Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs.
- John Timbs
- Date:
- 1866
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: Strange stories of the animal world : A book of curious contributions to natural history / by John Timbs. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![taking very strongly of the canine features. The face is not much like the usual drawing of a Lion, the nose being pro- longed, like a dog’s, not exactly such as oirr painters make it, though they might learn better at the Zoological Gardens, their idea of majesty being usually shown by making their lions’ faces like old women in night-caps.” The Badger has been the source of more than one error. It is a vulgar notion, still inveterately maintained, by many who have sufficient opportunities of informing themselves better, that the Badger has the two legs on one side shorter than on the other. This is alluded to as a supposed fact by W. Browne, in Britannia's Pastorals, book i. song 4 :— And as that beast hath legs, (which shepherds feare, Ycleep’d a Badger, which our lambs doth teare,) One long, the other short, that when he runs Upon the plains, he halts, but when he wons On craggy rocks, or steepy hills, we see None runs more swift, none easier than he. Drayton also calls him “ the uneven-legged Badger,” and speaks of his halting in Xoah’s Hood. And Lyly says in ]\fidas :— We are not badgers. For our legs are one as long as the other. 8h Thomas Browne, however, corrects the mistake. The popular belief among the peasantry is, that, in running through a ploughed field, the animal always runs vdth his longer legs in the furrow. The 2dermaid fable has been traced. Professor Owen says: “the popular belief in the existence of ‘Mermaids’ has, doubtless, been fostered by the two ‘ herbivorus Cetaceans ’ of Cuvier—tl'ie Manatee and the Dugong. The INIanatees o o](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b28127420_0365.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
