343 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



Inheritance 

 Insect-life 



soon remark the almost entire absence of 

 spontaneous motion that is, motion un- 

 provoked by any present incitation of sense. 

 The continued movements of swimming per- 

 formed by the creature in the water seem to 

 be the fatal result of the contact of that 

 fluid with its skin. They cease when a stick, 

 for example, touches his hands. This is a 

 sensible irritant towards which the feet are 

 automatically drawn by reflex action, and on 

 which the animal remains sitting. He mani- 

 fests no hunger and will suffer a fly to crawl 

 over his nose unsnapped at. Fear, too, seems 

 to have deserted him. In a word, he is an 

 extremely complex machine whose actions, 

 so far as they go, tend to self-preservation; 

 but still a machine, in this sense that it 

 seems to contain no incalculable element. 

 By applying the right sensory stimulus to 

 him we are almost as certain of getting a 

 fixed response as an organist is of hearing 

 a certain tone when he pulls out a certain 

 stop. -JAMES Psychology, vol. i, ch. 2, p. 17. 

 (H. H. & Co., 1899.) 



1680. INJURY BY INDIRECTION 



Products of Bacteria More Harmful than the 

 Organisms Themselves Toxins. Yet there 

 is something of far greater importance than 

 the mere presence of bacteria in human or 

 animal tissues; for the secondary action of 

 disease-producing germs and possibly it is 

 present in all bacteria is due to their poi- 

 sonous products, or toxins, as they have been 

 termed. These may be of the nature of fer- 

 ments, and they become diffused throughout 

 the body, whether the bacteria themselves 

 occur locally or generally. They may bring 

 about very slight and even imperceptible 

 changes during the course of the disease, or 

 they may kill the patient in a few hours. 

 Latterly bacteriologists have come to under- 

 stand that it is not so much the presence 

 of organisms which is injurious to man and 

 other animals, as it is their products which 

 cause the mischief; and the amount of toxic 

 product bears no known proportion to the 

 degree of invasion by the bacteria. The 

 various and widely differing modes of action 

 in bacteria are therefore dependent upon 

 these three elements : the tissues or medium, 

 the bacteria, and the products of the bac- 

 teria; and in all organismal processes these 

 three elements act and react upon each 

 other. NEWMAN Bacteria, ch. 1, p. 28. (G. 

 P. P., 1899.) 



1681. INSANITY, MORAL, MAY BE 

 CONGENITAL Children of Better Classes 

 Sometimes Hopelessly Depraved. From time 

 to time we are consulted about perplexing 

 cases of what might be called moral insanity, 

 or, more properly, moral imbecility, in chil- 

 dren of the better classes. Tho born in good 

 circumstances of life and having every ad- 

 vantage of education, they cannot, by any 

 care or training, be made to learn and be- 

 have like other children; they display no 

 affection whatever for parents, brothers, or 

 Bisters, and no real appreciation of the dif- 



ference between right and wrong no love 

 for the one, no remorse for the other; they 

 are inherently vicious, and steal and lie with 

 a skill that it is hard to believe could ever 

 have been acquired are, in fact, instinctive 

 thieves and liars; everything that their vi- 

 cious nature prompts them to desire is for 

 them right, and they exhibit a remarkable 

 cunning in gratifying their evil propensi- 

 ties; they are the hopeless pupils of any 

 master who has anything to do with them, 

 and are sure to be expelled from any school 

 to which they may be sent. In the end all 

 those who have to do with them are con- 

 strained to ascribe to defect what at first 

 seemed simple badness. Now, what we com- 

 monly find in these cases, when we are able 

 to push satisfactory inquiry into their he- 

 reditary antecedents, is that they come of 

 families in which insanity or some allied 

 neurosis prevails. MAUDSLEY Body and 

 Mind, lect. 4, p. 111. (A., 1898.) 



1682. INSECT WITH BIRD -LIKE 



HABIT Wasp Feeding Its Young. Its [the 

 Monedula wasp's] singular habits and in- 

 telligence give it a still better claim to no- 

 tice. It is a big, showy, loud-buzzing insect, 

 with pink head and legs, wings with brown 

 reflections, and body encircled with alter- 

 nate bands of black and pale gold, and has 

 a preference for large composite flowers, on 

 the honey of which it feeds. Its young is, 

 however, an insect-eater; but the Monedula 

 does not, like other burrowing or sand wasps, 

 put away a store of insects or spiders, par- 

 tially paralyzed, as a provision for the grub 

 till it reaches the pupa state; it actually 

 supplies the grub with fresh-caught insects 

 as long as food is required, killing the prey 

 it captures outright, and bringing it in to 

 its young, so that its habits, in this particu- 

 lar, are more bird- than wasp-like. HUD- 

 SON Naturalist in La Plata, ch. 12, p. 163, 

 (C. & H., 1895.) 



1 683. INSECT-LIFE, RICHNESS OF, 

 IN TROPICS Number and Splendor of But- 

 terflies in Brazil Luxuriance of Beauty in 

 Wilderness. It will convey some idea of 

 the diversity of butterflies when I mention 

 that about 700 species of that tribe are 

 found within an hour's walk of the town 

 [Para], while the total number found in the 

 British Islands does not exceed 66, and the 

 whole of Europe supports only 321. Some 

 of the most showy species, such as the 

 swallow-tailed kinds, Papilio polycaon, tho- 

 as, torquatus, and others, are seen flying 

 about the streets and gardens; sometimes, 

 they come through the open windows, at- 

 tracted by flowers in the apartments. Those 

 species of Papilio which are most character- 

 istic of the country, so conspicuous in their 

 velvety-black, green and rose-colored hues, 

 which Linnaeus, in pursuance of his elegant 

 system of nomenclature naming the differ- 

 ent kinds after the heroes of Greek myth- 

 ology called Trojans, never leave the shadea 

 of the forest. The splendid metallic blue 



