 pairs that are born in the eleventh month; there will be 233 pairs in this month. To these are still added the 144 pairs that are born in the last month; there will be 377 pairs, and this many pairs are produced from the abovewritten pair in the mentioned place at the end of the one year. You can indeed see in the margin how we operated, namely that we added the first number to the second, namely the 1 to the 2, and the second to the third, and the third to the fourth, and the fourth to the fifth, and thus one after another until we added the tenth to the eleventh, namely the 144 to the 233, and we had the abovewritten sum of rabbits, namely 377, and thus you can in order find it for an unending number of months."
"If carrots got you drunk, rabbits would be fucked up."
"Tim the Enchanter: There he is! King Arthur: Where? Tim: There! King Arthur: What? Behind the rabbit? Tim: It is the rabbit! King Arthur: You silly sod! Tim: What? King Arthur: You got us all worked up! Tim: Well, that's no ordinary rabbit. King Arthur: Ohh. Tim: That's the most foul, cruel, and bad-tempered rodent you ever set eyes on! Sir Robin the Not-Quite-So-Brave-as-Sir Lancelot: You tit! I soiled my armor I was so scared! Tim: Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer! Sir Galahad the Pure: Get stuffed! Tim: He'll do you up a treat, mate. Sir Galahad: Oh, yeah? Sir Robin: You manky Scots git! Tim: I'm warning you! Sir Robin: What's he do? Nibble your bum? Tim: He's got huge, sharp... er... He can leap about. Look at the bones! King Arthur: Go on, Bors. Chop his head off! Sir Bors: Right! Silly little bleeder. One rabbit stew comin' right up!"
"A bear and a rabbit were taking a shit in the woods. The bear turns to the rabbit and says, "Excuse me, do you have problems with shit sticking to your fur?" And the rabbit says, "No." So the bear wiped his ass with the rabbit."
"If you give a rabbit a carrot with the green top still on it, it will disregard the carrot part and eat just the top. It'll be like, "What's this orange shit?""
"There is no Easter Bunny, there is no Tooth Fairy and there is no Queen of England."
"And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then. And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?" And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust." And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers!""
"Does anyone know an effective way of keeping rabbits out of a garden that does not involve building a fence? I have tried that already, but the rabbit will not sit still long enough for me to get the fence all the way around him."
"Thou didst bring a vine out of Egypt; thou didst drive out the nations and plant it. ... Why then hast thou broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit? The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it."
"He slew That cruel boare, whose tusks turn'd up whole fields of grain, And rooting, raisèd hills upon the level plaine."
"Wild boars are usually notoriously wary of humans, for good reason, having been hunted almost to extinction in some parts of the world and despised and feared just about everywhere else."
"A cane non magno sæpe tenetur aper."
"His snout digs sepulchres where'er he goes; Being mov'd, he strikes whate'er is in his way, And whom he strikes his cruel tushes slay."
"But this foul, grim, urchin-snouted boar..."
"To fly the boar before the boar pursues Were to incense the boar to follow us, And make pursuit where he did mean no chase."
"General Howe turned out some German wild boars and sows in his forests, to the great terror of the neighbourhood ... but the country rose upon them and destroyed them."
"The calf, the young lion, and the fattened calf [will live] together; and a little child will lead them."
"[About the trauma of the cows when they are separated from their calves] By proceeding in this manner, you empty the world of both the mother and the very young animal; you provoke extremely intense suffering, true despair. These are not nociceptive pathways that are stimulated here, but mental representations that are affected. Both cow and calf have been deprived of what made sense for them."
"I noticed this truck full of calves and bonded with one in particular, who kept kissing me. After about an hour the truck driver came out of the restaurant. I asked him what the calf's name was, and he said, "Veal, tomorrow morning by 7 o'clock." That was it: I could no longer disassociate the creature from what was on my plate."
