258 



Marvels of the Universe 



Photos by'] 



[Hii(ih Main, F.E.S. 



THE NEST VIEWED FROM THE SIDE. 



To the left is seen the Millipede's nest completed ^vith the chimney; to the right the same nest after its builder has 

 V covered it \vith earth to hide its form and make it appear a mere lump of soil. 



in the next photo. It was not till 10.15 P-"!- that the dome was finished, only a small opening 

 being left at the top. She then proceeded to add a tube or chimney, forming a passage communi- 

 cating with the interior of the dome, and this was completed at 1.15 a.m. of the next day. 



From the experience of the first nest, I knew that the next step was to cover over the whole 

 structure with small rough pieces of earth, right up to a level with the top of the chimney. As, how- 

 ever, I wished to secure a photograph of the nest before this was done, I gently drove the female away, 

 covered up the nest with a pill-box, and went off to bed. 



In the photographs on page 257 we get a view of the completed nest uncovered, and the 

 same nest quite hidden by small pieces of earth, and the female resting alongside it. The two 

 nests appear in elevation in the final photographs, and show how wonderfully the nest is protected 

 from observation by the covering of earth. This coating also helps to keep the nest damp, thus 

 preventing the eggs within drying up. The female either resented my interference with her plans 

 or forgot her nest, as she never paid any more attention to it. On May 17th, the eggs in the first 

 nest hatched and the little white, six-legged creatures climbed out of the hole at the top of the 

 chimney. It is not till later in life that the young Millipedes get their full number of legs. 



TWO DRAGONS OF THE PRIME 



BY SIR H. H. JOHNSTON, G.C.M.G. 



Tennyson, like some other poets, had the prophetic instinct strongly in him. He realized and 

 wrote of things in the first beginnings of invention and discovery long before the conception of them 

 could have grown up in the mind of humanity at large. And when somewhere about 1850 he 

 wrote of "Dragons of the prime that tare each other in their slime," he certainly seems 

 to refer to the extinct gigantic Dinosaurs, which were not fully revealed by the discoveries 

 of geologists till some years afterwards. The Dinosaurs originated, first of all, probably in 

 the Old World, in what is called the Triassic Period at the beginning of the Secondary 

 Epoch, from a group of generahzed reptiles represented by the living Sphenodon of New 



