Last year it was not other animals but a stuffed toy that was behind a big cat sighting.

BBC: Essex lion: Charting the big cats of Britain

Covered in inches of dark shiny sludge is a rich stew: a bicycle, an Ultraman stuffed toy, a fire extinguisher, a bank book.

WSJ: A Nation's Vigil of Hope and Loss

Hours earlier, Fifi was sound asleep in her crate, a red rabbit stuffed toy at her paws, looking like the most docile dog in the world.

WSJ: Banana Joe the affenpinscher wins Westminster

But the minute we arrive home it gets weird: Lamby picks up a stuffed toy in his mouth and shakes it hard, as if to break its neck.

NEWYORKER: A Box of Puppies

Captain Paul O'Connell will have such a massive feeling of pride as he runs down the tunnel clutching the stuffed toy lion each tour has as its mascot.

BBC: Jeremy Guscott column

Everywhere Goodall goes, she carries a stuffed toy chimp named Mr. H as a reminder of both the U.S. Marine who gave it to her in 1996 and, of course, the chimpanzees who also need not to be forgotten.

FORBES: Defying The Odds Of Extinction: 'Chimpanzee,' Jane Goodall And The Gonze Stream

Off to his right, beyond a wooden gate, dozens of stuffed animals and toy cars were stacked neatly on shelves lining the wall, held up as special rewards rather than put out every day as objects for play and learning.

FORBES: Adopting a Crusade

The girl has her abuelo sleep in a toy box, not a coffin, and pads it with stuffed animals.

NEWYORKER: Show The Monster

He punishes his stuffed animals, hurls them against the wall, slices them open raggedly with his blunt toy scissors.

ECONOMIST: New fiction