474 



♦ KNOWLEDGE 



[June 5, 1885. 



are likely to have their peace of mind affected by the ravages 

 of Dermestes. The larvaa are by no means particular as to the 

 class to which a preserved animal belongs, and so birds, 

 beasts, and fishes, crabs, insects, and spiders, may any or 

 all fall before their jaws. Sometimes they will attack a 

 skin by nibbling away at the roots of the hair or feathers, 

 and so making a nice clean shave of the whole affair. 

 Occasionally they will forsake an animal for a vegetable 

 diet ; cork is a substance much favoured with their atten- 

 tions, and an account has been placed on record of the de- 

 struction of a whole ship's cargo of this material by vast 

 numbers of them. On another occasion they actually 

 abandoned some tempting skins on which they had been 

 feasting for a set of corks that had been introduced into 

 their quarters. Nor is the housewife exempt from anxiety 

 on the score of Dermestes. Not only flitches of bacon, but 

 even the meat in larders and the bladders covering the tops 

 of jam-pots have on occasions yielded to their rapacity ; 

 books and paper, too, are not safe, and, strangest of all, 

 they have sometimes actually imitated the example of 

 Anobium, and bored into wood, feeding on the timber as 

 they advanced. 



But the most repulsive charge against them is that of 

 anthropophagy. Some years ago, some Egyptian mummies 

 were discovered which, perhaps through straitened circum- 

 stances in the family to which they belonged, or through 

 the shiftiness of some dishonest firm of embalmers, had 

 evidently been prepared with less care than was usually 

 expended on such objects. On being unswathed, the bodies 

 were found to be pierced in some ])laces by an insect iden- 

 tical with the London warehouse pest above referred to, 

 viz., B. ritlpinus, some examples of which had worked 

 their way through two or three folds of the mummy-cloth 

 and there perished. The bodies, on being opened, were 

 found to contain thousands of the larva>, together with 

 many more of the perfect beetles — of course, all mummified 

 and saved from decay by the same drugs as had preserved 

 the mummy itself. From the facts that death had 

 overtaken the larvre in the fulness of their powers, that 

 only a few beetles had escaped from the body, and 

 that these had not been able to work their way out 

 completely, it is manifest that they must have com- 

 menced their attacks during the preliminary processes 

 of embalmment, when evidently the body had l>een some- 

 what neglected, and that most of them had been killed by 

 the later stages of the operation, a few only surviving its 

 completion, and they were without strength sufficient to 

 eat their way completely through the investing mass into 

 daylight. The Dennestrs were accompanied by another 

 beetle, a bright blue species called Corynetes violaceus, 

 which also is a common British insect aad a devourer of 

 carrion and skins, though belonging to a different family. 

 It was well for the feelings of the survivors and owners 

 of the precious relics that all these insects perished where 

 and when they did ; for think what a shock it would have 

 given to the family to see a host of beetles come trooping 

 out of the corpse of their respected relative, the integrity 

 of whose remains had been an object of their pious care ! 

 In consequence of the great amount of preservatives used, 

 the bodies themselves, when once properly prepared, would 

 probably be exempt from insect attack, but not so the 

 wooden cases in which they reposed, which could easily be, 

 and were, perforated by wood-borers such as Anobium, 

 aad, to judge from some in the Briti.sh Museum, the aucient 

 Egyptian may have had to look as sharply after the cotfins 

 of his grandfathi r;< as the modern Englishman after his 

 chairs and tables to prevent them from becoming worm- 

 eaten. 



(To he continued.) 



THOUGHT AND LANGUAGE. 



By Ada S. Ballin. 



IT is desirable to deal rather fully with the gesture- 

 language used by deafmutes, as the inquiry throws 

 a very strong light on the mode in which language in 

 general may have been developed ; but before proceeding 

 to examine this development in detail, it will be interest- 

 ing to inquire into the origin of those apparently natural 

 signs which are used alike by civilised and savage peoples, by 

 speakers and by the speechless, to ex|iress assent or dissent, 

 signs which are of the greatest importance. 



Assent is expressed by Eui-opeaus by a nod of the 

 head, whereas for dissent the head is shaken from side 

 to side. These gestures are some of those that have 

 become so engrained in the human mind that they are 

 performed by those who, owing to brain - disease, have 

 lost all power of using verbal language ; and another 

 class of patients who are able to pronounce words, but 

 use them in such a way that they express no ideas, 

 shake their heads to show that they are using a word 

 wrongly, and will nod the head to signify assent even 

 when they are uttering the word "No!" That these signs 

 are instinctive, at any rate in some uations, is further 

 rendered proliable by the fact that Laura Bridgeman, to 

 whom I have previously referred as being both blind and 

 deaf, " constantly accompanied her i/es with the common 

 affirmative nod, and her no with our negative shake of the 

 head," as Lieber, her teacher, asserts. 



Vogt also speaks of a microcephalous idiot, who, in 

 answer to questions as to whether he wi.shed for more food 

 or drink, used to incline or shake his head.* Schmalz 

 assumed that in the case of children only a degree above 

 idiotcy these signs can be made and understood. 



Signs used to express assent and dissent may be regarded 

 as primarily expressive of feeling. With a smile of appro- 

 bation a vertical nod is often given, while with a frown of 

 disapproval the head is frequently shaken from side to side. 

 All gestures expressive of assent and dissent probably had 

 their origin in movements of approach to, or acceptance of, 

 something pleasant, and of avoidance or refusal of things 

 unpleasant. Nor does this involuntary origin detract from 

 their present value as voluntary signs expressive of thought. 

 For, as Darwin says, he does not believe " that any in- 

 herited movement which now serves as a means of expres- 

 sion, was at first voluntarily and consciously performed for 

 the special purpose. . . . On the contrary," he observes, 

 "every true or inherited movement of expression seems to 

 have had some natural and independent origin. But, when 

 once acquired, such movements may be voluntarily and 

 consciously employed as a means of communication. "t 



A man rejecting a proposition will .shut his eyes and 

 avert his head, as if he wished to avoid an unpleasant 

 sight ; and when this approval or dissent is expressed the 

 mouth is frequently pursed up, while the head is shaken 

 as if in avoidance of a nauseous morsel which some one is 

 endeavouring to force upon him. I have seen the same 

 actions in little children refusing to take a dose of 

 medicine. 



Thus natural expressions may become voluntary signs. 

 Savages, when pleased, not only smile, but make gestures 

 indicative of joys connected with eating. Petherick says 

 that the negroes on the Upper Nile began a general rubbing 

 of their bellies when he showed them beads. Leichhardt 

 remarks that the Australians smacked their lips and 



* " Memoire sur les Microcephales, 1867," p. 27. 

 t " Expressions of Emotions," Ed. 1872, p. 356. 



