Cephalonia

“ FINLAY, GEORGE (1799–1875) , British historian, was born of Scottish parents at Faversham, Kent, on the 21st of December 1799. He studied for the law in Glasgow, and about 1821 went to Göttingen. He had already begun to feel a deep interest in the Greek struggle for independence, and in 1823 he resolved to visit the country. In November he arrived in Cephalonia, where he was kindly received by Lord Byron. Shortly afterwards he landed at Pyrgos, and during the next fourteen months he improved his knowledge of the language, history and antiquities of the country. ”

“ By the middle of April the leaves are fully out, and in June it is necessary to break back the newly-formed shoots. The fruit begins to ripen in July, and in the next month the vintage takes place. At this season rain is greatly dreaded, as it always damages and may even destroy the ripe fruit. The plantations, which are commonly much exposed, are watched by dogs and armed men. In Cephalonia the currant-grape is said to ripen at least a week earlier than in Zante. ”

“ What mortal would not play the Devil?
April, 1823.
[First published, Letters and Journals, 1830, ii. 635.]
FOOTNOTES:
[130] [With the view of inducing these friends [Lord and Lady Blessington] to prolong their stay at Genoa, he suggested their taking a pretty villa, called "Il Paradiso," in the neighbourhood of his own, and accompanied them to look at it. Upon that occasion it was that, on the lady expressing some intention of residing there, he produced the following impromptu.—Life, 577.]
[83]
JOURNAL IN CEPHALONIA.
The dead have been awakened—shall I sleep? ”

“ The men of the house of Aeacus, though it was long since they had seen Cephalus, yet knew him, grasped his hand, and brought him into their father's house. The hero advanced, the centre of all eyes, retaining even yet the traces of his old beauty and charm, bearing a branch of his country's olive, and, himself the elder, flanked on right and left by two of lesser age, Clytos and Butes, sons of Pallas. After they had exchanged greetings, Cephalus delivered the message of the Athenians, asking for aid and quoting the ancestral league and treaty between their two nations. ”

“ Class III.—The Cephalopoda (head-footed) have distinctly formed heads, large, staring eyes, mouths surrounded with tentacles or feelers, symmetrically formed bodies wrapped in a muscular covering; they have all the five senses, and are carnivorous. This class is entirely marine, and breathes through gills on the side of the body. The naked Cephalopoda are numerous, and furnish food for many other animals. Those living in chambered shells, once numerous, are now known principally by their fossils, the pearly Nautilus (sailor) being their only living representative. ”

“ All day long Cephalus hunted in the forest, and, when the evening shadows began to fall, joined his loving wife in their cozy dwelling. Her marriage gifts proved invaluable, as Lelaps was swift of foot, and tireless in the chase. One day, to test his powers, the gods from Olympus watched him course a fox, a special creation of theirs; and so well were both animals matched in speed and endurance, that the chase bade fair to end only with the death of one or both of the participants. ”

“ CEPHALUS AND PROCRIS Cephalus was a beautiful youth and fond of manly sports. He would rise before the dawn to pursue the chase. Aurora saw him when she first looked forth, fell in love with him, and stole him away. But Cephalus was just married to a charming wife whom he loved devotedly. Her name was Procris. She was a favorite of Diana, the goddess of hunting, who had given her a dog which could outrun every rival, and a javelin which would never fail of its mark ”

“ The Cephalopoda present a complete contrast to the majority of the Mollusca in habits and in many points of organisation. In their power of rapid movement and their means of progression, their extreme ferocity and carnivorous habits, their loss, in so many cases, of a shell, and in its constitution when present, in the general symmetry of their parts, in their reproductive and nervous system, they stand in a position of extreme isolation with nothing to connect them with the rest of the phylum. ”

“ The Cephalopoda are mainly characterized by the concrescence of the foot and head. The foot grows forward on each side so as to surround the mouth, the two upgrowths meeting on the dorsal side of the head—whence the name Cephalopoda. The perioral portion of the foot is drawn out into paired arm-like processes; these may be beset with sheathed tentacles or with suckers or hooks, or both. The epipodia are expanded into a pair of muscular lobes right and left, which are bent round towards one another so that their free margins meet and constitute a short tube—the siphon or funnel. ”

