52 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



[March 1, 1S69. 



burning sand-blasts of the Simoom ; yet in his 

 degree he has met with such like critical experiences 

 a hundred times. 



One day the roof of his tunnel crashed in upon 

 him, and buried a dozen of his segments, squeezing 

 the very breath out of them ; on another day the 

 rain had saturated the rubbish heap he was toiling 

 in, a score or two of his somites were under water, 

 and he had to " batten down " the stigmata 

 belonging thereto to save those portions of himself 

 from drowning ; and yet again, in the scorching dog- 

 days, a hot wind swept the earth, and a dry and 

 thirsty clod, crumbling away, discharged an 

 avalanche of dust which overwhelmed nine-tenths of 

 him : in each and all of these catastrophes Iris life 

 would not have been worth ten seconds' purchase, 

 even with his many spiracles, but for the anasto- 

 mosing branches of his wind-pipes, the cross rungs 

 of his air-ladder, which enabled the air received by 

 the unchoked segments to pass in every direction 

 through the whole system. That there is perfectly 

 free communication from any one spiracle to the 

 whole network of air-passages may be seen by 

 examining the figure which I have given, and if any 

 reader has still a doubt on his mind he may remove 

 it, if he is a dexterous manipulator, by dissecting 

 out the tracheary apparatus of the first chilopodous 

 myriupod he can lay hands on, and, stopping the 

 orifices of all the spiracles but one, he will find that 

 through that one he may inject the whole labyrinth 

 of air-vessels with carmine. 



I observed that a correspondent, J. G. D., in 

 December last, was much surprised at the display 

 of a phosphorescent light by a centipede he had 

 found. Geophilus electricus, a member of the same 

 family and a near relation of our Subterraneus, must 

 have been the pyrotechnist he chanced upon. " The 

 caustic brown fluid which most Myriapoda when 

 touched emit from a row of orifices, foramina 

 repugnatoria, situated on the sides of the segments 

 of the body, and which exhales an odour like that of 

 chlorine, is secreted by small pyriform glandular 

 follicles situated immediately beneath the skin ; it 

 is from glands upon the sides of the body analogous 

 to these that G, electricus emits a luminous 

 liquid." 



It would be most interesting to ponder over the 

 three varieties of breathing apparatus mentioned by 

 Siebold, and to note their special adaptations to the 

 life conditions and necessities of the three distinct 

 genera provided with them ; and there are other 

 wonders in the ways and mechanism of each and all 

 of them that one longs to dwell upon ; but we are 

 not essayists here, only cheerful " gossips " of the 

 wayside, who seek to be merry and wise, accurate 

 though simple and amusing. We have run to the end 

 of our tether, and must say good-bye to Geophilus 

 subterraneus and all the myriapods. 



Bury Cross, Gosport. , J. Y. II. 



THE CELANDINE. 



TTTHEN John Gerarde, about three hundred and 

 " * fifty years ago, published a catalogue of the 

 plants in his botanic garden on Holborn Hill, two 

 appeared in it under the names of the Greater and 

 the Lesser Celandine, — names which they have re- 

 tained ever since, though the plants have been 

 widely separated by later botanists. It is not easy 

 to see why they should have had a common name ; 

 and this instance may show us what difficulties Eay 

 and other early English botanists had to overcome 

 in disentangling the confused arrangements of the 

 herbalists— " Celandino," or " the Swallow " so the 

 word signifies, these plants being supposed to 

 flower about the time of the return of that bird ; a 

 fancy not exact in this instance, but beautifully 

 adapted by our great dramatist to the illustration of 

 another flower : — 



Daffodils, 

 That come before the Swalluiv dares, 

 And take the winds of March with beauty. 



It may not be uninteresting to contrast, as we 

 cannot compare, the appearance, the qualities, and 

 present position of the Greater and the Lesser 

 Celandine, thus unaccountably linked together. 



The Chelidonium ma jus of Gerarde, Eay, Linnseus, 

 and all succeeding botanists to this time, now pro- 

 perly placed among the Papaveracecp, is a perennial 

 plant common in the neglected cottage-gardens, 

 where it may be recognized by its umbel of small 

 yellow flowers, its glaucous, pinnated leaves, and 

 the copious, yellow, foetid juice which exudes from 

 every part when broken. Its properties are 

 so active that it is figured by Rhina among poi- 

 sonous plants. He describes it as acrid, stimulating, 

 aperient, diuretic, and sudorific ; if we add the 

 narcotic principle, found in all the poppies more or 

 less, we have a wonderful combination indeed. 

 Botanists and herbalists, from Gerarde to Withering, 

 have all foretold great thmgs of the medical efficacy 

 of this plant ; but it has fallen into total neglect, 

 except among the cottage poultry-keepers, who 

 chop it up for their chickens to make them more 

 lively ! The future of this plant may, however, yet 

 be great. It may prove a specific for some com- 

 plaint which now baffles all known remedies ; but 

 the enthusiastic young physician, after such long 

 disuse, must commence a new series of experi- 

 ments—upon himself first, of course (as Sir H. 

 Davy did with the newly-discovered gases), before 

 he ministers it to his patients. 



The Lesser Celandine {Chelidonium minus of Ge- 

 rarde, and Ranunculus ficaria of Linnaeus) has no 

 such formidable array of attractions. Its charms 

 arc summed up in very few words — it is our earliest 

 Buttercup. On the verge of winter, long before 

 the Swallow dares, and before the Daffodils dance in 

 the March winds, the Lesser Celandine opens its 



