IOO 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



CHAPTERS FOR YOUNG NATURALISTS. 



Some Lodgers in a Poxd. 



By A. F. Tait. 

 (Concluded from page 74 ) 



T F every brickmaker and bricklayer in England 

 were to go out on strike to-morrow, the 

 industry of ■ brickmaking, and the craft of brick- 

 laying would still go on in full swing in the most 

 remarkable of its branches. There is a humble but 

 most active and independent member of the building 

 trades to whom your attention is ; now invited. 

 Competition, over-production, the crowded state of 

 the labour market, and the vexatious and disturbing 

 effects of a big strike could never disturb the mind 

 of the little builder to whom we have the pleasure 

 of introducing you. Melicerta ringens is the name of 

 this most remarkable of artificers. This little 

 creature was, as you will remember, beautifully 

 illustrated in Science-Gossip last month by that 

 prince of microscopists, the Rev. Dr. Dallinger, 

 F.R.S. Melicerta is his own architect, his own 

 brickmaker, and his own mason, and he is 

 capable of constructing as graceful and handsome 

 a tower as one can well imagine. Many of us 

 have heard of the round towers of Ireland, 

 and some of us are aware that our learned friends, 

 the archaeologists, have had battles royal as to 

 whether these round towers were originally 

 Christian belfries, or heathen buildings for the 

 celebration of pagan ceremonies. We know not 

 whether the excessive heat of the Hibernian atmo- 

 sphere, theological and political, has caused the 

 Melicertan to cast anchor in a more temperate zone, 

 or whether he has had access to the plans in the 

 "Archaeological Transactions," but the broad fact 

 remains that he (judging by appearances) must 

 have been a resident at one time in " the distressful 

 country," and has carried with him in his mind's 

 eye an exact copy and pattern of the famed Round 

 Towers of Ireland. That these towers must have 

 been his beau ideal of beauty, strength, and utility, 

 for his domestic architecture is invariably designed 

 and executed on this very plan, the chief alteration 

 he has made to meet his own requirements being 

 that whereas the Hibernian tower is broadest at its 

 base, the Melicertan tower is broadest at its 

 summit. The structural difficulty of this arrange- 

 ment vanishes when we are made aware of the fact 

 that the Melicertan fixes its tower strongly to the 

 stem of a water plant with a kind of mortar 

 that binds together the foundation courses of its 

 dwelling with the tenacity of Roman cement. 

 What is the size, you ask, of this wonderful creature 

 that is architect, brickmaker, master-builder and 

 mason's labourer all in one. A giant specimen 

 would be the one twenty-fourth of an inch in 



height, and an average worker about the thirtieth 

 of an inch, so that although an artificer of tireless 

 energy, absolute sobriety, and high intelligence, he 

 will never compete with the nineteenth century Ben 

 Jonson, and bring down the current rate of wages, 

 nor will ever a Luke Fildes or a W. P. Frith 

 paint a group of him, his wife and babes to picture 

 the horrors of a strike. One of the usual likings 

 of our little friend the Melicertan is his preference 

 for what the advertisements call " a detached 

 residence," his round tower or castle being usually 

 built quite apart. Isolated from his neighbours, 

 however, he has sometimes shown a disposition for 

 society, and an inclination to be sociable ; he has 

 even been known to take a hint — apparently from 

 London suburban architecture, and has occasionally 

 run up " eligible dwelling-houses " in rows of four. 

 Like the beautiful princess of the fairy tale, 

 he is shut up in a tower, and not even the arrival 

 of the handsomest prince in Christendom could 

 break the enchantment and give him freedom. 

 True it is that, like Sister Anne in " Blue- 

 Beard," he can look out of the tower, and 

 probably says to himself, " I see somebody 

 coming," and that somebody seeing the Meli- 

 certan will, slightly misquoting Thomas Hood, 

 " Take him up tenderly, lift him with care, 

 fashioned so slenderly, young, and so rare," for 

 there are dozens of ponds in this country 

 that you may search without finding a single 

 specimen. The young ones of the Melicertan 

 resemble in their origin the familiar chicken in 

 this, that they are developed from eggs, and these 

 eggs are laid and hatched within the round-tower- 

 like house. Again quoting Mr. John Badcock, 

 he says in "Vignettes from Invisible Life": 

 " Owing to the fragile and peculiar character of its 

 inhabitant, the greatest care is needful in this 

 process. The egg is shot forth near the summit of 

 the tower and is caught within it, falling gently 

 alongside the animal to the base of the tower, where 

 it is hatched, and where the youthful Melicertan 

 lives until he leaves the parental abode which he 

 quits never to return," and sets up business for 

 himself as a free and independent member of the 

 great building trades, in which, like a Michael 

 Angelo, he is capable of doing justice himself to 

 every branch of the profession, from architect 

 and sculptor downwards. We again quote Mr. 

 Badcock: "A young Melicertan is a very different 

 creature from its parent, having two eyes, and 

 swimming rapidly from place to place. This is the 



