October 13, F898] 



NATURE 



57i 



stone ( Yen). A foreip;n tradesman who brought it from the 

 South Sea stated it to be the vertebra of a centipede." Seeing 

 that its use here alluded to is nowadays often repeated, we do 

 not hesitate to conclude that this "vertebra of a centipede" was 

 nothing other than the vertebra of a whale. A long series of 

 the cetacean vertebra;, especially when it is separate from the 

 skull yet remaining adhered with the fragments of the ribs, 

 would, to the imagination of those crude folks, naturally furnish 

 a ready sketch of a gigantic, marine centipede. 



The "Centipede- Whale" of /Elian's and Kaibara's descrip- 

 tions are very probably certain species of sharks with the habit 

 of swimming one following another. The reason is that while 

 the fantastic figure of a six-legged sea-serpent, that was cast 

 up on the Orkney in 1808 and subsequently proved to be the 

 shark Selache maxima {Memoirs of the Wernerian Nat. Hist. 

 Soc. , Edin., vol. i., Plate XI., 181 1), forcibly reminds us of 

 the "Centipede-Whale," pictured in Gesner's " Historia 

 Animalium " (see my letter. I.e.) and in a Japanese work (Hira- 

 zumi, " Morokoshi Kimmodzui," 1719, torn. xiv. fol. 6, a.), 

 Tanigawa Shisei, the Japanese glossarist (1707-1776), mentions 

 in his " \Vakun-no-Shiori " (ed. 1887, 3rd ser., torn. xvi. 

 fol. 8, a.) the "Centipede-Shark" (Mukadezame), which is 

 doubtless identical with the " Centipede- Whale." That the 

 manner of the natatory movements of some .sharks — to which 

 are attributable the words of /Elian, " idque conferri posse cum 

 triremi instae magnitudinis, atque per multis pedibus utrinque 

 ordine sitis, tanquam ex scalmis appensis, natare" — should 

 suggest to the mind the active representation of a terrestrial 

 centipede, is well evinced by the Japanese word Mukadebime 

 {i.e Centipede-Boat), signifying a slender boat with many oars 

 in pairs that have to be moved like the legs of a running centi- 

 pede (mentioned in Yuasa, " Jozan Kidan," 1739, torn, xv, 

 fol. 12, a.). 



An older description of such a fabulous creature in the Far 

 East, occurs in the Chinese "History of the Sui Dynasty" 

 (written seventh century. A.D.), and reads thus: "Chin-Lah 

 <Cambodja) produces a fish named Fii-Hu, which resembles 

 Mud-Eel [Monopterus javanensis, Lac6pede, according to Mol- 

 lendorff), but with the bill shaped like the parrot's, and has 

 eight legs " 



When we set apart the more or less allied stories of the 

 Dragon (Chinese, Litn^, and Japanese, Tatsti), which very 

 probably originates in the phenomena of waterspout and whirl- 

 pool,' we hardly know from the Far Eastern sources anything 

 like the Sea-Serpent stories so much in circulation in the West. 

 In the Far East, indeed, the Sea-Serpent seems to have totally 

 given place to the Sea-Centipede, both having the identical, 

 diverse origins — the back-bone of a whale, the sharks, and some 

 Cephalopods (cf. " Encyc. Brit.," ninth ed., vol. xxi. pp. 608- 

 610, and my letter, I c). Thus, in China, there prevails a 

 long-established belief in the existence of huge centipedes in the 

 South Sea, very valuable for their flesh and skin, the former tasting 

 like prawn and much superior to beef, and the latter being 

 useful for making drum.^ 



Turning to Japan, we read in the " Konjaku Monogatari" 

 (written by Minamoto-no-Takakuni in the eleventh century, ed, 

 Izawa, tom. xv. fol. 2-7), a narrative of the seven anglers, who 

 killed a centipede about 10 feet long, that came from amidst a 

 wide sea to combat with a huge serpent, the master of an island. 

 This story of the "Sea-Centipede" is perhaps a prototype of 

 the later but far more popularised legend of Tawara Toda's 

 slaughter of a monstrous Myriapod, which, the tradition says, 

 used to molest a dragon in Lake Biwa.* 



KUMAGUSU MiNAKATA. 



7 Eftie Road, Walham Green, September 17. 



1 For similar misconceptions current among the Arabs, vide " Encyc. 

 Brit.," i.e., p. 6to. 



2 The first description of such a gigantic centipede occurs in a poem by 

 Koh Hung {circa. 254-334 a.d.). In the year 745 a centipede was found 

 drowned by sea-tide on a coast of Kwang-Chau, and a man was fortunate 

 enough to secure 120 */« weight of edible flesh by opening its " claws " 

 <" Yuen-kien-lui-han," 1701, tom. cdxiix. fol. 11, a.). Here, the said 

 "claw "would seem no other than the shark's fin, which in recent times 

 has become the article of commercial importance with the Chinese. Even 

 in the Imperial Geography (" Ta-Tsing-i-tung-chij" tom. cccliv. fol. 49, b.), 

 compiled so lately as the eighteenth century, a similar centipede is described 

 as native to Anam, which Tanigawa (/.c.) happily identifies with his 

 " Centipede-Shark." 



