Oropus

“ They have life, warmth, and colour; but the colours, we can hardly doubt, are heightened unduly. The lights are too high, 68the shadows too deep. We cannot believe that the population of Oropus consisted exclusively of cut-throats and custom-house officers; that the farmers of Tanagra were all bluff and virtuous; that none but good men struggling nobly with adversity resided at Chalcis; that no lawsuit at Thebes ever lasted less than thirty years. The writer, it is plain, has exaggerated for the sake of literary effect. ”

“ Except at the very northern extremity, where the fortified town of Oropus guarded an easy boundary, all the frontier consists not merely of steep mountains, but of parallel and intersecting ridges and gorges, which contain indeed a few alpine valleys, such as that of Œnoe, but which are, as a rule, wild and barren, easily defensible by a few against many, and totally unfit for the site of any considerable town, or any advanced culture. ”

“ He’s getting a good temper worked up. Off he goes at a full gallop, right toward the Moropus. It’s hard to believe that an animal as big as that pig could charge so fast. And look at the Moropus! He’s finally realized in his dim way that he’s about to be attacked. Up he goes on his hind legs, holding his front legs out ready for a downward blow with all eight claws. But suddenly Dinohyus shifts his course just slightly, lets out another loud bellow as he avoids the Moropus, and thunders off toward the open prairie. ”

“ Other animals move aside as Moropus strides through the grass. He’s a browser, an occasional grass-eater, and even a digger of easily accessible roots and tubers. Like his cousins the rhinos, he isn’t at all bright, and he has a very 30 short temper. When he’s annoyed, he kicks out with those claws and every animal with good sense leaves him alone. He’s respected by meat-eaters and plant-eaters alike. He walks by himself and everything else detours around him.
Dinohyus ”

“ It was an octopus, which had been so ill-advised as to leave its customary home among the rocks of the bottom and seek new feeding-grounds. Before it had time even to attempt escape, the great jaws of the “killer” engulfed it. For one moment its eight long tentacles writhed desperately, clutching at its captor’s lips. Then they vanished, sucked in and swallowed at a gulp. Thereupon the orca sailed leisurely back to the sunlit surface, met on her way up by her anxious calf, which had not been quite quick enough to follow its mother’s lightning descent. ”

“ Toward evening it quits this hiding-place and begins to move about, advancing either by leaps, or else with an unsteady gait, walking nearly always on the extremities of its digits. Whatever may have been written heretofore by naturalists, the orycteropus is in fact digitigrade rather than plantigrade. When the animal is walking the head is inclined, the snout nearly touching the ground, the ears laid half-way back, and the tail trailing. From time to time the animal stops to listen: it is guided principally by hearing and smell, and by the same means contrives to escape from its enemies. ”

“ The Oreades, or mountain nymphs, who are the principal and constant companions of Artemis, are tall, graceful maidens, attired as huntresses. They are ardent followers of the chase, and spare neither the gentle deer nor the timid hare, nor indeed any animal they meet with in their rapid course. Wherever their wild hunt goes the shy Napææ are represented as hiding behind the leaves, whilst their favourites, the fawns, kneel tremblingly beside them, looking up beseechingly for protection from the wild huntresses; and even the bold Satyrs dart away at their approach, and seek safety in flight. ”

“ In eastern Africa the negroes, approaching cautiously, kill the orycteropus by a sudden thrust of a lance before it has time to disappear. In Senegal, on the other hand, the animal is caught in iron traps, or hunted with dogs by night. The skin of the animal is thick, and makes good, strong leather. The flesh is by some travelers described as juicy, with a taste like that of pork; according to others it is disgusting, being strongly impregnated with ant-odor. ”

“ The orycteropi are extremely timid: at the slightest noise they try to get underground. If they find no suitable hole or crevice, then they quickly dig for themselves a hiding-place. The late J. Verreaux, who had many a time observed orycteropi at the Cape, has told me of how, having once seized by the tail one of them when it had got but half of its body underground, he could not get the animal out except by having the ground dug to a considerable depth. ”

