124 



IIARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



Giants ; fit inhabitants of the forests deep, wandering 

 their way amid the mighty fallen, doomed by time 

 and storm to food and dust. 



Names. — Titanus gigas, Priosus hayesii, Macro- 

 dontia cervicornis, Enoplocerus armillatus, Ctcnoscdis 

 serripes, AcantJwphorus maailatus. 



No. 13. Floral Beetles. — Coleoptera Order. Lamelli- 

 corn tribe. — Feed upon the juices of living plants. 

 Colours varied with all the rainbow's splendour, 

 living gems, fit setting for Nature's coronet, and 

 designed by the great Artificer's self. 



Names. — Golialhus Duirii. — Goliath beetle. Golia- 

 thus casimus, Myccnorina torquata, W. Africa. Inca 

 clathrata, S. America. 



No. 14. Scavenger Beetles. — Coleoptera Order. 

 Lamellicorn tribe. — Feed upon decomposed matter. 

 Perform a most important office in the economy of 

 nature ; gratitude should therefore take the place of 

 aversion towards such useful and valuable scavengers. 



Names. — Egyptian Scarabceus. — Scarahcus ma- 

 cropus. Kangaroo beetle, Mexico. 



No. 15. Spiders. — Trachearias Order. Feed upon 

 nsects, &c. — Spiders like balls of ivory ; spiders like 

 balls of ebony ; spiders of rainbow hue ; spiders green ; 

 spiders red ; spiders wonderful ; spiders beautiful ; 

 spiders terrible ; — such are some of the tropical 

 brethren of our useful little friends who lurk in quiet 

 corners and "bother the flies." 



'Names.— Lycosa Tarcntum.— Tarantula spider, Italy- 

 Mygale versicolor, large red-bodied hairy spider. My- 

 gale avicularia, large hairy spider, Brazil. Trap-door 

 spider, W. Indies. 



No. 16. Scorpions. — Scorpiodea Order. Feed upon 

 insects, worms, &c. 



Name. — Scorpio arreganphalus . — Large Asiatic scor- 

 pion. 



No. 17. Centipedes. — Myriapoda Order 

 upon insects, worms. 



Name. — Scolopendra gigantca. — Giant 

 centipede, S. America. 



No. 18. Millepedes. — Thysanoura Or- 

 der. Feed upon insects, worms, &c. 



Names. — jlulus maximus, Brazil. Spi- 

 rostreptns olivaccus, Africa. Spirobolus 

 beauvoisii. — Giant millepede, Galapagos 

 Islands. 



Slugs. — It is a fact well known to those who study 

 the habits of slugs that most species of Limax have 

 the power of letting themselves down by means of a 

 thread of their mucus. Of the British Limaces, the 

 tree slug {Limax arborum, Chant; marginatus, Mull.), 

 owing to its habitat, possesses this power to a greater 

 degree than do the others. Personally I have made 

 experiments with a large specimen of Limax Sowerbii, 

 and it let itself down three inches or so before 

 dropping. It is also said that the slugs can crawl up 

 the thread again, but I have not yet seen it done. — 

 Wilfrid Mark Webb. 



PATHOLOGY AND ITS RELATION TO 

 EVOLUTION. 



{Continued from p. 102.] 



CHARLES DARWIN, on p. 231 of his "De- 

 scent of Man," and also again on p. 262 of 

 the first volume of his " Animals and Plants under 

 Domestication," makes mention of the Polish sub- 

 breed of fowls, in which there seems to be every 

 evidence to affirm that the females were the first to 





Fig. 59. — Head of a Polish fowl with feathery tufts. 

 After Darwin. 



Fig. 60. — Section of skull of the Polish fowl, showing the 

 protuberance. 



develop a crest, which was afterwards transferred to 

 the males. The stock from which the whole race 

 of our domestic fowls was derived, is an Indian one, 

 Gallus Bankiva. 



Look at the two figures above. There you have 

 one figure of the head of a Polish fowl, taken from 

 Darwin, showing the tuft, and another diagram to 

 illustrate the enormous protuberance in the skull of 

 one of these from which the crest arose. This cavity 

 often exhibits menbranous spaces. Virchow said this 

 cranial deformity was due to an hereditary en- 

 cephalocele — this is a hernial sac of the membranes 