3 The latter story is first recorded in "Taiheiki" (written fourteenth 

 century, lib. xv. ch. 3), although its hero flourished in the tenth century 

 (for its brief account see Mr. E. Gilbertson's article in the Trans, and Proc. 

 Jap. Soc, London, 1898, vol. iv., part ii., p. 115). Kyokutei Bakin, in 

 his " Shichiya-no-Kura" (1810, ch. v.), gives .in exhaustive account of this 

 tradition, but does not refer to the " Sea-Centipede" story quoted above. 



The Moon's Course. 



The moon's unique course was not known, in J, Fergusson's 

 time, to be so peculiar as it now appears ; for only five other 

 satellites were then known, but now we know twenty, and stiU 

 no other that has a path always concave to the sun. 



It arises, of course, from her being more pulled by the sun 

 than by the earth. All the others are more pulled by their 

 primaries than by the sun. The distance from our earth where 

 she balances the sun is but i/s69th of the sun's. But the 

 moon's mean distance is fully a 386th of the sun's. The dis- 

 tance from Jupiter where he balances the sun Is a 33rd of his 

 own. That from Saturn is over a 60th of his own distance. 

 That from Uranus a 155th; from Neptune a 140th ; but from 

 Mars only a 1760th ; and in every ca.se their furthest satellites 

 are much nearer. Our moon's form of path is quite unique in 

 the universe, so far as known. E. L. Garbett. 



25 Claremont Square, London, N., October 10. 



A Simple Method of Making Light Mirrors. 



The following description of a simple and inexpensive method 

 of making optically perfect mirrors for galvanometers and 

 similar instruments will, I think, be of interest to many of your 

 readers. 



Strips of French plate-glass, about 5 mm. thick and 20 mm. 

 long, are well silvered and carefully polished with rouge. The 

 silvered strip is placed upon edge on a flat stone or other firm 

 support, and a light blow is struck with the edge of a hammer 

 a little distance back from the silvered face. If the blow is well 

 directed, a chip of glass of circular or elliptical form will be 

 broken out. The nearer the edge the blow is struck the thinner 

 the mirror will be. Of course not every blow will produce a 

 good mirror, but with a little practice a strip 10 centimetres 

 long should yield a dozen good mirrors, of assorted weights and 

 sizes, which may be cemented to a card and put away in a box 

 for use as occasion requires. Since the silver surface is exposed, 

 it will tarnish in time ; but as the expen.se and trouble involved 

 in making the mirrors is so slight, and the definition given by 

 them when new is so pe/fect, one can aff'ord to renew them 

 once a year if necessary. The method of silvering mirrors given 

 in the *' Encyclopaedia Britannica " gives a surface well adapted 

 to this purpose. Charles B. Thwing. 



Knox College, Galesburg, Illinois, September 17. 



NO. 



511, VOL. 58] 



Animals and Poisonous Plants. 



When visiting lately the herbaceous department in the 

 Royal Botanic Gardens, Regent's Park, I noticed that nearly 

 all the berries had disappeared from the deadly nightshade, 

 Atropa belladonna, the calyx being left untouched. The fore- 

 man of the herbaceous department told me that he believed 

 they had been eaten by blackbirds, which are very active in the 

 bushes ; also that the seeds of Datura stramonium are eagerly 

 devoured by mice. Can any of your readers confirm this state- 

 ment of animals feeding on poisonous plants ? In Nature Notes 

 for October, I notice a statement of a report that wild rabbits 

 feed on the leaves of the belladonna. 



Alfred W. Bennett. 



Crannoges in Estuaries. 



Referring to the notices on this subject in Nature of 

 September 15 and 29, I beg to say that, in 1879, I discovered a 

 crannoge constructed on a bed of peat, l>elow high-water mark, 

 in Ardmore Bay, Co. Waterford. It was at the mouth of a 

 small stream. 



The diameter of the enclosure was about 100 feet. It was 

 surrounded by a double fence of massive piles, apparently 

 sharpened with the stone axe. The interior contained mortised 

 beams and cleft panels of the dwelling, and portions of the 

 wattled partitions, traces of which covered the enclosed area in 

 the form of pointed stakes whose ends remained in the peat. 



The kitchen midden contained bones of horse, ox, goat, pig, 

 and red deer, the usual bill of fare found in the raths of the 

 country. 



A paper on this crannoge was published in the Proceedings of 

 the Royal Irish Academy, December 1880, and the site has 

 been visited by Prof. Boyd Dawkins. It is covered by every 

 tide, and the crannoge is now almost obliterated. 



Cappagh, Fermoy, October i. R. J. Ussher. 