"The very saddest sound in all my memory was burned into my awareness at age five on my uncle's dairy farm in Wisconsin. A cow had given birth to a beautiful male calf. The mother was allowed to nurse her calf but for a single night. On the second day after birth, my uncle took the calf from the mother and placed him in the veal pen in the barn—only ten yards away, in plain view of the mother. The mother cow could see her infant, smell him, hear him, but could not touch him, comfort him, or nurse him. The heartrending bellows that she poured forth—minute after minute, hour after hour, for five long days—were excruciating to listen to. They are the most poignant and painful auditory memories I carry in my brain. Since that age, whenever I hear anyone postulate that animals cannot really feel emotions, I need only to replay that torturous sound in my memory of that mother cow crying her bovine heart out to her infant."
"No cow gives milk unless she gets pregnant and gives birth to a calf. (I remember one dairy farmer I visited insisting that the cow would be in pain unless she was milked; true, but only because she had just given birth to a calf who was no longer present.) The milk is meant for the calf. … But our greed is greater than any reasonable person could expect: we do not allow the calf even the small amount he or she would normally take in a day. We want it all. So the calf is separated from the cow immediately upon birth. The industry says this must happen instantaneously, for otherwise there is a risk—no, it is a certainty—that the two will bond. In fact, they have already bonded, just as much as would a human mother with her baby. The strong bond is inborn in all mammals. The terrible sound one hears on any dairy farm after a cow has given birth is the call of a lost calf, calling her mother, and the mother answering in desperation. If that is not suffering, I don't know the meaning of the word."
"Of two men sharing with a calf the milk of that calf's mother one eyes the calf with the thought that his tender flesh would provide good meat for him and his friends to feast upon at his approaching birthday. The other thinks of the calf as his brother of the teat and is filled with affection for the young beast and his mother. I say to you, the latter is truly nourished by that calf's meat; while the first is poisoned thereby. Aye, many things are put in the belly that should be put in the heart."
"Calves are notorious for their friskiness. We all have seen these boisterous youngsters gamboling across spacious pastures, their tender muscles firming up to support their increasing weight. Not so the calves raised in veal crates. The conditions of their confinement ensure that their muscles will remain limp so their flesh retains the degree of tenderness that, according to the Journal, “fulfill(s) the customers' requirement.”"
"The young calves sorely miss their mothers. They also miss something to suck on. The urge to suck is strong in a baby calf, as it is in a baby human. These calves have no teat to suck on, nor do they have any substitute. From their first day in confinement—which may well be only the third or fourth day of their lives—they drink from a plastic bucket. Attempts have been made to feed calves through artificial teats, but the task of keeping the teats clean and sterile is apparently not worth the producer's trouble. It is common to see calves frantically trying to suck some part of their stalls, although there is usually nothing suitable; and if you offer a veal calf your finger you will find that he immediately begins to suck on it, as human babies suck their thumbs. Later the calf develops a need to ruminate—that is, to take in roughage and chew the cud. But roughage is strictly forbidden because it contains iron and will darken the flesh, so, again, the calf may resort to vain attempts to chew the sides of his stall. Digestive disorders, including stomach ulcers, are common in veal calves. So is chronic diarrhea."
"The tests used on Geronimo were developed for use on alpacas and are highly specific – the chances of a false positive are significantly less than one percent and we have tested him twice. Not just for the benefit of our farming industry but to avoid more TB cases in humans, our disease control measures must be applied."
"how the fuck did seals happen? like how did dog and fish get fucked into one."
"Seals are the 'sentinels' of fish health in the twilight zone."
"Come over here!"
"Get out of there!"
"Hello, there!"
"Hi! How are you?"
"By separating the meaning of the Vedic varana from the classical one, Roth allowed himself to be led to believe that the elephant was still foreign to the songs of the Rigveda. If this statement were correct, the Vedic Indians would not have been Indians at all, for the elephant is inseparable from India. But as shown, it is erroneous."
"Child of a double birth he grasps at triple food; in the year's course what he hath swallowed grows anew. He, by another's mouth and tongue a noble Bull, with other, as an elephant, consumes the trees."
"Mighty, with wondrous power and marvellously bright, selfstrong like mountains, ye glide swiftly on your way. Like the wild elephants ye eat the forests up when ye assume your strength among the bright red flames."
"What time thou settest near the Sun thy body, thy form, Immortal One, is seen expanding: Thou a wild elephant with might invested. like a dread lion as thou wieldest weapons."
