Mastax M. ringens^ &c. Lord S. 0. Osborne and F. A. Bedwell. 179 
I the act of working forward and throwing the teeth into this attitude. 
Now, to the part played in this process by the triangular projection 
attached to the central blade and hanging down from it, I must 
call particular attention. I was very much puzzled by its presence 
in the slides, for it is a most prominent object, and in considering 
the purpose for which it could possibly be wanted, and with nothing 
but the slides to go by, I ventured, having no other assistance 
at hand to guide me, to assume quite tentatively a somewhat old- 
fashioned principle, and one now falling into disfavour — nay, dis- 
grace, in many quarters — namely, the principle of contrivance, — 
of adaptation of means to ends, and those means the best means 
under the circumstances. I ventured, without going so far as to 
conjecture that Melicerta or her ancestors had taken any part 
in the matter of supplying their own wants, to assume that what 
she did want was a power acting at the extreme free edge of 
the central blade, and operating in such a way as to force that free 
edge alternately up to and away from the under side of the teeth. 
Now, if for a moment we consider the bent lever P Q E, Fig. 3, 
Plate X., and suppose that while the point Q remains at rest the 
lever has to be moved against an obstruction at E into the position 
p Q r, then one of the modes of doing it, under the exigencies of 
the present instrument, will be to add a bent arm E T, and drag 
T by a muscle as from a point S. True, the arm E T might be 
straight ; but by rounding it you improve the direction, and you 
increase the continuance of your strain up to the very last moment, 
and even at the last moment you leave the strain unexhausted. 
I therefore fixed upon the corner of the triangle as the point of 
attachment for the force which lifts up the free edge of the central 
blade of the ramus, and so bends the teeth. Now it will be ob- 
served that all this was entirely hypothetical on my part ; but on 
turning to Mr. Gosse’s admirable paper in the ‘ Philosophical 
Transactions,’ above referred to, I found that in the series of 
similar organs there reported on by him he identifies in several 
instances a projection from the ramus analogous to the tri- 
angular prominence in question, and he gives the organs the 
distinct name of “the little wings” — alulse. Now, when Mr. 
Gosse saw the organs, many of the muscles were still attached ; 
and amongst others, he says, he found muscles attached to the 
angles of these alulse. In the specimens before me there were no 
muscles preserved that I could make out, and when I made my 
hypothesis I had never even seen Mr. Gosse’s paper ; but pre- 
suming him right, then I had assumed a principle and found a 
fact. Deductions of this sort may or may not be satisfactory to 
all minds — may not always be correct, and may be carried too far ; 
but nevertheless they are still intensely fascinating and valuable to 
the minds of some observers, and amongst others, to that of the writer. 
