18 



SCIEJSTCE. 



[Vol. VII., No. 152 



color, and go freely about, entirely free from dan- 

 ger. This is, no doubt, one way in which para- 

 sitism originated. At first an animal attached 

 itself, for protection, to another having the same 

 color ; the next step was to burrow into the ani- 

 mal, and extract juices. There is a very curious 

 fish that burrows in the side of another, leaving 

 only a small opening out of which it can project 

 its head and take food. Beyond this it does no harm 

 to the fish. A curious case of parasitism is noticed 

 in Penella, a copepod which burrows into the side 

 of a sword-fish, and has upon its external stem a 

 number of a peculiar species of barnacle, which in 

 its turn has become parasitic. 



The sting of the jelly-fish is deadly to nearly 

 every animal of limited size ; yet there is a small 

 fish that habitually lives beneath the bell of the 

 jelly-fish, in the midst of flying lasso-cells, without 

 being injured. It manages to pick up a very good 

 living from the crumbs left by the jelly-fish. 

 What benefit it is to its host is hard to understand ; 

 but it is usually true, in such cases, that some 

 service is returned. The habit of eating at the 

 same table, or commensalism, is seen in many 

 cases, that of the oyster-crab being a very good 

 example. This crab lives within the oyster 

 without offering harm, although it could easily 

 destroy the oyster ; but it is satisfied with what it 

 gets, and leaves its friend alone. That such deadly 

 powers as those possessed by jelly-fishes should 

 have no effect, strange though it may seem, is 

 hardly more wonderful than the power of resisting 

 digestive fluids. In the stomach of a deep-sea 

 sea-anemone a brightly-colored annelid is .often 

 found, in the digestive cavity. Whenever the 

 anemone catches a fish, the annelid shares the 

 meal without any injury to the anemone. Unlike 

 intestinal worms, they are never numerous enough 

 to be of any injury to their host. 



This habit of one animal being dependent upon 

 another for its existence receives a curious develop- 

 ment in the case of deep-sea hermit-crabs and the 

 sandy sea-anemones, of which Epizoanthus is an 

 example. After the free-swimming stage, the 

 anemone settles down upon the back of a shell 

 inhabited by a hermit-crab, and begins to grow 

 around the shell until it has entirely surrounded 

 it, leaving only the entrance clear. The shell is 

 eventually absorbed ; and as the hermit grows, the 

 anemone grows to accommodate him, so that he 

 does not have to s( ek after a new shell. Thus the 

 b< rmii furnished with an accommodating, com- 

 I'ortable. and transportable house; but, in return, 

 the hermit 1 ra reports t he sea-anemone from place 

 to place, and keeps it upright. This is a curious 

 caw of division of labor among the lower animals. 



There is a w ide field for the study of the effects 



of hereditary instinct and evolutionary changes, 

 as exhibited in the cases mentioned. Indeed, it 

 would seem as if the best field for the evolutionist 

 lay among the most degenerate types of an order, 

 viz. , parasites ; for in their embryonic changes 

 they pass tln'ough the higher stages of the past on 

 their way to their present degeneration. 



Ralph S. Tare. 



A TRIP TO THE ALTAI MOUNTAINS. 



We left Semipalatinsk on Saturday, July 18, 

 for a trip of about 1,000 versts, or 700 miles, into 

 the wild mountainous region of the Altai. If you 

 will draw a line on the map from the city of 

 Tomsk, in a south by east direction, 600 miles or 

 more, until it strikes the Chinese frontier, you will 

 reach the region which I hoped to explore. The 

 German travellers, Finsch and Brehm, went to 

 the edge of it in 1876, but the high peaks lying 

 farther to the eastward had never been seen by 

 any foreigner, and had been visited by very few 

 Russians. As far as the Cossack outpost known 

 as the Altai Station, there was a post -road. 

 Beyond that point I expected to go on horseback. 

 The road runs from Semipalatinsk up the valley 

 of the Irtish as far as the town of Oostkameno- 

 gorsk, and then turns away into the mountains, 

 descending again to the Irtish at the station of 

 Bookhtarma, and finally leaving it altogether at 

 Bolshe-Narimskaya. 



For 200 versts after leaving Semipalatinsk, the 

 Irtish is bordered by a great rolling steppe of dry, 

 yellowish grass. Here and there, where this steppe 

 is irrigated by small streams running into the 

 Irtish, it supports a rich vegetation ; the little val- 

 leys being filled w T ith wild roses, hollyhocks, 

 golden rod, wild currant and gooseberry bushes, 

 and splendid spikes, five or six feet high, of dark 

 ultramarine flowers like larkspur ; but generally 

 the steppe is barren and sun-scorched. At Oost- 

 Kamenogorsk and Oolbinsk I made the acquaint- 

 ance of two very interesting colonies of political 

 exiles, who received me with great friendliness 

 and cordiality. 



The farther we went up the Irtish, the hotter 

 became the weather, and the more barren the 

 steppe, until it was easy to.imagine one's self in an 

 Arabian or a North African desert. The thermom- 

 eter ranged day after day from 90° to 103° F. in 

 the shade ; the atmosphere was suffocating ; every 

 leaf and every blade of grass, as far as the eye 

 could reach, had been absolutely burned dead by 

 the fierce sunshine; bleaching bones of perished 

 horses lay here and there by the roadside ; great 

 whirling coluinns of sand, 100 to 150 feet in height, 

 swept slowly and majestically across the sun- 



