156 STlEiyTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS [Ign 



prey, when one of the forelegs is instantly extended, and the 

 struggling victim is soon mangled by the tremendous weapons 

 of the destroyer. These insects are excessively pugnacious, and 

 as is the case with sanctimonious hypocrites, two of them can 

 scarcely come together without a combat. In the case of the 

 Mantis the termination of the quarrel is generally fatal to one 

 if not to both of the combatants. Here the analogy unfortunately 

 must end, for when hypocrites quarrel, their crafty selfishness 

 teaches them how to survive. N. H. 



Idiosyncrasy defies Coercion. 



There are persons even in Europe to whom a mutton-chop 

 would be poisonous. Cases are known where animal food has 

 been poisonous to people. Some persons cannot take coffee with- 

 out vomiting ; others are thrown into a general inflammation if 

 they eat cherries or gooseberries. Many persons are unable to eat 

 eggs, and cakes or puddings having eggs in their composition 

 produce serious disturbances in such persons : if they are 

 induced to eat them under false assurances of no eggs having 

 been employed, they are soon undeceived by the unmistakable 

 effects. Only gross ignorance of physiology, an ignorance 

 unhappily too widely spread, can argue that because a certain 

 article is wholesome to many it must necessarily be wholesome 

 to all. Each individual organism is specially different from 

 every other. However much it may resemble others, it 

 necessarily in some points differs from them, and the amount 

 of these differences is often considerable. If the same wave 

 of air striking upon the tympanum of two different men will 

 produce sounds to the one which to the other are inappreciable ; 

 if the same wave of light will affect the vision of one man 

 as that of red colour, while to the vision of another it is no 

 colour at all, how unreasonable is it to expect that the same 

 substance will bear precisely the same relation to the alimentary 

 system of one man as to that of another ! Experience tells us 

 that it is not so. PH. 



Ignorant Bigots. 



On entering the Gudarigby Caverns, near the Murrumbidgee 

 River, New South Wales, you will see large numbers of the 



