DISCOVERY 



151 



lizard, called by the Maoris " Tuatara " — it possesses an 

 eye-like structure, as the researches of Professor Dendy 

 have specially demonstrated, and it is highly probable 

 that our reptilian ancestors possessed an additional eye 

 on the top of the head, surviving to-day merely as a 

 vestige in the pineal. The function of the pineal in 

 modern forms has long excited inquiry. Descartes 

 located the human soul therein, and medical men, 

 whose observations have provided no confirmation for 

 this hypothesis, have advanced reason for regarding it 

 as a ductless gland. The effect of pineal e.xtracts on 

 frog tadpoles seems to implv that it forms a secretion 

 of high physiological activity. McCord and F. AUen 

 (1917), whose results were later confirmed (Huxley and 

 Hogben), have shown that if fresh pineals are given 

 as food to tadpoles, the animals begin to display 

 marked colour changes following each meal after the 

 treatment has been carried on for about a fortnight. 

 Within a quarter of an hour of feeding they assume a 

 ghostlv pallor ; the internal organs and skeleton are 

 plainly visible through the skin, and they retain this 

 uncannv condition for about two hours. To the 

 observer the spectacle is reminiscent of some of 

 Mr. \\'ells's descriptions in his story The Invisible Man. 

 In this brief survey we have confined our attention 

 to some discoveries — almost exclusively made during 

 the past five years — in connection with two problems 

 of general interest to the student of animal life, colour 

 adaptation, and development. Within the same period 

 of time several important advances have been made in 

 the medical field, and a vast realm of inquiry has been 

 opened up in relation to internal secretion by the 

 studies of Steinach, LiUie, Goldschmidt, and others, 

 on the part played by the ovaries and testes (repro- 

 ductive glands) in controlling the sexual characteristics 

 of the organism. These discoveries are so far-reaching 

 that they cannot be discussed apart from the whole 

 body of modern work on sex determination. It may 

 safely be said that the study of ductless glands is at 

 the moment one of the most (perhaps the most) fertile 

 fields of investigation ; and the progress achieved of late 

 is likely to prove the forerunner of great developments 

 in biological science before many years have elapsed. 



REFERENCES 

 Adler : (1914) Arch. J. Entwicklungs Mech., 39 and 40. 

 Allen: (1917) Biol. Bull., 32; (1918) Journ. Exp. Zool.,2.i; 



(1920) Science. 

 Atwell : (1919) Science. 

 Gudematsch : (1912) Arch. f. Entwicklungs Mech., 3s '• (I9I4) 



Anier. Journ. Anal., 15. 

 Hogben : (1920-22) Proc. Zool. Sac. 



Hogben and Winton (1922) : Proc. Roy. Soc, B (in the Press). 

 Huxley and Hogben : (1922) Proc. Roy. Soc, B. 

 Lenhart : (1915) Journ. Exp. Med., 22 

 Morse : (1915) Journ. Biol. Chein., 19. 

 Swingle: (1918) Journ. Exp. Zool., 24; (1919) Journ. Exp. 



Zool., 27 ; (1919) Journ. Gen. Physiol., i and 2 ; (1921) Journ. 



Exp. Zool., 34. 

 Uhlenhuth : (1919) Journ. Gen. Physiol., i ; (1921) Journ. Gen. 



Physiol., 3 ; {1922) Biol. Pull., 42. 



Animal Pets in Ancient 

 Greece 



By W. R. Halliday, B.A., B.Litt. 



Professor 0/ Ancient Ilislonj in ilic University 0/ Liverpool 



A FREQUENT topic of our newspapers in the sUly 

 season is the questionable morality of the affection 

 lavished by elderly spinsters upon their lap-dogs. 

 There is nothing new under the sun. Plutarch begins 

 his Life of Pericles with the following words : " Csesar 

 once, seeing some wealthy strangers at Rome, carrying 

 up and down with them in their arms and bosoms 

 young puppy dogs and monkeys, embracing and 

 making much of them, took occasion not unnaturally 

 to ask whether the women in tlieir country were not 

 used to bear children ; by that prince-like reprimand 

 gravely reflecting upon persons who spend and lavish 

 upon brute beasts that affection and kindness which 

 nature has implanted in us to be bestowed on those 

 of our own kind," ' As a matter of fact, the love of 

 pets was not confined to strangers in Rome. Catullus 

 wrote a famous poem to Lesbia's pet sparrow,- and 

 Ovid celebrated in verse the obsequies of his mistress's 

 parrot.' But the moral reflection attributed to Cfesar 

 is a commonplace of considerably older date than the 

 first century B.C. and occurs for the first time, so far 

 as I know, in European literature in the verses of the 

 Athenian comic poet, Eubulus (fourth century B.C.), 

 who complains of the affection lavished upon pet 

 geese, sparrows, and monkeys.'' Greeks were lovers 

 of pets. Monkeys are first mentioned in Archilochus 

 (end of the eighth century B.C.), and in the fifth 

 century — to judge from the references in the plays of 

 Aristophanes, the comic poet — they were popular 

 though still something of a rarity. In the Acharnians 

 (produced 425 B.C.) a Bceotian is persuaded to barter 

 goods for a maker of false accusations — a type of 

 humanity which the poet represents as being common 

 in Athens but rare in Thebes. 



" By this an that an I might make me fortune 

 By showing him for a mishievious ape " ^ 



I is the Bceotian's comment on his bargain. The Man 

 of Petty Ambition whose character is sketched by 



' Plutarch, Life of Pericles, 1. 



'- Catullus, i. 2 (Loeb Classical Library). 



^ Ovid, Amores, ii. 6. 



* Eubulus, Frag. 115 in Kock, Coniicorutn Atlicorum Frag- 

 menla. 



* Aristophanes, Acharnians, 905 (trans. Tyrrell). Rogers's 

 admirable translations of Aristophanes' plays are now being 

 issued by G. Bell & Sons in an edition which contains the 

 translation only. A bound copy of each play costs 3s. 6d. 



