32 



HAEDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



— a very qucstiouable and sinister-looking party in- 

 deed. Wood-lice and small spiders run this way 

 and that, like a gang of pickpockets in Rag-fair 

 disturbed by P'liceman X. on our first approach ; 

 but a bolder fellow, of villanous aspect, in a striped 

 uniform, and armed with a pair of tremendous 

 scorpion claws and with hoo pairs of ci'ocodile jaws 

 beset with long teeth, walks leisurely about back- 

 wards, forwards, or sideways, like his cousin the 

 crab, as it best suits him ! This is no less a person- 

 age than Chelifer cimicoides ; and it is a matter for 

 congratulation that he is no bigger than he is, for a 

 more formidable-looking monster it is impossible to 

 imagine. Let us put him away for further con- 

 sideration on some other occasion, and go on with 

 our observations on Polyxenes and his habitation. 

 Now the latter is anything but neat and tidy ; and 

 I shrewdly suspect that our friend carries on the 



immMMMiiinM^ 



Tig. 16. Polyxenes La gurus, x 33. 



business of an old clo' man ; for in every direction 

 his own left-clf wearing apparel, together with the 

 tattered garments of spiders and earwigs, are seen 

 dangling on the walls by shreds of cobweb, as I 

 suppose, "to be sold a bargain ! " 



Let me recommend you, my dear young nature- 

 lover and happy possessor of a microscope, to col- 

 lect some of these old clothes, which, by the way, 

 you will find, as the advertisement has it, " Quite 

 equal to new," as well as living specimens of Poly- 

 xenes; for \ihether examined as opaque or trans- 

 parent objects, with spot lens or open diaphragm, 

 with high or low powers, they will give you many 



an hour of pure enjoyment ; that is, if you are made 

 of the stuff which I hope you are. You will then 

 begin to think, with me, that "Polyxenes, the enter- 

 tainer of many friends," is not such a very great mis- 

 nomer after all. 



" Eirst catch your hare," says careful Mrs. 

 Glasse. " Eirst catch j'our Hare-tail," say I ; and, 

 having caught him, put hira in a pill-box lid, and 

 examine him first with a pocket lens, and then with 

 a two-inch or inch objective. Mark his graceful 

 movements. He runs as if on castors rather than 

 on feet ; and, sure enough, if you examine his under 

 surface, you will see that his legs, although he has 

 from twelve to eighteen pairs of them, are very liny 

 and feeble-looking supports indeed. On close in- 

 spection, they will he seen to be four-jointed, and 

 armed with a single claw. He is altogether a 

 harmless and defenceless-looking little animal, and 

 no match for that ruffian "Chelifer," whom we de- 

 tected loitering about the premises, and whom we 

 have remanded, without bail, for future examina- 

 tion. 



Fig. 17. P. Lagurus. Hairs on Feathers of Tufts, x 230. 



Now let us examine our little Polyxenes as to his 

 outward form and adornments. He is oval in 

 figure, but flat, and fringed with tufts of so-called 

 scales, which, however, more nearly resemble 

 feathers; and stretching from tuft to tuft across 

 his back are double rows of like, but shorter, 

 feathers. Here let me remark, that the numbers of 

 tufts and rows vary according to the age of the in- 

 dividual examined; for he does net— as a true 

 insect does — change from worm to grub, and from 

 grub to his mature form, but simply " shuffles off 

 his mortal coil," — skin, hairs, and leggings all com- 

 plete, now and then, and takes unto himself a new 

 row and an additional pair of tufts and legs with 

 each new habit, until he has attained his full com- 

 plement. He then leaves his shufiled-ofF " mortal 

 coil " hanging upon a fragment of dirty cobweb, as 

 before described. Now let us look at his tail. Not 

 much like a hare's tail, but a collection of beautiful 

 silvery hairs, quite different from the feathers of the 

 tufts, as we shall see heieafter. 



This tail I have caught him expanding like a fan, 

 and I have a mounted specimen of the slough so 



