SOAP-BUBBLES. 575 



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 odor 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 Gcojyhilus eleciricus 

 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-by to 

 Geophilus subterraneus and all the Myriapods. Science- Gossij). 



-*- 



SOAP-BUBBLES. 



By Peof. EUCKEE. 



IN the museum of the Louvre, in Paris, there is a vase which has 

 by some strange chance been handed down to us through the 

 long ages which have proved fatal to many others far more worthy of 

 preservation than itself. It was manufactured in Italy before the 

 foundation of the city of Rome by the ancient Etruscans, and it is 

 decorated and this is the reason I bring it to your notice this even- 

 ing with a design representing a group of children blowing bubbles. 

 This ancient relic of those early days incontestably proves to us that 

 the art of performing that beautiful experiment, if not with soap and 

 water, at least with some one of the comparatively few liquids with 

 which it can be satisfactorily undertaken, has been known at least for 

 twenty-five hundred years. But, though generation after generation 

 the children amused themselves with it, century after century passed 

 away, leaving unanswered, and in all probability unthought of, the 



1 A lecture delivered in the Hulme Town-Hall, Manchester, on Wednesday, November 

 3, 1875. 



