HA RD IVICKE'S SCIENCE- G OSSIP. 



177 



and thick, the third considerably smaller and recurved 

 towards the first, and the fourth and fifth very small 

 and rising from the back of the third. The females 

 have the antennae simple, and are apt to be confused 

 -with the next. 



6. Goniocotes. — This genus is like the last, but the 

 antennae are simple in both sexes, and the base of the 

 head is of a different shape (Fig. no). 



7. Lipeurus. — The species of this genus are the 

 most graceful of the Anoplura, being as a rule long 

 and slender (see Fig. in). There are some excep- 

 tions as regards the shape, as for example L. taunts, 

 from the albatross, where the abdomen is broad and 

 short. Some species are not unlike the Nirmi, but 

 are distinguished by the males having the antennae 

 cheliform like the Goniodes, while in the Nirmi the 

 antennse are simple in both sexes. 



8. Ornithobius. — These are generally of large size, 

 and easily distinguished by the structure of the head 

 <see Fig. 108). 



Trichodectes. — All the foregoing genera are con- 

 fined to birds, but we now reach one of the only two 

 non-blood-sucking Anoplura found on mammals. 

 The antennse are three-jointed, and the abdomen as a 

 rule broad and short ; T. sphccrocephalus, from the 

 sheep, is however a notable exception, the abdomen 

 being long and narrow. Nearly all our Mammalia 

 'have a species peculiar to themselves, and are often 

 found in large numbers. 



GOSSIP ON CURRENT TOPICS. 

 By \V. Mattieu Williams, F.R.A.S., F.C.S. 



ADULTERATION.— Much domestic alarm was 

 created, about sixty years ago, by the publica- 

 tion of a book with the sensational title of "Death in 

 the Pot," to which Hassall's " Food and its Adul- 

 terations " was a natural successor, and as near an 

 imitation as the altered state of science permitted. 

 According to the writers of such treatises, nearly 

 everything we eat and drink is more or less adul- 

 terated and poisoned. A great deal of misery has 

 been suffered in cases where people afflicted with 

 vivid imaginations and highly nervous temperaments 

 have studied such books. These unfortunates, who 

 above all others require to " eat, drink, and be 

 merry," have aggravated their natural morbid ten- 

 dencies by semi-starvation and continual watching 

 of the effect of dreaded poisons supposed to be 

 contained in their daily food. The adulteration 

 panic-mongers maintain that the progress of science 

 continually multiplies the means of adulteration, and 

 that its amount increases accordingly. If this were 

 true, the rate of mortality should increase with the 

 progress of science ; but, as we all know, the contrary 

 ns the case. Some years ago I gave much attention 

 to this subject, beginning with grave suspicions of 



the heartless atrocity of food and drug concocters 

 and purveyors, and ending with the conclusion, that 

 the adulteration of fact by those who traded on 

 death-in-the-pot panics was far greater than the adul- 

 teration of food. The alleged adulteration of tea 

 with iron filings, for example, I proved to be a pure 

 fiction altogether, originating in the ignorance of the 

 analysts, who, finding magnetic particles in the ashes 

 of tea-leaves, assumed that they were filings of iron 

 fraudulently introduced. The fact is that tea-leaves 

 naturally contain iron, the tea-plant thrives only on 

 ferruginous soils, and, when the leaves are burned, 

 their carbon reduces the iron salts to the condition of 

 magnetic oxide, this black oxide being the supposed 

 filings. In China iron-filings are dearer than tea- 

 leaves, and in England there is no such market for 

 them as must be created if they were used as de- 

 scribed. I could easily multiply similar instances. 



The worst adulterations that actually do occur 

 are perpetrated on goods that are beyond the reach 

 of the Act of Parliament, viz. on woven fabrics. 

 Calicoes are limed, silks are loaded, and woollens 

 are shoddied with impunity ; the general result being 

 that throughout the world the reputation of English 

 manufactures, once so high, has now sunk to the 

 lowest commercial level, and the swindlers who have 

 brought this about are making the loudest complaints 

 about the depression of trade, and asking for pro- 

 tection against the successful competition their own 

 dishonesty has created. 



Poisonous Codfish. — Nearly connected with the 

 above is the recent poisoning of French troops in 

 Algiers, which Dr. E. Bertherand has investigated 

 It is attributed to the eating of dried codfish which 

 had a vermilion hue, owing to the presence of a 

 fungus, described by M. Megnin as Coniothecum 

 Bertherandi, but apparently the same as previously 

 known under other names, such as Clathrocystis 

 roseo-pcrsicina, Sarcina morrhua:, and half a dozen 

 more. A few years ago, during a short sojourn at 

 Boulogne, I visited some of the French fishing-vessels 

 then returning from the neighbourhood of Iceland, 

 where they compete with the Norse cod-fishers of the 

 Loffodens and thereabouts. They leave Boulogne 

 about mid-winter, and return in August. I noticed 

 particularly the red tint of most of the dried fish they 

 brought home — a colour quite different from that of 

 the hundreds of tons of dried cod I had previously 

 seen in Norway, which has a drab colour when dried. 

 This leads me to suspect that the mode of curing has 

 something to do with the production of the red 

 fungus. 



The Norwegians have two methods of drying — one 

 by spreading the split fish on the rocks — the fish thus 

 cured are called " klipfisk ; " the other method is to 

 tie two split fish tail to tail and hang these pairs 

 across sticks arranged horizontally in the drying- 

 grounds. These are called "stokfisk," i.e. stickfish. 



