A Cow-seal Hybrid?

    One of the most unaccountable and highly interesting freaks that has ever been seen in this city was brought here yesterday. It is a monstrosity in the calf line, but it lays the two-headed and six-legged calves in the shade.
    The freak is a calf with the head of a seal and without legs. Mention was made a few months ago in the Standard of such a calf having been born down near Warm Springs [Montana]. The animal was dead, of course. The freak was secured by a man in Anaconda who takes an interest in such things, and he sent it away to a taxidermist, who mounted it and sent it back. It arrived yesterday.
    The freak is about two and one-half feet in length. The rear part of its body is that of a normal calf, being covered with a coat of white and red spotted hair. The tail is also perfect. Where the neck of a young calf usually begins the red and white hair on this freak begins to give way to a hair of brown color. From the shoulders the neck and head of the seal begins. The neck is long and has the graceful contour of the water animals. The head is that of a normal young seal pup. Even the tusks of the seal are seen in embryo. The tusks are covered by a coat of reddish skin, but they are perfectly visible for all that.
    One peculiar feature of this altogether peculiar monstrosity is that it is entirely devoid of legs. Where the legs of an ordinary calf begin there are, on this freak, stumps, the bottoms of which are perfectly smooth and flat. These stumps are covered with the white and red hair. The freak as mounted has its head raised into the air, in the manner of seals when in the water, and the rear portion lies flat. It is altogether a very curious sight.
    The freak ought to prove an interesting study to anatomists and persons who are learned in such matters. The knowledge of the circumstances by which such a phenomenon could be brought forth would be of more than general interest. The theory generally accepted by men who have seen it, is that the cow from which the calf came, a short time prior to its birth, caught sight of a seal, and the sight had such an effect on her mind that it was communicated to her offspring. This theory is in a way substantiated by the fact that a short time prior to the finding of the freak, a circus passed through Deer Lodge Valley which numbered among its menagerie properties a herd of seals. It is probable that the mother of the calf, while gazing at the passing train, saw one of the seals raise its head.

    Rennes, France. April 12—Ferdinand Tessier claims to have more freaks running around his farm than any man in France.
    One of the attractions is a hen with four legs. The extra ones are not as well formed as the ordinary legs, but the hen uses them in scratching.
    He has a rooster with two heads, both of which are perfectly formed. Also there is a calf with a head like a seal. Two rear feet spread out so that they resemble fins.