608 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



of the higher animals are porous; and those of birds, where 

 lightness and strength are most beautifully combined, are 

 hollow. The framework of a ship resembles the bones of a 

 herring. The tools in our engineers' shops follow nature's 

 designs closely, especially in the adaptation of mouth, jaws, 

 and teeth. Designers of such tools might study more care- 

 fully than they do the wonderful strength exhibited, say, by 

 the jaws of a greyhound, or a crab, or by the beaks of many 

 birds. As to the marvels of the microscopic world, I hardly 

 dare in this short paper touch upon them. The whole sub- 

 ject forms a chapter of the paper I am preparing, which I 

 trust soon to be able to submit to the consideration of mem- 

 bers. I shall be glad to receive from members any further 

 similarities in natural construction which have struck them, 

 or which they have met with in the course of their reading. 



[Note. — Mr. H. B. Kirk has kindly supplied me with some 

 of the similarities I ask for — one, that of the pedicillaria of 

 the large blue star-fish (undescribed, he believes), which he 

 found in Lyall's Bay, in June, 1889. In this it will be seen 

 that the shears are crossed at the base, so that tension on the 

 base insures closing of the blades, as in scissors or pincers. 

 The grippers with which great blocks of stone are raised are 

 very often on this plan, and so are the grippers used in dredg- 

 ing. The twisted muscles are interesting, seeing that a turn 

 on the untwisted part at the base would tighten or loosen the 

 plait, and so close or unclose the pincers. The total length, 

 including muscular band, is probably a little less than 1mm. 

 He also sends me a sketch of a piece of apparatus very 

 like sheep-shears, belonging to the same star-fish. Also 

 a sketch of the three-bladed pedicillarium of the common 

 sea-urchin. We appear to find little or no use for any 

 three-bladed instrument acting upon a common centre. 

 The same remark applies to the fine teeth of the sea- 

 urchin, meeting at a common centre instead of along 

 a line. Mr. Kirk also directs my attention to the fact that 

 the photographic camera follows the same plan as the eye ; 

 that a telephone ear- and mouth-piece is that of the ear (here 

 even the auditory nerve is functionally reproduced). The 

 radula of Molluscs is on the same plan as the compound chain- 

 or band-saw. The suckers of a cuttle-fish and a fly's foot are 

 the same. SjDiral springs are found in the spermatophore of 

 cuttle-fish. '■■ The spiral elaters, or spore-dispersers, of some 

 Cryptogams are on a similar plan. The valves of the heart 

 and the blood-vessels correspond in function with the valves 

 of a force-pump, hydraulic ram, &c. Our flexible gas-tubing 



* See P]. vi., Trans. N.Z. Inst., 1883: Anatomy of SepioteutMs 

 bilineata. 



