Bizarre News Flash

+------------- Bizarre Famous People's Pets --------------+

Lord Baden-Powell kept a hyrax (a small nocturnal mammal)
called Hyrie.

Charles Baudelaire kept a bat in a cage on his desk.

Robert Burns was fond of his pet ewe called Poor Mailie.
He even wrote two poems about her.

Lord Byron's pet was a bear. He kept one at Cambridge
University because dogs weren't allowed.

Henrik Ibsen kept a pet scorpion on his desk.

Florence Nightingale kept a small owl in her pocket,
even while serving in the Crimean War.

George Orwell had a goat named Muriel.

Robert Louis Stevenson was the owner of a donkey named
Modestine.

Alfred Lord Tennyson owned a pony named Fanny which used
to pull Tennyson's wife in a wheelchair.

Virginia Woolf kept a marmoset called Mitz.

Sir Ralph Richardson used to ride his motorcycle with
his pet parrot, Jose, on his left shoulder.

***

----------- Pig eats ring off woman's hand --------------

YORK, England - A British grandmother said she is not to
blame for losing her engagement ring -- it was snatched
by a hungry piglet with a taste for diamonds. Anne Moon,
who has worn the ring since her now-husband gave it to
her 30 years ago, said she was petting a 10-week-old Kune
Kune piglet at the Easingwold Maize Maze Farm, near York,
England, when the swine used its mouth to slip off her
beloved jewel, The Sun reported Tuesday. "I've never been
in such close contact with a pig before so I put my hand
out flat to let it have a sniff," she said. "It just
clamped its teeth around the ring and wouldn't let go.
When I found the diamond was gone, I couldn't believe it.
If the pig wasn't so dirty I think we would have put him
in the back of the car and taken him home." Farmer Paul
Caygill, 46, said he has been sifting through the piglet's
droppings, but so far has found no trace of the precious
ring. "I've been looking through the poo to try and find
the ring," he said. Caygill said he hopes Moon doesn't
have too much trouble convincing the insurance company to
believe her story. "It's got to be one of the more unusual
claims someone could put in for," he said.