freak of nature

plural freaks of nature

1. A monstrosity; a malformation; an abnormal organism.

   Synonyms: aberration, abnormality, anomaly, deformity, freak, monster, mutant, mutation

2. In the variety-show business, a person or an animal on exhibition as showing some strange deviation from nature, such as a bearded woman or an albino.

   He read old almanacs at the book-stalls on the quays, and he began to frequent another café, where more newspapers were taken and his post-prandial demi-tasse cost him a penny extra, and where he used to con the tattered sheets for curious anecdotes, freaks of nature, and strange coincidences.

   1876 July, Henry James, Jr., “The American”, in The Atlantic Monthly: A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics, volume XXXVIII, number CCXXV, Boston, Mass.: H[enry] O[scar] Houghton and Company; New York, N.Y.: Hurd and Houghton; Cambridge, Mass.: The Riverside Press, chapter IV, page 17, column 2