Enjoyment 

 Environment 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



210 



thought, the bent of their imaginations, and 

 the habits of their lives to the simplicity of 

 Nature, which was so faithfully reflected in 

 their poetic works, we cannot fail to remark 

 with surprise how few traces are to be met 

 among them of the sentimental interest with 

 which we, in modern times, attach ourselves 

 to the individual characteristics of natural 

 scenery. The Greek poet is certainly, in the 

 highest degree, correct, faithful, and circum- 

 stantial in his descriptions of Nature, but 

 his heart has no more share in his words 

 than if he were treating of a garment, a 

 shield, or a suit of armor. Nature seems to 

 interest his understanding more than his 

 moral perceptions; he does not cling to her 

 charms with the fervor and the plaintive 

 passion of the poet of modern times." How- 

 ever much truth and excellence there may be 

 in these remarks, they must not be extended 

 to the whole of antiquity; and I moreover 

 consider that we take a very limited view of 

 antiquity when, in contradistinction to the 

 present time, we restrict the term exclu- 

 sively to the Greeks and Romans. A pro- 

 found feeling of Nature pervades the most 

 ancient poetry of the Hebrews and Indians, 

 and exists, therefore, among nations of very 

 different descent Semitic and Indo-Ger- 

 manic. HUMBOLDT Cosmos, vol. ii, pt. i, p. 

 21. (H., 1897.) 



1O26. ENTHUSIASM OF YOUNG 

 NATURALIST Fossil Winged Fi&h.Of all 

 the organisms of the system [the Old Red 

 Sandstone], one of the most extraordinary 

 . . . is the Pterichthys, or winged fish, 

 an ichthyolite which the writer had the 

 pleasure of introducing to the acquaintance 

 of geologists nearly three years ago, but 

 which he first laid open to the light about 

 seven years earlier. ... I fain wish I 

 could communicate to the reader the feeling 

 with which I contemplated my first specimen. 

 It opened with a single blow of the hammer ; 

 and there, on a ground of light-colored lime- 

 stone, lay the effigy of a creature fashioned 

 apparently out of jet, with a body covered 

 with plates, two powerful looking arms, ar- 

 ticulated at the shoulders, a head as entirely 

 lost in the trunk as that of the ray or the 

 sunfish, and a long, angular tail. My first- 

 formed idea regarding it was, that I had dis- 

 covered a connecting link between the tor- 

 toise and the fish the body much resembles 

 that of a small turtle; and why, I asked, if 

 one formation gives us sauroid fishes, may 

 not another give us chelonian ones? or if in 

 the Lias we find the body of the lizard 

 mounted on the paddles of the whale, why 

 not find in the Old Red Sandstone the body 

 of the tortoise mounted in a somewhat simi- 

 lar manner? The idea originated in error; 

 but as it was an error which not many nat- 

 uralists could have corrected at the time, it 

 may be deemed an excusable one, more es- 

 pecially by such of my readers as may have 

 seen well-preserved specimens of the crea- 

 ture. MILLER The Old Red Sandstone, ch. 3, 

 p. 42. (G. & L., 1851.) 



1O27. 



Traces of the Ice- 



period in America. In the autumn of 1846, 

 six years after my visit to Great Britain in 

 search of glaciers, I sailed for America. 

 When the steamer stopped at Halifax, eager 

 to set foot on the new continent so full of 

 promise for me, I sprang on shore and 

 started at a brisk pace for the heights above 

 the landing. On the first undisturbed 

 ground, after leaving the town, I was met 

 by the familiar signs, the polished surfaces, 

 the furrows and scratches, the line-engrav- 

 ing of the glacier, so well known in the Old 

 World; and I became convinced of what I 

 had already anticipated as the logical se- 

 quence of my previous investigations, that 

 here also this great agent had been at work, 

 altho it was only after a long residence in 

 America, and repeated investigations of the 

 glacial phenomena in various parts of the 

 country, that I fully understood the uni- 

 versality of its action. AGASSIZ Geological 

 Sketches, ser. ii, p. 77. (H. M. & Co., 1896.) 



1028. ENTpMOLOGIST DECEIVED 



Protective Mimicry of Caterpillars. Some 

 of the most curious examples of minute imi- 

 tation are afforded by the caterpillars of the 

 geometer moths, which are always brown or 

 reddish, and resemble in form little twigs 

 of the plant on which they feed. They have 

 the habit, when at rest, of standing out 

 obliquely from the branch, to which they 

 hold on by their hind pair of prolegs or 

 claspers, and remain motionless for hours. 

 Speaking of these protective resemblances 

 Mr. Jenner Weir says : " After being thirty 

 years an entomologist I was deceived myself, 

 and took out my pruning-scissors to cut 

 from a plum-tree a spur which I thought I 

 had overlooked. This turned out to be the 

 larva of a geometer two inches long. I 

 showed it to several members of my family, 

 and defined a space of four inches in which 

 it was to be seen, but none of them could 

 perceive that it was a caterpillar." WAL- 

 LACE Darwinism, ch. 8, p. 139. (Hum., 

 1889.) 



1029. ENVIRONMENT, ADAPTATION 

 TO CHANGES OF Stomach of Sea-gull- 

 Gizzard of Pigeon. Hunter, for example, in 

 a classical experiment, so changed the en- 

 vironment of a sea-gull by keeping it in cap- 

 tivity that it could only secure a grain diet. 

 The effect was to modify the stomach of the 

 bird, normally adapted to a fish diet, until 

 in time it came to resemble in structure the 

 gizzard of an ordinary grain-feeder, such as 

 the pigeon. Holmgren, again, reversed this 

 experiment by feeding pigeons for a length- 

 ened period on a meat diet, with the result 

 that the gizzard became transformed into 

 the carnivorous stomach. DBUMMOND Nat- 

 ural Law in the Spiritual World, essay 7, p. 

 232. (H. Al.) 



1030. ENVIRONMENT AFFECTING 



MAN Adaptation of Races to Climate and Lo- 

 cality. That certain races are constitution- 

 ally fit and others unfit for certain climates, 



