Septkmbkk 1, 1900.] 



KNOWLEDGE. 



211 



by teachers ami otlieTs desirous of following miy special course of ] brackishness, from semi-stagnaliou to wild waves and 



iust ruction. We note also that Messrs. tIrilUn li;i\e issued some laciii"' cuiTCUls, from pelagic expanse to the space be- 



special Xray re-euerative tubes for use with ^Vehnelt•s electro = tidcniarks, from tracts of iniid and smooth ihie 



Ivtic bre;ik. ' 



BOOKS RECEIVED. 



Pi-iniiples uf Chess. Snl Editiou. Bv Janios Ma^oii. (Horace 

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A SomaMcer's Local Colour. (I'auiphlol.) By S. R. Crockett. 

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While Cattle: ait Inquiri/ into their Origin and Jlistori). By 

 R Hedger Wallace. (Reprinted from the Trans, of the N. H. 

 Societtt of Olastjoic.) 



Yar'iahle Star Notes. No. 6. (Roiisdon Observatory ) 



Instructions for the Use of the Calculus. By W. Gorn-Ohl. 

 ^[DoUoud : London.) 



Subject List of Vorls on Photography, (ralcut Ofiicc Libmiv 

 Series : No. 2.) 6d. 



Feilden's Magazine, August, 1901). Is. net. 



Flora of Bournemouth. By Edwai-d F. Linton, M..V. (Mate ;u»l 

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The Application of Klectric-Motors to Machine-Driving 

 Andrew btewart, A.l.E E. (Rentcll ; London.) Is 



M'est Ham Public Libraries : Annual Report, 18'J'J-l'JOO. 



Miniature Chessboard and Chessmen. (iJritisli Cliess Co) 2 



Over the Alps on a Bicgcle. By Mrs. Pcnnell. (Uuwin.) 



Bulletins de la Societe D'Anthropologie de Paris. 



A Handbook of Photography in Colours. By X. Bolas, Al 

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An Account of the Oldest Book.': in the World. By Isaac 

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yuore Osseri-azioni di Marte. V. Cerulli. 1898-99. 



Bv 



(id. 



Is 



■xantlci" 

 Mcvcr, 



THE KARKINOKOSM, OR WORLD OF 

 CRUSTACEA. 



By the licv. Tuomas K. R. Stebbikg, m.a., i-.u.s., f.i..s., 

 F.Z.S., Author of " A History of Crimtacea," ' Tlie 

 XaturaUst of Cmnbrae," " Report on the Amjihii/oda 

 collected by U.M.S. ' Uhallenger,' " etc. 



THE MANY-TWINKLING FEET. 

 Amphipod.y are much more abundant and useful than 

 amphitheatres, though their name is less familiar. An 

 amphitheatre is well conceived for convergent eyes, and 

 an amphipod for divergent legs. Imagine the central 

 space of an amphitheatre to be the body of an animal 

 and its radiating gangways the legs, and you may then 

 understand something of Latreillc s intention in reining 

 the word Amphipoda, which signifies, as he explains 

 it., feet extended in every direction. These feet are not 

 stiff and stony and uniform in pattern like the gang- 

 ways to which I have compared them, but mobile, 

 m^y-jointed, endlessly diversified, and, moreover, 

 capable of being uplifted or downward bent at all sorts 

 of varying angles. Like the Isopoda of the last chapter, 

 the AJnphipoda are fourteen-footed. That is to say, 

 besides several other more or less leg-like appendages, 

 they have seven pairs of legs attached to the central 

 trunk. Just think what nature can do in the way of 

 variety with us poor quadrupedal or quadrumanous 

 creatures, making the front legs so long in the giraffe, 

 so short in the kangaroo, so solid in the elepiiant, so 

 slender in the gazelle, so handy in ourselves, so invisible 

 in the bashful snake, and then fancy, if you can, how 

 the same nature may run riot when there are seven pairs 

 of limbs to play with instead of only two. The oppor- 

 tunity is not neglected. 



Seeing that the majority of the Amphipoda take their 

 pastime or at any rate pass their time in the ocean, a 

 common environment might seem unfavourable to 

 variability. But the environment, though continuous, 

 is multiform, from surface to abyss, from tropical heat 

 to glacial temperature, from strong salinity to a slight 



Scina ratlrayi, Stebbing. Hypci'id I'roiij Atlantic. 



sand to coral reefs and ragged rocks, whiu-c the lost 

 luormaideu dwelt of yore among the still-surviving 

 tangle of many-coloured algte and zoopliytes. Into all 

 those situations, romantic or prosaic, and into some 

 others, Amphipoda have found their way. Not so easy 

 a thing is it to bury yourself in sand or sticky mud, 

 and then to unbury yourself as if nothing had 

 happened, with your coat as shining as before and every 

 delicate hair uninjured. But many species of ani- 

 phipods can accomplish this. To walk, to run, to climb, 

 to delve, to build, to grasp the prey, to clasp the beloved 

 one, to shelter the brood — these are obvious among the 

 functions of the fourteen feet, as illustrated in the life- 

 history of various sijecics. How easily it all appears 

 to come about, by shortening one joint, and lengthening 

 another, widening this and narrowing that, with a little 

 notching and sculpturing of margins, inflating or flatten- 

 ing of surfaces, curving the straight, straightening the 

 crooked, feathering a hair, fortifying a sctule into a 

 spine, and behold for every function there arises its 

 adapted form in permutations and combinations which 

 arithmetic proclaims to be inexhaustible. 



Pardalisca abyssi, Bocck. Gammarid, with eyes imperfectly 

 developed. 



This is a happy moment for beginning the study of the 

 Amphipoda, because at present the order has definite 

 and undisputed boundaries. Nothing that is not an 

 amphipod wants to be one, nothing that is an amphipod 

 wants to trek. First, there are the branchial sacs, 

 simple or almost simple, not enclosed in a branchial 

 chamber, and beh^nging to some of the trunk-lLmbs. 

 Secondly, there is the pleon, which never has more than 

 three pairs of swimming feet with lash-like branches. 

 This combination of characters protects the Amphipoda 

 from being confused with any other known crustaceans. 



