Oct. 17, 1884.1 



♦ KNOWLEDGE ♦ 



313 



Suffolk, whose paper will be found in the Monthly Micro- 

 scopical Juurnal for April, 18G9, saw marks of their work 

 upon sugar comfits with which he fed them. Their scraping 

 action is accompanied with an outflow of saliva by which 

 the sugar particles are dissolved. The smaller pseudo 

 tracha- are connected with larger ones, and the fluid that 

 is sucked up runs into the mouth. 



I 



Fig. 5. 



At this time of the year, large flies, looking so much 

 like drones that they are commonly taken for them, are 

 frequently found on the windows of country houses. They 

 are drone flies, with a larger and difl^erently shaped pro- 

 boscis to that of the blow-fly. A rough outline of its 

 appearance is shown in Fig. 5. The pseudo-trache:B 

 are much finer and more numerous. They are also 

 nearer complete tubes than in the blow-fly, and I 

 think act as such when the two lobes are in con- 

 tact. This insect is not omnivorous. It would not touch a 

 droplet of meat soup as a blow fly would have done, but 

 worked vigorously at one of honey. The blow-fly thrusts 

 its proboscis forward in front of its head in feeding. 

 The drone fly likes to work it at right angles to the line 

 of its body. Putting the insect in a wide test-tube, is a 

 good way of seeing the proboscis in action. When the 

 lobes are open and pressed against the glass to lap up 

 the honey, a ripple is distinctly seen round its margin. 

 When a certain quantity is taken up, the instrument is 

 drawn back, and the lobes brought together. This must 

 cause a pressure on the tubes, and drives the fluid into the 

 mouth. 



The drone-fly is furnished with piercing and pumping 

 tools to get at nectar which the proboscis could not reach. 

 I do not know what flowers it operates upon in this way. 

 It is fond of the Michaelmas daisy, and reaches its nectar 

 by thrusting the proboscis down the tube of the flower. 

 When engaged at its meals it is not readily frightened, and 

 a quiet observer can stand by and watch the process with 

 a long-focussed lens. 



If formed by a gradual process of development, a long 

 time must have elapsed before so complicated an organ as 

 the proboscis of the common flies, blowflies, and drone- 

 flies came into being. If we look to what advantage this 

 form of mouth-apparatus bestows upon the creatures, we 

 find the pseudo-traohere act as filters as well as conduits. 

 Unlike the biting insects, the beetles, no solid particles 

 suit these creatures, and the varying delicacy of the pseudo- 

 tracheae adapts them to diflerent fluids. Perhaps the 

 blow-fly and his relations may take up thicker fluids than 



the drone-fly, and the daddy-longlegs, to ■which reference- 

 will be made in the next article, only dines upon those 

 which are very limpid. 



DICKENS'S STORY LEFT HALF TOLD. 



A QCASI-SCIENTIFIC IXQCIKT INTO 



THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. 



By Thomas ■ Foster. 



(Continued from page 298.) 



THE next chapter brings us to Rosa again, at Miss 

 Twinkleton's. We may remark here, that no note in 

 the opening music suggests the tragic tone which we should 

 expect were Rosa sorrowing for Edwin's death. We pre- 

 sently find her full of horror at Jasper's pursuit, but even 

 then there is no suggestion of any feeling that Drood is 

 dead. On the other hand, there are passages strongly 

 s\iggestive of the contrary. She speaks of fearing to open 

 Edwin's " generous eyes," of keeping the truth from him 

 " for his own trusting, good, good sake," as though he were 

 still alive. Of course the words would serve well enough 

 were he dead ; yet is there a subtle distinction between 

 them and those she would more naturally have used if she 

 had deemed him dead. Just as, later, when she says to 

 Grewgious, " His uncle has made love to me," we feel that 

 she would not have said this, but " Mr. Jasper has made 

 love to me," were .Jasper's nephew really dead : so in this 

 interview we feel that Rosa knows Drood to be alive :. 

 though she does not know how Jasper had dealt towards 

 the man whom he pretended to love so warmly. 



The next chapter — " Rosa's Flight" — is still more signi- 

 ficant. After showing the state of Rosa's mind in regard 

 to Jasper, it tells us that she determined to go to her 

 guardian, and to go immediately. She knows that he has 

 the power not only to protect her against .Jasper, but to 

 check the vile scheme which Ja.sper has threatened to 

 carry out against Neville Landless. Noting in passing that 

 she finds Mr. Grewgious at the open window, his shaded 

 lamp placed far from him on a table in a corner — manifestly 

 maintaining his watch over Neville — we see her appealing 

 at once to Mr. Grewgious for protection. Let us look a 

 little carefully into this part of the story. He asks her 

 how she came, and on her telling him, he asks why she 

 had not written to him to come and fetch her. Clearly it 

 had been arranged that if any new development required 

 it she was to write to him. Her answer is remarkable : 

 " I had no time. I took a sudden resolution. Poor, poor 

 Edihj .'" And Mr. Grewgious's reply is as strange. " Ah, 

 poor fellow, poor fellow !" He has asked her why she 

 came, and she says, " Poor, poor Eddy." Yet he finds the 

 reply full of meaning, and instead of asking her how it 

 bears on his ciuestion, simply echoes her thought ! What 

 can this mean ? " I had no time. I took a sudden resolu- 

 tion. Poo i; poor Eddy !" Clearly there is reference here 

 to something which had been arranged beforehand between 

 Rosa and Mr. Grewgious. Doubtless when he told her 

 Edwin was alive, but that ^he must keep the knowledge of 

 this to herself, he told her also of the love for her which 

 had sprung into existence in Eddy's heart with the recog- 

 nition of her real nature. She, not Eddy, had decided that 

 she and Edwin could never be man and wife. If Mr. 

 Grewgious had told her, as he doubtless did, that Edwin 

 loved her, she must have answered that she loved him onK' 

 as a brother. But, if 'Sit. Grewgious had suggested that 

 perhaps with time a warmer feeling might find growth in 

 her heart, and that did this chance be would wish he? to 



