Learning 

 Life 



SCIENTIFIC SIDE-LIGHTS 



382 



ised well, but commenced a little severely. 

 " Let us proceed," replied Archimedes, with- 

 out modifying his professorial tone " let 

 us proceed: there is here no privileged road 

 for kings." In astronomy there is no privi- 

 leged road for any one, and if we wish to 

 gain information it is indispensable that we 

 should first understand the principles of 

 geometrical measurements. FLAMMARION 

 Popular Astronomy, bk. ii, ch. 1, p. 85. 

 (A.) 



1867. LEARNING THE WAY NEC- 

 ESSARY FOR BEES Sense of Direction 

 Not a Blind Instinct. Sir John Lubbock 

 [Lord Avebury] observes : " I never found 

 bees to return if brought any considerable 

 distance at once. By taking them, however, 

 some twenty yards each time they came to 

 the honey I at length trained them to come 

 to my room"; that is to say, bees require 

 to learn their way little by little before they 

 can return to a store of honey which they 

 may have been fortunate enough to find; 

 their general sense of direction is not in it- 

 self a sufficient guide. This, at least, is the 

 case where, as in the experiments in ques- 

 tion, the bees are carried from the hive to 

 the store of honey (here a distance of less 

 than 200 yards ) ; possibly if they had found 

 the honey by themselves flying towards it, 

 and so probably taking note of objects by 

 the way, one journey might have proved 

 sufficient to teach them the way. But 

 whether or not this would have been the 

 case, the fact that when carried they re- 

 quired also to be taught the way piece by 

 piece is conclusive proof that their sense 

 of direction alone is not sufficient to enable 

 them to traverse a route of 200 yards a sec- 

 ond time. ROMANES Animal Intelligence, 

 ch. 4, p. 145. (A., 1899.) 



1868. LEAVEN AN INVENTION OF 

 WOMAN " If there be any one discovery 

 owing to chance it is that of leaven. The 

 world was indebted to the economy of some 

 person or other for this happy discovery, 

 who, in order to save a little dough, mixed 

 it with the new. They would, no doubt, be 

 surprised to find that this old dough, so sour 

 and distasteful itself, rendered the new 

 bread so much lighter, more savory, and easy 

 of digestion. More probably leaven arose 

 in hot countries, in the preference shown for 

 the acid flavor of stale porridge (compare 

 the practise of adding curds to fresh milk 

 in order to turn it sour for immediate con- 

 sumption ) , as in the caff a or porridge-ball 

 of Guinea, which is considered insipid while 

 fresh." LANDER, quoted by MASON in Wom- 

 an's Share in Primitive Culture, ch. 2, p. 30. 

 (A., 1894.) 



1869. LEAVES ON THE MARCH 



Procession of Sauba or Leaf-cutting Ants 

 Relays of Workers Supplement Each Other. 

 In course of time I had plenty of oppor- 

 tunities of seeing them [the sauba-ants] 

 at work. They mount the tree in multi- 



tudes, the individuals being all worker-mi- 

 nors [the workers of smallest size]. Each 

 one places itself on the surface of a leaf and 

 cuts with its sharp scissor-like jaws a nearly 

 semicircular incision on the upper side; it 

 then takes the edge between its jaws and by 

 a sharp jerk detaches the piece. Sometimes 

 they let the leaf drop to the ground, where 

 a little heap accumulates, until carried off 

 by another relay of workers; but generally 

 each marches off with the piece it has oper- 

 ated upon, and as all take the same road 

 to their colony the path they follow becomes 

 in a short time smooth and bare, looking 

 like the impression of a cart-wheel through 

 the herbage. . . . When employed on this 

 work their processions look like a multitude 

 of animated leaves on the march. In some 

 places I found an accumulation of such 

 leaves, all circular pieces, about the size 

 of a sixpence, lying on the pathway unat- 

 tended by ants, and at some distance from 

 any colony. Such heaps are always found 

 to be removed when the place is revisited 

 the next day. BATES Naturalist on the 

 River Amazon, ch. 1, p. 627. (Hum., 1880.) 



187O. LIFE, ABUNDANCE OF, IN 

 GEOLOGIC TIMES^-Fossil Fishes Numerous 

 and Diversified. The fossil fishes which 

 have been found, and which I have had an 

 opportunity of examining in certain circum- 

 scribed regions, form a very favorable basis 

 for comparison and estimate. At Mount 

 Vulcan, near Verona, is a celebrated quarry, 

 not many miles in extent, from which alone 

 have been taken over one hundred different 

 kinds of fossil fishes. The Adriatic in its 

 whole extent does not furnish as many dif- 

 ferent species as are found in this quarry. 

 I have examined the fossil fishes of the 

 neighborhood of Riga on the Baltic, and they 

 are more numerous than the present living 

 species of the Baltic and German Ocean. 

 Here, then, we have direct evidence that in 

 former periods, within similar areas, there 

 was as great a diversity of animals as now 

 exists. AGASSIZ Structure of Animal Life, 

 lect. 5, p. 94. (S., 1883.) 



1871. 



Fossils in Silurian 



Deposits The Ancient Earth Everywhere 

 Teemed with Life. Altho the early geolog- 

 ical periods are more legible in North 

 America, because they are exposed over such 

 extensive tracts of land, yet they have been 

 studied in many other parts of the globe. 

 In Norway, in Germany, in France, in Rus- 

 sia, in Siberia, in Kamchatka, in parts of 

 South America, in short, wherever the civi- 

 lization of the white race has extended, 

 Silurian deposits have been observed, and 

 everywhere they bear the same testimony 

 to a profuse and varied creation. The earth 

 was teeming then with life as now, and in 

 whatever corner of its surface the geologist 

 finds the old strata, they hold a dead fauna 

 as numerous as that which lives and moves 

 above it. Nor do we find that there was any 

 gradual increase or decrease of any organic 