"As a wild elephant rushes on this way and that way, mad with heat,' None may compel thee, yet come hither to the draught: thou movest mighty in thy power."
"Even as hunters follow two wild elephants, we with oblations call you down at morn and eve. To folk who pay you offierings at appointed times, Chiefs, Lords of splendour, ye bring food to strengthen them."
"There also be many Beasts, that be clept Orafles. In Arabia, they be clept Gerfaunts. That is a dappled or spotted Beast, that is but a little more high than is a Steed, but he hath the Neck a twenty Cubits long; and his Croup and his Tail be as of an Hart; and he may look over a great high House."
"Giraffes!—a People Who live between the earth and skies, Each in his lone religious steeple, Keeping a light-house with his eyes."
"It was on during the latter part of the 19th century that Henry Evans conducted careful studies on . His were the first researches of a scientific character on these animals."
"... , which were deliberately stocked in the s, boosted the ’s image because they were exotic imports. They also made good decorations—they tended to stick together in large herds, a picturesque scene when observed from afar by the lord and his attendants."
"... Under the boughs and in the thickets the stags can lie perfectly unseen; and the , too, is high enough to hide them if lying down. In June the deer spend the whole of the day in the covers out of the heat. At this time they are more shy than at any other, both stags and hinds retiring out of sight. The stags' antlers are as yet only partially grown, and while these weapons are soft and tender they conceal themselves. The hinds have their calves only recently dropped, or are about to calve, and consequently keep in the thickest woods. One might walk across the entire width of the , and not see a single deer, and yet be in the midst of them ..."
"Man has had a long history of association with the deer family — economic, religious, aesthetic and social. Deer are widely distributed throughout the north-temperate zones of the world, extending into the tropics in Asia and South and Central America. Throughout this range they were the major food species for man the hunter. As, in Africa, the hunter-gatherer economy relied heavily on exploitation of antelope, so, in other areas, the various deer species provided the main source of meat, hides and other products: sinews for sewing or twine, antlers for picks and other tools, etc. So fundamental were the deer to the subsistence of these people, so deeply interwoven with their whole life style, that they were endowed with mystical, magical properties, and became an integral part not only of man's secular existence but of his spiritual world as well. In extreme cases the relationship became so intimate, and human populations became so dependent on one particular species — as the of the far north of Scandinavia — that the situation developed into of complete social parasitism: one organised population relying entirely upon one other."
"White-tailed deer are adaptable and prolific animals equipped with keen survival instincts (Halls 1984). Major predators such as the and have been extirpated from much of the deer’s range (Cote and others 2004; Rooney and Waller 2003). Because of human intervention, the range of the whitetail has actually expanded to include offshore islands, such as , , where seven deer introduced in 1967 grew to a herd of 700 deer by 1994 (Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Division of Fish and Wildlife 2007). In addition to the food sources available to them in forests, deer have successfully exploited the human-altered environment, feeding in agricultural fields, orchards, roadsides, lawns, and gardens."
"The average lifespan of a white-tailed deer is about twelve years, but both wild and captive deer have lived to be twenty-three years old."
"In February a new track appears upon the snow, slender and delicate, about a third larger than that of the , indicating no haste or speed, but, on the contrary, denoting the most imperturbable ease and leisure, the footprints so close together that the trail appears like a chain of curiously carved links. Sir , or, in plain English, the skunk, has waked up from his six weeks' nap, and come out into society again. He is a nocturnal traveler, very bold and impudent, coming quite up to the barn and outbuildings, and sometimes taking up his quarters for the season under the haymow. There is no such word as hurry in his dictionary, as you may see by his path upon the snow. He has a very sneaking, insinuating way, and goes creeping about the fields and woods, never once in a perceptible degree altering his gait, and, if a fence crosses his course, steers for a break or opening to avoid climbing. He is too indolent even to dig his own hole, but appropriates that of a , or hunts out a crevice in the rocks, from which he extends his rambling in all directions, preferring damp, thawy weather."
