1897 THE MIOROSCOPE. 3 
rather dense brushes of hairs. The food of the insect is 
probably moist vegetable moulds.—Canadian Hntomolo- 
gist. 
Brains in the Finger Tips. 
The blind are able to see, and apparently to get thoughts 
with their fingers, Prescott, the great historian, says: 
The blind man sees little outside of the circle drawn by 
his extended arms, but within that circle he sees more 
than those whose eyes are sound.” 
By resting the finger on the throat of a singer, a certain 
blind person can follow notes covering two octaves with 
her own voice, or by placing her hand on the frame of the 
piano, she can distinguish between two notes not more 
than halfa tone apart. By moving her hand over the 
face of a visitor she is enabled to detect shades of emo- 
tion which the normal sensitive eye cannot differentiate. 
It has been reported that gray matter brain-cells of 
perception have been dissected out of the finger tips of 
the blind. 
If you will examine the inside of your finger-tips with 
a magnifying glass of even moderate power you will 
find the skin all in ridges, which preserve the shape of 
the finger-end. Standing point up beneath all these 
ridges in the tactile surfaces of the skin are the so-called 
corpuscles of Pacini. These corpuscles which are arranged 
in the exact semblance of the keys of a piano, are said 
by Meissner to crepitate and give forth a different sound 
in every age of each person. 
This Pacinian corpuscle contains within its lining mem- 
branes a nerve-trunk, an artery, and a vein. 
It lines all the tactile surfaces of the body, particularly 
the inner finger and thumb tips. The illustration (fig. 1a) 
represents the corpuscle. The artery and vein are omitted 
for clearness. 
