June 



1883.] 



KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



337 



comparative primitive simplicity is largely obscured by the 

 immense variety of devices for preventing thieving insects 

 from getting at the grain or the pollen. For the very same 

 insect interference which proves so beneficial to insect- 

 fertilised plants is the deadliest danger of their wind- 

 fertilised allies, and is guarded against by a profusion of 

 minute devices which seems at first sight almost absurdly 

 careful and petty. Pretty nearly any grass that you pick 

 will show you these multiplied protective organs in a very 

 advanced state of perfection. Here, for example, is a 

 waving head of cock's-foot {Dacti/!is glomeTaia), which con- 

 sists of numberless one-sided spikelets, clustered together 

 into a closely-packed bundle, which only relaxes a little 

 during the short time while the stamens and pistil are 

 actually at maturity. Every spikelet consists of several 

 little flattened florets, their outer glumes all ending 

 in sharp, needle-like awns or beards, which eftec- 

 tually prevents flying insects from lighting upon them, 

 either to probe the blossoms with their proboscis for 

 the pollen, or to lay their eggs where the young grub 

 might fatten on the richly-stored grain. Then, to keep 

 out little creeping weevils, the glumes are strongly keeled, 

 and down the keel runs a row of saw-like teeth, so that 

 the insect would have to run the gauntlet of twenty little 

 liottle-glass clif.vaux-ik-frisc (so to speak) before it could 

 get at the food it was hunting. Every grass you can 

 examine, almost, will supply similar instances of careful 

 protective mechanism, all diflerent in details, and all the 

 same in general plan and pxirport. Sometimes, as in fox- 

 tail {Alopeciirus jjratensis), the whole cylindrical flowering 

 head is one soft mass of velvety hairs, in whose impene- 

 trable forest the creeping insects lose their way hopelessly, 

 while the flying ones cannot approach it by reason of the 

 endless sharp points that stick out from it all round 

 in every direction. At other times, as in wild barley 

 (^Hordextm inurinum), the entire inflorescence bristles from 

 head to foot with stitt" bayonets, half the florets being here 

 given up ' to purely protective functions, and enclosing 

 no real floral organs at aU, or only a few loose and 

 imperfect stamens. Yet again, some kinds, like sweet 

 vernal grass Antlwxanthitm odoratttm, have all the florets 

 of each spikelet barren, save one onlj-, so that insects which 

 visit the outer empty chafi" find nothing for their pains, and 

 go away in despair without rifling the well-protected central 

 floret. But the most remarkable of all these singular tricks 

 on the part of the grasses is that practised by the common 

 dog's-tail Ci/Jiogjmts crisiatiis, which has its florets regularly 

 arranged in double sets of spikelets, one outer and one inner, 

 one at each joint of the stem. Of these, the outer spikelet 

 is, so to speak, a mere waste, a bunch of empty scales, 

 arranged in the shape of a fertile row, but without any 

 stamens or any grain to justify its existence. It exactly 

 covers and conceals the genuine spikelet that lies behind it, 

 just as though one were to have a number of wax cherries 

 hung up on the outside trees of an orchard, so as to take 

 in the pilfering boys of the neighbourhood. One could 

 spend days in describing all the various details of these 

 protective grassy devices ; but T have done enough, I hope, 

 to show how interesting this branch of botanical study 

 really is, and I may add that it is one of those where in- 

 dustrious amateurs may still hope to find out much for 

 themselves that is as yet unknown, or but half understood, 

 by the masters of the science. No group of flowering plants 

 is harder to work at than the grasses : but no group better 

 repays the time and trouble that may be spent upon it. 



It is said that the Torrens Bridge on the Grange 

 Railway, South Australia, has sunk some inches owing to 

 the use of heavy locomotives. 



THE FISHERIES EXHIBITION. 



XATUKAL HISTORY DEPAETMtNTS. 

 By John Ernest Ady. 



IXTKODUCTOKY. (Continiud.) 



LAST week we brought our visit to the Exhibition to a 

 close at the termination of the Natural History 

 galleries of the East Quadrant, and with it completed our 

 survey of most of the important British exhibits concerned 

 with our subject. We propose now to conduct the student 

 over the ground principally devoted to the foreign sections, 

 and thus to bring the narrative portion of our work to an 

 end. 



Let us commence where we left ort', at the East Quadrant. 

 We will not continue along the Eastern Arcade, the divi- 

 sions of which are appropriated by exliibitors of fishermen's 

 clothing, preserved diets, nautical instruments, diving 

 apparatus, kc. ; but will rather proceed into the open 

 space, and glance at some of its interesting contents. 

 Geographically defined, this space is bounded on the north 

 by a large conservatory, in which a gorgeous royal barge, 

 presided over by an equally gorgeous personage (not always 

 on duty) is lodged. To the south of this, on the right 

 and left hand sides, are two band- stands, surrounded by 

 grass plots ; and the whole of the space thus occupied is 

 divided from the remainder by a transverse path running 

 east and west, in the middle of which the Prince Consort's 

 memorial is situated. The open ground is thus divided 

 into two nearly equal portions ; it is the southern part 

 with which we shall have to deal. This latter is further 

 subdivided by the large central pond into two lateral 

 halves, and each half comprises two terraces, which overhang 

 narrow, elongated (north and south) depressions, utilised as 

 fresh-water tanks. To the western half we are allured by the 

 huge skeleton of a whale which occupies its western 

 terrace. This specimen is the property of the Marquis of 

 Exeter, and is propped up on suitable supports. Its bones 

 are coated over with luminous paint, and a few tickets 

 suspended from the monster inform the public that it is 

 erected in memoriam Bahena myslicetus, the Greenland 

 or right whale, which yields, in place of the teeth it loses 

 before birth, the whalebone of commerce, swims at the rate 

 of about four miles an hour, and never exceeds 75 feet in 

 length. We must not rest satisfied, however, with this 

 meagre description, for the whale and its congeners, 

 the porpoise, grampus, and dolphin, with their next of 

 kin, the seals and walruses,* represent one of the most 

 important items in the fisheries of the world, and we shall, 

 therefore, recur to them in the descriptive portion of these 

 papers. We shall then have occasion to guide the student 

 to the stands where he may see the results of the various 

 industries which have been developed from the great 

 mammalian fisheries. So, in like manner, shall we conduct 

 him to the stalls where he may view what commercial 

 enterprise and artistic skill have done to utilise the various 

 products which are the outcome of fish and fishing. 



The terrace which contains the mortal remains of the 

 whale overhangs an elongated tank, to which access may 

 be gained down short flights of stairs at either end of the 

 tank, within whose waters a large number of golden tench, 

 common tench, carp, perch, and pike have been deposited 

 by Lord Wsdsingham. The golden tench are particularly 



* The seals and walruses belong to the aqnatic Camivora, the 

 whale and its allies to the Cetacea, amongst mammalian animals ; 

 these two divisions are connected by a link now broken, and which 

 is represented by the remarkable tertiary fossils of Zevrjlodon and 

 Squalodon. — J. E. A. 



