108 



KNOWLEDGE 



[March 1, 1888. 



In Florida a beautiful legend is related about Wenona, 

 who loved a warrior named Ohuleotah. Unfortunately he 

 belonged to a tribe at war with her father, and during a 

 great "light the father killed him, bringing home the head as 

 a trophy. When Wenona gazed on the well-known features, 

 she fled from home, and cast herself in despair into a lake, 

 now called Silver Lake.* She still lives there, and on a 

 very clear day, when the waters aie shallow, her beautiful 

 palace can be seen. Her hair is the green moss that floats 

 in the water. 



SCRATCHING IN THE ANIMAL KINGDOM. 



By Professor Samuel Lockwood. 



OR nearly two weeks, one midwinter, my 

 studies were pleasantly interrupted by a 

 nightly visit of that funny arachnidan, 

 Phalanglum dorsatura, Say. We often 

 hear it Ciilled Daddy-long-legs, which name 

 in England is given only to the long-legged 

 dipteran, the Tipula, or crane fly. My 

 visitor's domicile was a nook somewhere in 

 the library. As appearances are often deceptive, it would 

 not be safe to predicate a literary taste of my bookish 

 visitor, but the creature's measured gait and jjedal sprawl 

 over my written page did suggest the airs of a stilted critic. 

 And yet, to use a trade-phrase, with all its seeming bigness, 

 phalangium did not " size up much." Its egg-shaped body 

 was exactly a quarter of an inch in length, and an eighth 

 wide at its thickest part. Of its eight legs, each one in the 

 shortest pair measured an inch and five-eighths, and iu the 

 longest pair the measurement exceeded three inches, a con- 

 siderable spread for so little timber. There was quite a good 

 understanding between us. It would allow me to touch the 

 long, thread-like legs with my pen, and even to lift one up 

 above the others, and the queer thing would keep the limb 

 r'aised for several minutes, precisely as I would leave it, as if 

 it were hypnotised. 



The phalangium is a member of a tribe of the spiders 

 known as the Pedipalpi, because the palps or feelers end, like 

 the feet of many insects, in a claw, sometimes a pair, thus 

 making a forceps. After my tickling bis perambulators, 

 Daddy seemed to have got his ideas started, for, having 

 adjusted his octapodal highness upon my manuscript in most 

 admiralile equipoise, he began the delectable exercise of 

 scratching his legs. I am sure that the operation was 

 enjoyable to him, while to me the sight was ver}' interesting. 

 If Captain Cuttle should find it necessary to try the flexibility 

 of a whip-stock, it is supposable that he would take the 

 handle in his left hand, and with a pressing motion pass the 

 whip for its entire length through the iron hook which 

 served for his right hand. The whip would thus take on a 

 loop-like curve, and would straighten itself out with some- 

 what of a snap. Just in this way did my spider scratch his 

 slender legs — for one at a time were these long elastic limbs 

 passed through the hook of the palp, when tlie limb would 

 be bent like a loop or bow in the process, and as it left the 

 hook or claw by its elasticity would do so with an almost 

 w'hip like snap. 



The higher one ascends the animal scale in such observa- 

 tions, the more pronounced is found this habit of scratching 

 the skin surface of the body. Individually, Maud S. and 

 Coomassie may be " too high-toned " for such a practice. 

 But these creatures are coddled out of conscience by the 

 groom, who has the comb and the brush almost always on 

 their pelts; hence, if these "high bloods" come not to the 



* Silver Lake is a short distance from Ocala in Marion County, 

 North Florida, and is quite a well-known resort. 



sci'atch, it is because the scratch comes to them. Cushie 

 and Dray, put upon their own i-esources, enjoy hugely a 

 good rubbing self-administered against a tree or post. 



Happening one day in my lady's boudoir, I picked from 

 the cabinet what I took for a pretty bit of bric-a-brac. It 

 was an ebony stem, about fourteen inches long, not thicker 

 than one's finger, and quite daintily turned. At one end 

 was attached a pretty little hand defth' wrought in ivory. 

 It could not be called a fist, for I noticed that the fingers 

 were only half closed. The nails were well developed, and 

 their ends or edges were set in a line. This artistic trifle 

 seemed to me made for some special purpose. A whisper 

 fi'om a friend enlightened my wonderment — " A back- 

 scratch." I caught at once. Now, I have read of a toy 

 formerly common in England, which at fairs or upon occa- 

 sions of a crowd would be passed over the back of a rustic, 

 when it made a noise like the tearing of cloth, and sugges- 

 tive of a rent behind, to the poor man's dismay. This, too, 

 was called a " back-scratch." But that was simply the 

 vehicle of a bit of mischief. My lady's back-scratch was for 

 use in that very much out-of-the-way place between the 

 shoulder-blades. This handy implement, though an article 

 of virtu, was in the line of luxury, although the ameni- 

 ties would hardly approve the indulgence before eyes polite. 



The above reminds how gingerly and faulty the treat- 

 ment of the word is by the lexicographers. One would 

 think it only meant to abrade, lacerate, excoriate, whereas 

 how common the usage by which it signifies to titillate with 

 mild fi'iction I The Latin expresses the action nicely, 

 scabere culem leviter umjue, which in good English is simply 

 — to rub the skin lightly with one's nails. Pliny has aures 

 pedibtis, scratching the ears with the feet, which suggests 

 the experience of that tourist in Italy who rode a mangy 

 mare. The beast had a bad habit of stopping to scratch her 

 ears, and, the hind-feet being used for that purpose, the 

 thighs of the rider received all the benefit of the operation, 

 which, like tickling with a brickbat, was too crude for real 

 comfort. But the ungulates generally are bunglers at this 

 trick, though not insensible to opportunity, as witness 

 when our neighbour's cow got into the lawn, and, wild with 

 delight, went tearing through the soft evergreens, our pretty 

 arbor-vitfe trees, which was so much nicer than rubbing 

 against a fence. 



It behoves to confess that Nature has been a niggard 

 in this matter unto man, having done less for him in this 

 line than she has for the beasts that perish. " The paragon 

 of animals " is the victim of irritation from eczema in a 

 hundred forms and degrees. Though having already thrown 

 a stone at the lexicographers, here goes another, for we must 

 cite from memory that churlish dictionary-maker, Dr. 

 .Johnson, who wrote in the first edition of his dictionary, 

 "Oat— a grain used in England to feed horses; in Scot- 

 land, men." Tiiis was very unbecoming. But the food 

 has much to do with the condition of the cuticle. Hence 

 we put together the Scotsman's " oaten cakes " and the 

 legend of the benevolent nobleman who set up scratching- 

 posts in the streets of Edinburgh, and the canny bene- 

 diction of each user of them, " God bless the Duke of 

 Argyll! " 



On the physical or rather ]jhysiological side of the 

 question, a good deal might be said for this mild friction of 

 the skin. Near the surface — that is, just under the scarf, 

 or epidermis — the capillaries, almost microscopic blood- 

 veins, abound in well-nigh infinite numbers. Each of these 

 minute carriers or distributors of the crimson life-stream has 

 along its sides its complement of nerves nearly parallel. 

 Between these nerve-fibres lies the undifterentiated pro- 

 toplasm, or life-stuff, which is the supply of constructive 

 matter for the use of these tiny builders, for out of this life- 



