HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSS J P. 



pages of natural history that we propose to deal — with 

 a ciiapter called : "Life under a Stone." Nowastone 

 is regarded by most of us without interest ; it is used 

 in common parlance as the symbol of all that is 

 worthless, all that is dull, hard, or insensible. Yet, 

 the geologists tell us, the mere pebble rolling at our 

 feet may have a history reaching farther back than 

 the history of man. The tale it may unfold is one to 

 which wise men listen with awe and reverence. 



It is not, however, with the stone itself that we 

 have now to do, but with the life beneath it. 

 Shakespeare has told us, in an often-quoted passage, 

 that we may. find "sermons in stones," but it was 

 reserved for a writer of our own day to show us that 

 there were also sermons under them. 



"Did you never," says Oliver Wendell Holmes, 

 in his "Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," "in 

 walking in the fields, come across a large flat stone, 

 which had lain, nobody knows how long, just where 

 you found it, with the grass forming a little hedge, as 

 it were, all round it, close to its edges — and have you 

 not, in obedience to a kind of feeling that told you it 

 had been lying there long enough, insinuated your 

 stick or your foot, or your fingers under its edge and 

 turned it over as a housewife turns a cake, when she 

 says to herself, ' It's done brown enough by this 

 time ' ? What an odd revelation, and what an unfore- 

 seen and unpleasant surprise to a small community, 

 the very existence of which you had not suspected 

 until the sudden dismay and scattering among its 

 members produced by your turning the old stone over ! 

 Blades of grass flattened down, colourless, matted 

 together as if they had been bleached and ironed ; 

 hideous crawling creatures, some of them coleop- 

 terous or horny-shelled — turtle-bugs one wants to call 

 them ; some of them softer, but cunningly spread out 

 and compressed like Lepine watches (Nature never 

 loses a crack or a crevice, mind you, or a joint in a 

 tavern bedstead, but she always has one of her flat- 

 pattern live time-keepers to slide into it) ; black, 

 glossy crickets, with their long filaments sticking out 

 like the whips of four-horse stage coaches ; motion- 

 less, slug-like creatures, young larvae, perhaps more 

 horrible in their pulpy stillness than even in the 

 infernal wriggle of maturity ! But no sooner is the 

 stone turned and the wholesome light of day let upon 

 this pressed and blinded community of creeping 

 things, than all of them which enjoy the luxury of 

 legs — and some of them have a good many— rush 

 round wildly, butting each other and everything in 

 their way, and end in a general stampede for under- 

 ground retreats from the region poisoned by sunshine. 

 Next year you will find the grass growing tall and 

 green where the stone lay ; the ground-bird builds 

 her nest where the beetle had his hole ; the dandelion 

 and the butter-cup are growing there, and the broad 

 fans of insect-angels open and shut over their golden 

 disks, as the rhythmic waves of blissful consciousness 

 pulsate through their glorified being." 



The description is as graphic as are all word- 

 pictures from the same pen, and the subsequent 

 passage — the " sermon " — giving the meaning of the 

 little parable is too pretty to be left unquoted, though 

 it has, perhaps, but little bearing on our subject. 

 " The stone," our author goes on to say, "is ancient 

 error. The grass is human nature borne down and 

 bleached of all its colour by it. The shapes which 

 are found beneath are the crafty beings that thrive in 

 darkness, and the weaker organisms kept helpless by 

 it. He who turns the stone over is whosoever puts 

 the staff of truth to the old lying incubus, no matter 

 whether he do it with a serious face or a laughing 

 one. The next year stands for the coming time. 

 Then shall the nature which had lain blanched and 

 broken rise in its full stature and native hues in the 

 sunshine. Then shall God's minstrels build their 

 nests in the hearts of a new-born humanity. Then 

 shall beauty — Divinity taking outlines and colour — 

 light upon the souls of men, as the butterfly, image of 

 the beatified spirit rising from the dust, soars from 

 the shell that held a poor grub, which would never 

 have found wings had the stone not been lifted." 



The living creatures beneath the stone are in the 

 foregoing quotation, perhaps partly to serve the 

 purpose of the allegory, painted in colours somewhat 

 darker than need be, and it will be our task to try 

 and point out that, as there is " good in everything," 

 so there is beauty even in the common-place ; and to 

 arouse, if possible, some interest in the life-history 

 (not less curious than that of the hugest mammal) of 

 the tiny beings which constitute this " community of 

 creeping things." 



Suppose, then, that during a ramble through wood 

 and field we come upon a stone lying half-buried in 

 the grass or fern which has grown up round it, and 

 turn it over, what kind of creatures shall we find 

 beneath it ? The stone may differ according to the 

 district in which it is found ; in one place it may be 

 a bit of granite boulder, in another some other sort of 

 stone, but the "little population" under it is always 

 nearly the same. It may vary a little, for instance, if 

 the stone does not lie quite flat, and there are crevices 

 beneath roomy enough to accommodate beetles ; we 

 may find some of these hard-coated gentry, but even 

 if the stone seems to lie so close that nothing living 

 could squeeze ; between it and the ground, yet there 

 will be creatures under it, and one thing we are 

 certain to see, on turning the stone over, is a congre- 

 gation of woodlice. 



Now though the woodlouse is such a common and 

 familiar object, most people know so little of its 

 anatomy as to fall into the error of calling it an 

 "insect." But an insect, to be properly so called, 

 must have neither more nor less than six legs, a body 

 divided into three distinct parts, and must breathe 

 through a system of air-tubes dispersed over the 

 body. The woodlouse clearly does not answer to 

 this description, therefore it is not an insect. To 



