The pleasing anticipations of the wedded pair are sometimes disappointed and seriously blighted by the birth of a deformed and malformed offspring. Sometimes the child is born with some one or more of the usual members of the body deficient; at others there are births of children possessed with more than the usual members of the body; and in various ways the eccentricities of nature are displayed in the production of the fruits of the womb contrary to the usual construction of the human frame. It would be presumptuous in any finite creature to attempt to give a clear and uncontrovertible reason for these monstrous births. Suffice it to say, that several have at various times been recorded in history; a few of those we shall now introduce to the notice of the reader. We are told by old historians of a monster which was born at Ravenna, in Italy, about the year 1512, which had wings instead of arms; and some peculiar marks on its body. We present the following figure of this singular creature. [Illustration] [Illustration] Another monster was born about the year 1603, which from the account handed down to us, was from the navel upwards like a woman, and the lower parts like those of a beast. The following figure of this curious creature is taken from an ancient record of the subject. This monster appears to approach nearer to the figure of the fabled satyrs than any we have before seen, and may probably have given rise to those fabled monsters. [Illustration: Where children thus are born with hairy coats, Heaven’s wrath unto the kingdom it denotes. ] Another monster was produced, representing a hairy child. It was all covered with hair like a beast. That which rendered it more frightful, was, that its navel was in the place where its nose should stand, and its eyes placed where the mouth should have been; and its mouth placed in the chin. It was of the male kind, and was born in France, in the year 1597, at a town called Arles, in Provence, and lived a few days, frightening all who beheld it. It was looked upon by the superstitious as a forerunner of those desolations which soon afterwards happened to that unhappy kingdom, where men to each other, were more like beasts than human creatures. The foregoing engraving from an old print—with two lines attached—give a clearer idea of the monster than any description of ours. [Illustration]