“ The two men followed her eyes, and saw an oriole's nest, hanging like a pocket from the top twigs of the tree.
The old opossum saw it too, and uttered a sharp cry which brought all the little ones running helter-skelter from their game in the dead leaves. Some tucked themselves safely into their mother's pouch, two used her tail as a rope, and lay comfortably down in her hair, while others held on by her neck. When seven or eight had gone to their places, the whole mass began to climb the pawpaw. ”

“ First one and then another sucker takes hold, and the wretched victim is drawn up to the ogre's beak, with no chance of escape.
When one sees the grasping power of even a small Octopus, it is easy to believe that a large one would be a dangerous enemy. The strongest swimmer would stand no chance: those clinging arms could hold two or three men under water. ”

“ Nicolls and Eglington, in the ‘Sportsman in South Africa,’ that the Oribi is even now very common. It also frequents the Transvaal in fair numbers, the Orange Free State, and parts of Matabeleland and Mashonaland. A few specimens are said to have been obtained in Bechuanaland, but it is unknown in the Kalahari Desert, and thence towards the west. The same observers tell us that “in speed the Oribi is very fast, and that it dodges from side to side when it runs in a peculiar manner with a series of leaps and rushes. ”

“ But Aristotle, in the fifth book of his Parts of Animals, where he says that the growth of most fish is very rapid, says, "The orphos also grows to a large fish from a little one with great rapidity; but he is a carnivorous fish, with serrated teeth, and of a solitary disposition. And there is this peculiarity in him, that it cannot be ascertained what means he has of propagating his species, and that he can live a long time after he has been cut in pieces. ”

“ The light from the deck brought out dazzling scintillations from a beach composed of gigantic crystal pebbles as large as ostrich eggs. On the beach and grouped thickly all about our hull, swarmed a legion of creatures which—
Well, they were the brood of Orcon. They were the creatures who had given Ludwig Leider refuge and allied themselves with him in his attempt to make trouble for Earth. And they were half-bird, half-human! Their faces, bodies, arms, and legs were human. ”

“ One kind is never more than two inches long, others are vast monsters. The Octopus is big enough and ugly enough to make one shudder to see him, but the real ogre of the deep is the Giant Cuttle-fish, beside which the Octopus is a tiny mite. ”

“ Among the Antelopes of the same part of the world is the Oryx, or Gemsbok, a very beautiful animal, which has been supposed to give rise to the Unicorn of Sacred writings; "for its long, straight horns, always so exactly cover one another, when viewing them from a distance, that they look like one. They have an erect mane, a long tail, and are like a horse, with the head and hoof of an Antelope. Their bearing is most noble, they are the size of an ass, have black bands about the head, looking like a stall collar. ”

“ The Orehu are water-sprites, female like the mermaids, and they sometimes drag man and canoe down to the depths of their aquatic haunts; yet they are not altogether evil, for Brett tells a story, characteristically American Indian, of the origin of a medicine-mystery. In very ancient times, when the Yauhahu inflicted continual misery on mankind, an Arawak, walking besides the water and brooding over the sad case of his people, beheld an Orehu rise from the stream, bearing in her hand a branch which he planted as she bade him, its fruit being the calabash, till then unknown. ”

“ The teeth are conical, and in the adult have somewhat flattened crowns. The body and tail are very long and snake-like, but the head is that of a typical Lizard.
O. apus s. Pseudopus pallasi, the Glass-Snake of the Balkan Peninsula, South Russia, Asia Minor, and Morocco, grows to more than one yard in length, of which about two-thirds belong to the tail. The general colour is brown above, paler below. Young specimens are olive-grey with dark brown cross-bands on the back. O. gracilis inhabits the Eastern Himalayas and Burmah, the others live in North America. ”

“ It is a heavy, stout animal, with a long bunch tail, and a pair of tapering slender horns, almost perfectly straight, and sweeping back towards the shoulders. It is truly a creature of the open desert plains; and can go for a long time without water. It is bold and dangerous—especially when wounded—and will give battle to the hunter even, it is said, when that hunter chances to be the lion himself!
The true Oryx, or Milk-white Antelope, mentioned by early writers, is a kindred species to the Gemsbok; and is found in Northern Africa—in Sennaar, Nubia, Abyssinia, and Senegal. ”

