April 2, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



r. 



ILLUSTRATED MAGAZINE 



iSClENCE, LITERATIJRE AAm^ 



Founded by RICHARD A. PROCTOR. 



LONDON: APEIL ^, 1900. 



CONTENTS. 



Tlie Karkinokosm, or World of Crustacea. — 

 Little Wonders and Queer Blunders, By (lie Iter. 

 Thomas R. K. Stebbikg, m. a., f.b.s., f.l.s., f.z.s. 

 (lUuxtrafed) 



Sir John Sibbald on Suicide. By Dr. J. ti. McPiikrsox, 



V.H.S.E. 



The Evolution of Simple Societies. — II. The Pastors 

 of the Steppes. l!_v Trof. .\i.i-bi:i) C. Uadoox. ma.. 

 D.si-., y.u.!-. ... . 



The Photography of Clouds. I!v Eiokxe Axtomadi, 

 F.B.A.s. (Illustrated) 



Cloud Photographs taken at M. Flanimarion s Obser- 

 vatory, Juvisy. France. [Plate.) 



Mme. Ceraski s Second Algol Variable By Kdwakd C, 



PlCKEKINO 



Astronomy without a Telescope. — III. The Northern 

 Stars. i!y K. Wai.tkr >rArXDER. f.r.a.s. (Illustrated) 



Earthquake-Sounds. By Chakles Davison, sc.d., i- g s. 



Letters : 



Is THE Universe Infinite? By W. H. S. Monck 

 Is THE Stkllab Univbrsk Finite? By AVm .-Indekson 

 Ihb Constituents of the Scn. By CoK K. E. Mabk wick 

 Note by A. Fowler, f.e.a.s. 



Notices of Books 



Books Received 



British Ornithological Notes. Conducted by Habhy F. 



WlIHBEBT, P.Z.a., M.B.O.TT. ... 



Obituary : 



Charles Piazzi Smtth 



Across the Downs. By Gebnville A. J. Colk, m.b.i.a., 



F.G s. (Illustrated) 

 The Mud-Nest Building Birds of Australia. I'.y 1). 



Le Sodkf, r.M.z.s. (Illiisf rated) " ... 



Microscopy. By John H. Cooke, f.l.s., f.g.s. 



Notes on Comets and Meteors. Bv W. F. Denning, 



F.B.A.8 ■ 



The Face of the Sky for April. By A. Fowleb, f.e.a!s. 

 Chess Column. By C. D. Locock, b.a 



7:i 

 70 



7i> 

 7'J 



M 



81 

 83 



S3 

 86 



8() 

 86 



88 



88 



8'.) 



89 



92 

 94 



94 

 9.5 

 9.j 



THE KARKINOKOSM, OR WORLD OF 

 CRUSTACEA. 



By the Kev. Thomas K. R. Stebbing, m.a., f.k.s., f.l.s., 

 F.Z.S., Author of " A History of Crustficca," " The 

 Naturalist of Cumhrae," " Report on the. Aniphi/uuhi 

 collected by H.M..S. ' ( 'hallenyer,' " etc. 



LITTLE WONDERS AND QUEER BLUNDERS. 



LixN^us was no longer in the land of the living 

 Lamarck had attained to middle life, Latreille was 

 almost a young man, Cuvier was in his boyhood 

 bavigay and Sabine, if still babies, were at any rat^ 

 already born, before the least inkling had reached the 

 scientific world of that remarkable group of Crustacea 

 to which the readers attention is now invited. When 

 the inkling came at last, it came, not as might have 

 been expected, from Sweden or Germany or France 

 but from Russia. For though it may be, and has been' 



suggested that Germany u,,., ,,,, ,.i,,a, l.y a year tliu 

 Teutonic oracle, issued by tin- celebrated Johann 

 Uiristiau Jabricius, is so oUscme (liat nobodv to (his 

 c!ay can tell for certain what was iutcuihHl by' it Uul 

 the German twilight or the Ru.s.sian dawn wa's followed 

 in nearly forty years only by one faint nuivcni^- ray 

 which issued from our own Devonshire. Then a clearer 

 light shone out of America, again witli no responsive 

 gleam during nearly a quarter of a eenturv except a 

 titful shimmer from France. To this day "you might 

 search through a hundred intellectual ' salons, and 

 examine the students of innumerable schools and 

 colleges, without finding any appreciable percentage 

 of persons who could give a reasonable account of the 

 Cumacea. 



Nevertheless it was not in inaccessible Russian but 

 in Latin that Ivan Lepekhin described his species in 

 1780; in 1818 the American, Sav, wrote of Diastylis 

 arenarius in the English tongue; and during the 

 last fifty or sixty years a large number of kindred 

 forms have been discussed m various European 

 languages. In the productive effort of this latter period 

 Great Britain and Ireland can claim to 'lave worked 

 early and worked well, though they cannot pre- 

 tend 'o compete with Dano-Norwegian "science, led by 

 such ca[)tains " ■. — - - 



iSars. 



as Heiirik Kroyer and Georg Ossian 





%=i*^ 



FiG, 1. — yaniin.slaci'S .siihiiii Siii-j. Pliili|ipiiio I,«l;iijtls. 

 from Sars. 



After this historic preamble, not to raise false hopes, 

 it is right to explain that these Cumacea have less of 

 .ZEsops bull-frog about them than any other order 

 of the Malacostraca. Some of them, like certain of 

 the crabs and family members of all the other orders, 

 dwindle down to absurdly tiny proportions; but none 

 of them ever swell themselves out to that menacing 

 magnitude which many groups occasionally display. In 

 a comjjetition of length, they cannot with their cham- 

 pion species stretch to an inch and a half. Into a 

 competition of breadth they have no temptation < .i 

 enter. They are essentially of a spare habit. Though, 

 like the lobster and the shrimp, they are conspicuously 

 long-tailed (macrurous) crustaceans, in that very respect 

 tiiey differ most strikingly from the Macrura proper. 

 The tail is not a muscular meat-supplying appendage, 

 but slender, and adapted, like the tail of a scorpion, 

 for sudden and variously divergent wrigglings and con- 

 tortions. Insignificant in size, however, as they are, 

 their enormous numbers in the North Sea potently 

 help to fatten the shoals of herrings. This is one of 

 the reasons for thinking that the sjjccies which Fabricius 

 in 1779 called Gammarus csca, the Food Gammarus, 

 was a Cumacean. The name Gammarus is now re- 



