IF THE heat has made you feel tired and lethargic, be consoled. Its effects on humans aren't nearly as bad as the effect it has on the animals in Dublin Zoo.

They're a particular lot: they don't like the weather too cold, they don't like it too warm. Extremes of temperature take away their energy. Result is that during the heat wave they spend the time lying around in corners, dead tired, unsociable, and apparently feeling sorry for themselves.

Worst affected of all are the felines . . . lions and tigers. Glad to get back some of the heat of the tropics? Not a bit of it: they hate it when it's very hot . . .not too surprising when you reflect that their native climates vary a good deal, and that many of them were born in captivity.

It's tough on the Polar bears, used to Arctic temperatures (to say nothing of normal Irish temperatures). They like to lie in the sun but lately it's just been too hot for them.

Brown bears, who are lazy creatures, are also fond of sunning themselves. But their lazy habits make them so fat that they find this weather very tiring. The monkeys are less affected by the heat than some of the other animals.

They stay frisky while the others droop into lethargy . . .though too-hot weather puts them, too, out of sorts.

But the sea lions aren't a bit worried by the heat. Their home is the water, and if it's too hot on the bank, they can always go in for another swim. Cheerful Footnote: Although the hot weather may cause a decline in the animals' spirits, it hasn't affected the healthy appetite of any of them, says Dublin Zoo's Assistant Superintendent Terence Murphy.

Skibbereen and West Carberry Eagle
13 July 1867

Good Old Age

THERE is at present living at Baltimore, a pensioner named Denis Desmond, who has arrived to the age of 94, and is quite robust, so much so, that he walks every month to Skibbereen and back, a distance of 20 miles, to receive his pension.

Another 'jolly tar' living in the same place has seen 101 summers, and he, too, walks up to town to get his pension.

But, more extraordinary, still, there is a man named Abraham Burchel living near Rock Island, 107 years of age, in such good health that he actually 'sows the garden and digs the praties', which occupation we had the pleasure of seeing him at. On conversing with this old gentleman, who, strange to say, has scarcely a grey hair in his head, he said he remembered Skibbereen when it was represented only by a lot of cabins, the same state of affairs existed in Bantry.

Burchel's wife has advanced to the age 97, but she is rather decrepit. . . .

Extraordinary Catch

YESTERDAY, Messrs Robert B Marmion, Wm Clerke, and Henry Clerke, MD, of Dublin, captured at Loughine, with the common gaff, a sun fish weighing no less than two hundred. They were fishing for Pollock, when the sun fish made his appearance close to the boat.

Mr Marmion, with the greatest dexterity, fastened the gaff in his jaw, and in the struggle would have been pulled into the water only for the assistance rendered by Dr Clerke.

The sun fish was then probed with the other two gaffs, and, by means of a robe fastened to the tail, was towed on shore.