“ Although, like the two preceding species, the Gambian Oribi has a black tail, its smaller size seems to be sufficient to distinguish it from its congeners. Sir Victor had a water-colour drawing made of this animal by Wolf, from which both the figure published in the Zoological Society’s ‘Proceedings’ and the Plate now given (Plate XXVI.) have been prepared. This typical specimen is now in the British Museum, which has likewise two other young specimens from West Africa, without further details. ”

“ Indeed the whole arrangement of the limbs of Apus with the sensory endites forms an excellent trap to catch prey over which the labrum has passed.
In alcoholic specimens of Apus the labrum is not in a horizontal plane, as it is in most well preserved trilobites, but is tipped down at an angle of from 30 to 45, and the big mandibles lie under it. It has considerable freedom of motion and is held in place by muscles which run forward and join the under side of the head near its posterior margin. ”

“ It is very remarkable that an animal so large, so peculiar, and of such a high type of form as the Orangutan, should be confined to so limited a district—to two islands, and those almost the last inhabited by the higher Mammalia; for, east of Borneo and Java, the Quadrumania, Ruminants, Carnivora, and many other groups of Mammalia diminish rapidly, and soon entirely disappear. ”

“ In disposition they are gentle and affectionate, exceedingly fond of human beings and take to training like a duck to water. It is a pity the anthropoid (man-like) apes do not live long in captivity. Rarely an Orang is seen 4 feet tall, weighing 150 pounds. Homesickness is the chief cause of their early deaths. ”

“ Ophiuchus struggles with a writhing Serpent, and crushes underfoot the Scorpion, which in turn thrusts at him with its sting; the Hounds, driven on by the Herdsman, continually pursue and harass the Great Bear; the fierce monster of the deep, the Whale, seems eagerly looking for whom he may devour, while the champion Perseus, with drawn sword, stands ever ready to join in mortal combat ”

“ GRAMPUS (Orca gladiator, or Orca orca) , a cetacean belonging to the Delphinidae or dolphin family, characterized by its rounded head without distinct beak, high dorsal fin and large conical teeth. The upper parts are nearly uniform glossy black, and the under parts white, with a strip of the same colour over each eye. ”

“ Though the Oribatidae are all eyeless, they are distinctly sensitive to light, not wandering aimlessly till they reach a shadow, but apparently making straight for a dark spot when subjected to strong illumination. Some species have a curious habit of collecting dirt and débris on their backs, so as entirely to obscure the often very remarkable disposition of the spines and processes with which they are furnished. ”

“ In Orca generally four or five cervical vertebræ are ankylosed as in the cachelots, but in the two species of Orcella only the atlas and axis are joined. "In the killers and ca'ing whales the ribs are transferred to the transverse processes at the seventh dorsal, whilst in Orcella the transference does not take place until the eighth." The skull resembles that of Orca in the breadth of the upper jaw being produced by the maxillaries, whereas in Globicephalus this effect is caused by the premaxillaries. The teeth resemble the killer's. ”

“ Ortalida (18 sp.) , New Mexico to Paraguay, also Tobago.
Oreophasinæ, 1 genus.—Oreophasis (1 sp.) , Guatemala.
It thus appears that the Cracinæ are confined to South America east of the Andes, except one species in Central America; whereas nine Penelopinæ and Oreophasis are found north of Panama. The species of the larger genera are strictly representative, each having its own distinct geographical area, so that two species of the same genus are rarely or never found in the same locality. ”

“ The horns of the male attain to a length of about 5 inches, and are ringed at the base.”
There is a mounted pair of this species in the gallery of the British Museum which formerly belonged to the old “South-African Museum” of Sir Andrew Smith, besides some skins and skulls from the Cape without exact particulars. There is also the skull of an adult male from the Umfili River, Mashonaland, obtained by Mr. F. C. Selous, in the same Collection.
We are not aware that the Oribi has been kept in captivity in the Cape Colony, or ever brought alive to Europe. ”