"The skunk ... is represented by four species in North America. The skunk has short, stocky legs and proportionately large feet equipped with well-developed claws that enable it to be very adept at digging. The ... is characterized by prominent, lateral white stripes that run down its back. Its fur is otherwise jet black. Striped skunks are the most abundant of the four species. The body of the striped skunk is about the size of an ordinary house cat (up to 29 inches [74 cm] long and weighing about 8 pounds [3.6 kg] ). The ... is smaller (up to 21 inches [54 cm] long and weighing about 2.2 pounds [1 kg]), more weasel- like, and is readily distinguishable by white spots and short, broken white stripes in a dense jet-black coat."
"January Thaw Each year, after the midwinter s, there comes a night of thaw when the tinkle of dripping water is heard in the land. It brings strange stirrings, not only to creatures abed for the night, but to some who have been asleep for the winter. The hibernating skunk, curled up in his deep den, uncurls himself and ventures forth to prowl the wet world, dragging his belly in the snow. His track marks one of the earliest datable events in that cycles of beginnings and ceasings which we call a year."
"Like most 'exotics', pet skunks aren't for everyone, and skunk owners are likely the first to say this. Unlike dogs or cats, s bred in captivity are not particularly suited to the constraints and expectations of human family life. Baby skunks are often sold as young as four to six weeks by licensed breeders to individuals and to s in states like Indiana, Ohio and Florida, where it is legal to do so. Pet stores must have federal permits to sell the animals, and peak sale time is in June, shortly after the kits have been born. Many pet skunks live as members of the household, alongside other s, though for obvious reasons they would pose a danger to small rodents. According to some, skunks can be 'corner-trained', meaning that owners can place a box of unscented cat litter in the spot where a skunk chooses to relieve himself. But skunks have minds of their own and are likely to do what they want wherever they see fit. Pet owners who understand their active charges appreciate that skunks are determined and headstrong. Despite 'domestication', pet skunks retain the needs and desires of their wild counterparts, like digging, clawing and biting. Most pet skunks are de-scented as kits, since a fully loaded pet skunk is not for the faint-hearted."
"The skunks are a nuisance in more ways than one. They are stupid, familiar beasts, with a great predilection for visiting camps, and the shacks or huts of the settlers, to pick up any scraps of meat that may be lying round. I have time and again known a skunk to actually spend several hours of the night in perseveringly digging a hole underneath the logs of a hut, so as to get inside among the inmates. The animal then hunts about among them, and of course no one will willingly molest it; and has often been known to deliberately settle down upon and begin to eat one of the sleepers. The strange and terrible thing about these attacks is that in certain districts and at certain times the bite of the skunk is surely fatal, producing ; and many cowmen, soldiers, and hunters have annually died from this cause. There is no wild beast in the West, no matter what its size and ferocity, so dreaded by old plainsmen as this seemingly harmless little beast."
"a fox knows many things, but a hedgehog knows one big thing"
"s, s ... , s, and s form a single, natural group of small mammals, the Order . ... Shared morphological characters include a simple without a , typically long narrow snouts, and reduced to absent eyes. However, the lack of unique derived characters has convinced many zoologists that they resemble the basic stock that gave rise to most n lineages."
"If I pass during some nocturnal blackness, mothy and warm, When the hedgehog travels furtively over the lawn, One may say, "He strove that such innocent creatures should come to no harm, But he could do little for them; and now he is gone.""
"The easiest way to make his acquaintance in the wild state is to be in the wood towards the close of twilight, when, any fine summer evening, the sound of his rustling among the herbage, accompanied by a continuous and often loud sniffing in his eager search for prey, soon guides one to the little animal's presence. At such times he is far less addicted than when seen by daylight to the provoking practice of rolling himself up in his prickly coat of armor; and it can be sen that, instead of an erect mass of prickles, the Hedgehog, who unalarmed, wears a smooth coat, the spines lying like ordinary hairs along his back and sides. Trusting, no doubt, to the fact that his refuge can be instantaneously assumed, he shows a boldness towards human observers that would be impossible in the case of any other wild mammal; everything he approaches is examined at close quarters, and if you stand still he is not at all likely to pass you without thrusting his snout under the instep of your book, evidently hoping that some or have made a retreat to so convenient a crevice. With all his boldness, he likes close concealment by day, and retires to rest as a rule, before sunrise—often down rabbit burrows, or under the shelter of a thick -covert."
