Teb. 1, 1863.] 



SCIENCE-GOSSIP. 



41 



latter penetrate the coats of the intestuies and 

 " iiiig-rate into the body, more especially into Ihe 

 striated nuisclcs, uhevc, unless the animal in which 

 they are contained should previously die, they arc, 

 .ifter a time, encysted, and wait for the moment 

 when they nuiy be eaten by another man or animal 

 ',0 undergo the same changes as before. — The 

 Vjoolocjist. 



- Why was the Cat sacred to Hecate ? — 

 That the cat was domesticated among the Egyptians, 

 we have pregnant evidence, not only in their_ cus- 

 tom of shaving their brows when their cats died a 

 natural death, but also in the mummies found in 

 their catacombs, and in the figures of these animals 

 on the monuments of that ancient country — perched 

 on tlie top of the sislrum, for instance, and su])posed 

 to represent the nwon — probably from the following 

 mythological legends : — 



Jove, tired of state affairs and Juno's tongue, 

 sought, one day, a little relaxation in the company 

 of his pretty Latona twins, Apollo and Hecate. To 

 amuse tlieiu, he bade them try tlieir hand at creation, 

 and do something towards filling the empty globule, 

 now called earth. Apollo set his wits to work aird 

 prodirced max. No one likes to be outdone; so, 

 as Diana saw at a glance that there was no goirrg 

 Ijcyond her brother's handiwork, she tried to turn 

 the laugh against him, and concocted a sort of H. B. 

 of her brother's production in the form of an ape. 

 jS"o one likes to be laughed at, so Pol cut his sister's 

 fun rather short, by turning up a ramping lion. Di, 

 liowevci-, was not to be frightened, aud_ played 

 anotlier card of ridicule iir the shape of a cat. 

 Apollo, upon this, got into good humour, and, deter- 

 mined to beat his lively antagonist at her own 

 weapons, made a mouse, which Hecate's cat imme- 

 diately ate up. The lovely sex always have it 

 hollow in matters of finesse. 



Her success at this game seems to have pleased 

 the Goddess of Hunting; for vvhen 'i'yphon and his 

 giant host pressed the gods so hard that they were 

 compelled to fiee into Egypt, and save themselves 

 from his fury by shooting tlieir souls into the bodies 

 of quadrupeds and birds, she chose the form of a cat 

 for her metamorphosis; whilst her brother was glad 

 to escape into the person of a crow, and her papa 

 into the woolly carcase of a ram. 



iS;"o, say others, that is a fable; but the reason 

 why the cat vv'as sacred to Hecate is this : The 

 triple night consequent on Jupiter's visit toAlcmena 

 set all Olympus a wondering ; and it was not long 

 before Juno, whose acutcncss was not suffered to 

 become dull for want of exercise, soon discovered 

 the liaison. The months rolled on. The Queen of 

 Heaven sent for the Parcw, and gave them her 

 imperial orders, which they sternly obeyed, and poor 

 Alcmena had a weary time of it. Her gossip. 

 Galinthias, after scolding, beseeching, and saying 

 and doing all that a kind woman, almost at her wits 

 ends, from witnessing the agonies of her bosom 

 friend, could, to make an impression on their stony 

 hearts, had recourse to a little deception. She per- 

 suaded the Eates and Lucina, that it was the will of 

 Jove that Hercules should be born. They believed 

 iicr, and dissolved the spell. The good Galinthias, 

 however, paid dearly for her friendly ruse: she had 

 provoked the fiercest of all vengeance — that of a 

 deceived Queen, and was turned into a cat. Hecate, 

 though a bit of a prude, was so struck with 

 commiseration, that she chose tlie metamorphosed 

 dame as her consecrated attendant. Accordingly it 

 was said that the number of the cat's offspring was 



a gradu.al progression— one, two, three, four, and so 

 on, always augmenting, till a litter of seven was 

 produced, and the total amounted to twenty-eight, 

 tlie days of a lunation, and that the pupil of the cat's 

 luminous eye dilated and diminished as the moon 

 waxed or v/aned. — Recreations in Natural History, 



ENTOMOLOGY. 



Stkexcth or Doiui-Beetle. --Having repeatedly 

 placed one of these creatures (Dorr-beetles), weigh- 

 ing 15 grains, under a weight equal to '1,796 grains, 

 sntficicnt, it would be considered, to crush its body, 

 319 times its own weight ! it heaved it up and with- 

 drew, and t he same pressure being placed on its leg, 

 was immediately disengaged by the powers of the 

 other. Man effects his objects by the reasonings of 

 his mind, mechanical agencies, or the strength of 

 others ; liad he depended upon mere animal power 

 to accomplish his wishes, in order to equal the means 

 of a common beetle, he must have raised his body 

 from an incumbent pressure of perhaps 20 tons. — 

 Knapp's Journal of a Naturalist. 



Death's-Head I\Iotii at Sea. — Mr. Thomas 

 Moore, of Liverpool, had a fine specimen of the 

 Death's-Head Moth brought to him alive on the2Gth 

 Sept., 1SG3, by two fishermen who had captured it in 

 their Ijoat when about 30 miles south of the Isle of 

 Man, between 6 and 7 p.m. on the previous day. 

 Eishermen are not remarkable for delicacy of fingers, 

 nor does a fishing-boat afford very promising mate- 

 rial for entomological purposes. Jack and his mate, 

 however, were equal to the occasion and in'ought 

 their prize safely into port, and in excellent condition, 

 enclosed in a Fecten shell. 



TCxo 



Kuop 



TERN Galls. — The curious galls called 

 pern," are produced in theNortli of Europe, 

 on the acorn cups of the 

 Turkeyoak {Quercus cerris), 

 altcringand deforming them 

 very much, as may be seen 

 in our figure. The insect 

 which causes this malfor- 

 mation is a species of Cij- 

 nlps, said to be Cynips quer- 

 cus-calycis. The galls are 

 very astringent, and arc 

 employed in dyeing silk. 



LlGT'IUAX QUEEXS AXD ExGLTSIt BeES.-;! 



placed a Jjigurian Queen in a box having apesfo- 

 rated zinc communication, for some hours cuthetoi) 

 of a stock from which the queen had been removed 

 two days. I then admitted to the box one bee at a 

 time, and they behaved very well until half a dozen 

 had joined the queen, when they seized and attacked 

 her, and I coulcl not separate them from her without 

 taking her up in my fingers, and actually pulling the 

 bees from her. This took place four times, when, 

 seeing that the bees would not accept her, I put her 

 over another stock, and when 1 adniitted the Ijces in 

 this instance they received her joyfully. I then 

 offered the stock that had rejected the qnceti in 

 question another of the iiiiportcd Ligurian Queens, 

 and in this case the bees received her in a tiiendly 

 way and conducted her in triumph into the hive. — 

 W. Carr, in Gardener's Chronicle, 



