no 



HARDWICKE'S SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



■cavities, that give the creature a remarkable appear- 

 ance. The troi^hi, more or less rudimentary, are 

 contained in the oral cavity, but the mouth differs 

 essentially, both from oviiia and Pulex, as it has 

 neither the long, bristle-like seta, and double-valved 

 jointed sheath of the one, or the lancet-like append- 

 ages, accompanying the suctorial organ of the 

 other, while its base is furnished with a luft of stout, 

 curved spines, like those produced from the margin 

 of the mesothoracic spiracles. 



The rudimentary wings consist of two ciro-mem- 

 branous, striated appendages, with excavated tegula 

 terminating their base in the strire, representing the 

 nervures of the fully developed wings of the ordei\ 

 The episternum is divided, and forms two large, 

 cone-like bodies into which the trochanters are in- 

 serted, and which in connection with the oral tuft, 

 and spines of the mesothoracic spiracles, — the cones 

 acting as suckers — serve to ensure the closer and 

 firmer attachment of the parasite to the body of the 

 bee, so as to prevent its disturbance and displace- 

 ment by the deportment and habits of the insects. In 

 common with the order, the prothorax is depressed 

 for the reception of the head. The fine jointed, 

 spinous tarsi, are elegant objects for the microscopist, 

 their large terminal joints being furnished on their 

 inferior extremity with a beautiful pectinate fringe, 

 and a pair of elegant, papillated, brush-like bodies, 

 the structure of which, as also of the striated internal 

 pad formed by the expansion of the tendinous termi- 

 nation of tlie muscles of the limb, cannot fail to 

 interest and instruct the intelligent student, for the 

 member is a remarkable example of the varied 

 modifications of the foot of the Muscidecc. The 

 abdomen is terminated by pygida, and each 

 pygidium is furnished with four stout spines, and also 

 with a number of smaller hairs ; from its base is an 

 appendage, at the extremity of which is the vaginal 

 orifice. Braula being pupiparous, its ova are never 

 seen, and its larva, in its early colourless stage, 

 seldom. It however undergoes a complete meta- 

 morphosis, the earlier of which is rapidly passed. 



J. Fedarb, B.E., 

 Examiner, Privy Council. 



Animal Teratology. — I enclose a drawing of 

 a chicken (made by myself), having four legs, four 

 wings, two necks and one head, or rather, two whole 

 chickens with one head ; they are joined breast to 

 breast from the base of the breastbone to the end of 

 the necks where there is but one head, with the top 

 turned to the side ; so had it lived, it would have 

 eaten from one side. We often hear of chickens 

 having four wings or four legs, and sometimes two 

 heads, but I never heard of one like the above, 

 which was hatched ir. Clay County, Mo., in 1876, 

 and is now in alcohol in my collection at Kansas 

 City. — Sid. y. Hare, 1017 Grand Ave. K. C, Mo. 



SOME SHORE-HAUNTING FISHES. 

 No. I. 



By P, QuiN Keegan, LL.D. 



SAVE during the spawning season, the vast 

 majority of the great class of fishes frequent 

 the open sea or the profound depths of the ocean ; 

 but a few species of this most interesting group love 

 to permanently haunt the shallows adjacent to the 

 shore. Spacious rock-pools, oj tiny channels rent 

 in the coast line by storm-vexed seas, or dim and 

 cloistral ocean caves frequently swarm with shoals 

 of little fish instinct with life and beauty. Some 

 secluded basin among the rocks replenished by every 

 tide with freshly aerated sea- water, and fringed with 

 long waving tresses of sea-wrack, or decked with 

 tufts of laver and coralline — a beauteous submarine 

 garden affording shelter, nutriment and a salutary 

 obscurity, i's a favourite abiding-place. There, if we 

 peer into the green and shadowy depths, amid a com- 

 prehensive array of vegetable and animal organisms, 

 we can readily discern the vigorous and vivacious 

 antics and gambols of sundry sticklebacks, gobies, 

 blennies, bull-heads, pipefishes, &c. Amid the 

 crystal silent water, or in among the seaweed drapery 

 they dart to and fro with playful random and energy, 

 now progressing slowly with acrobatic contortions, 

 now turning sharply at an angle, or halting with head 

 downwards, fidgeting with the snout, or as if 

 afflicted with palsy, or absorbed in some object of 

 fascination. They are carrying on the business of 

 life, and fulfilling as is meet their function in the 

 creation. Again, in sandy hollows, we may observe 

 innumerable young congers, gobies, &c., flopping 

 and floundering about in the lucid, shallow water 

 with all the exuberant playfulness of a mature activity. 

 But even the desolate, tide-abandoned sands are not 

 destitute of piscine life. If sufficiently and dexterously 

 probed and investigated, they will disgorge myriads 

 of sand-eels, &c., immured therein as an abiding- 

 place of safety and concealment. Generally speaking, 

 the intellectual calibre of fish is not great (the brain 

 is small) ; their senses and faculties seem obtuse and 

 limited ; with some notable exceptions, they are not 

 endowed wiih any wondrous instinct ; and their life 

 career is chiefly occupied in catering for subsistence 

 or in shielding themselves from enemies. But on 

 the other hand, they yield to the philosophic student 

 of zoology a rich harvest of suggestive facts : their 

 anatomy, their embryology, their histology, their 

 nervous structure exhibit phenomena which furnish 

 data, evidence, or proof for some of the grandest 

 speculations in the science of animal life. 



Perhaps the commonest, the most numerous, and 

 the most widely distributed of the peculiarly shore- 

 haunting fish now adverted to are the' various species 

 or rather varieties of stickleback (Gasterosteus). 

 These are picturesque little fish,' generally of a green 