"... The Hedgehog hibernates in winter; rolling himself up in some grassy hedge bottom, with leaves, grass, and moss, he seems to sleep winter unconsciously away. ... the Hedgehog destroys a very troublesome weed, viz., the , beneath which it burrows, and devours the root upwards to the leaves, than which there could hardly be devised a more certain method of extirpation ..."
"... hedgehogs are low-maintenance pets compared to more traditional animals like dogs or cats. They thrive in small, well-prepared spaces and have relatively simple dietary needs, making them ideal for individuals living in apartments or homes with limited space. Their quiet and independent nature further adds to their appeal, as they require less attention and interaction than some other pets while still forming a bond with their owners. Hedgehogs also boast a fascinating array of natural behaviors that are delightful to observe. Whether they’re exploring their environment, foraging for food, or curling into a tight ball for a nap, their antics never fail to entertain. Their nocturnal habits mean they’re most active in the evening, providing the perfect opportunity for owners to unwind after a long day while watching their pet’s playful adventures."
"analysed the stomachs of 137 dead hedgehogs and found that in 73% were the remains of beetles. Next most popular items were s, s, s and s. Of course, hedgehogs are famous for eating , and they were the next most populous content, at 23%. These were hedgehogs that had been killed by s and reflected the diet of hedgehogs on the land they were found."
"Lowland tapir consumed on average 33% fruit, which is relatively high for a large non-ruminant ungulate. The fruit portion of lowland tapir diets was dominated by the nutritious ' () s, which were selected by tapir more frequently than other fruit types. M. flexuosa palms grow in virtually monotypic stands and occur in larger patches than other fruit trees used by terrestrial herbivores of the Amazon."
"Of the extant lineages of s, tapirs have the poorest and least understood fossil record. Both molecular and morphological data agree that the tapirs and rhinoceroses are more closely related to each other than to horses ..., and the superfamilies and are combined as Ceratomorpha. ... While the fossil record of horses and rhinoceroses is notable for its diversity and illustration of evolutionary trends, tapirs and their fossil relatives are more notable for their conservatism. Both living and fossil tapirs typically inhabit or have inhabited warm, closed canopy forests, not unlike the earliest perissodactyls. However, tapir evolution shows many of the same trends as that of horses and rhinos, including increases in body size and premolars that increasingly resemble molars (i.e. premolar molarisation)."
"The short-legged, barrel-bodied tapirs live exclusively in the dense jungles of Central and South America and southeast Asia, where they browse on leaves with their flexible . Tapirs are solitary, ranging over a wide area of jungle, swimming rivers with ease, and even climbing mountainsides. They swim to feed, cool themselves off, and rid themselves of skin parasites, as well as seek refuge in water, where they can stay submerged for several minutes. They follow well-established routes in the jungle and even make tunnel-like trails through the vegetaton, which they mark with urine during their daily routine. They browse leaves or green shoots, as welll as soft twigs, fruites, grasses and aquatic vegetation. They follow a zigzag course while feeding, moving continously and taking only a few leaves from each plant."
"The head is not unlike that of a horse, but the upper lip much longer, projecting something like the proboscis of an elephant, and is also moveable, but too short to be of much use, as is the trunk of that animal; the ears are short, the tusks strong, and sometimes visible, the mane is bristly and erect, the limbs are low and strong, with a hoof divided into four claws, and the tail is thick and short like that of the elephant. The skin of this creature is excessively thick, of a brown colour, and when young it is marked with white spots, like those of the or , proceeding in longitudinal rows. It feeds on grass, and other herbs that grow in watery places, and is so shy, that when alarmed by the smallest noise it plunges under waster, also like the paca, for security, where it remains for a considerable time. The flesh of the tapira is delicate, being accounted superior to the best ox-beef."
"There are some few still more extraordinary cases in which the species of one genus are separated in remote continents or islands. The most striking of these is that of the tapirs, forming the genus ', of which there are two or three species in South America, and one very distinct species in and , separated by nearly half the circumference of the globe."
"What’s a raccoon?"
"I’ll be seeing you soon, ringtail."