“ The "cephalis or capitulum" (the "Köpfchen" of the German authors) is therefore the most important part of the skeleton in all Cyrtellaria, or in all Nassellaria possessing a complete lattice-shell. In the Plectellaria, however, or in those Nassellaria which do not possess a complete fenestrated shell, the "cephalis" is either imperfect or totally wanting. The cephalis surrounds the enclosed central capsule on all sides in the form of an ovate or subspherical lattice-shell, and is separated from it only by the jelly-like calymma. ”

“ The sun is captivated by its beauty, and longs to view it more closely; the dew, afraid of its ardent lover, flies, and, when its fiery breath touches it, vanishes, leaving nothing but verdure in the selfsame spot where but a moment before it sparkled in all its purity.
Cephalus and Procris.
The ancients had many analogous stories, allegories of the sun and dew, amongst others the oft-quoted tale of Cephalus and Procris. Cephalus was a hunter, who fell in love with and married one of Diana’s nymphs, Procris. ”

“ The peræon (Plate IV, Fig. 12) is comparatively smooth, first two segments long, as long as the rest of the body; cephalon angularly produced in front into a very short, blunt spine. Figure 13 « 224 » shows a specimen with a body somewhat broader. The superior antennæ are about half as long as the body, first joint broader than second, but shorter; second joint longest of all; third longer than first, and narrower than second; flagellum shorter than the peduncle and made up of about twelve joints. Inferior antennæ slightly shorter than the peduncle of the superior. ”

“ There is no creature known to prey upon the spawn of the cephalus, so that the species is exceedingly numerous; when, however, the is full-grown it is preyed upon by a number of fishes, and especially by the acharnas or bass. Of all fishes the mullet is the most voracious and insatiable, and in consequence its belly is kept at full stretch; whenever it is not starving, it may be considered as out of condition. When it is frightened, it hides its head in mud, under the notion that it is hiding its whole body. The synodon is carnivorous and feeds on molluscs. ”

“ This unusual form has a convex dorsal shield divided into a cephalon, thorax, and pygidium. The cephalon has a narrow, raised margin with the lateral third on each side of the cephalon rising rapidly to the elevated central section. The central section is slightly flattened and has a sharp median ridge extending from the anterior end back to the posterior margin. A similar ridge crosses each thoracic segment and extends back on the pygidium about one-fourth its length. ”

“ Every fish of the mullet-kind lives on sea-weed and sand. The cephalus, called by some the 'chelon', keeps near in to the shore, the peraeas keeps out at a distance from it, and feeds on a mucous substance exuding from itself, and consequently is always in a starved condition. The cephalus lives in mud, and is in consequence heavy and slimy; it never feeds on any other fish. As it lives in mud, it has every now and then to make a leap upwards out of the mud so as to wash the slime from off its body. ”

“ The mouth of the Cephalopoda is singularly formidable,—it is armed with a pair of powerful horny jaws, having within them a fleshy tongue, the whole apparatus being not unlike the bill and mouth of a parrot, forming, as may readily be imagined, most destructive instruments amongst the young crustaceous and testaceous animals on which they prey at the bottom of the ocean, where by day they establish themselves, but roaming gregariously after nightfall. ”

“ Dorsal shield of medium size, elongate-elliptical in outline, convex, with the axial lobe strongly defined and convex. Cephalon semicircular in outline, with the genal angles extended into short, sharp spines; a narrow, flattened border extends across the front of the cranidium and continues along the free cheeks until it passes into the genal spines; the posterior margin is narrow and distinctly defined by a strong, rounded furrow that terminates in the dorsal furrow beside the glabella. ”

“ The similarity of their name to the Greek word μύρμηξ, signifying ‘an ant,’ most probably gave occasion to the report that Jupiter had changed ants into men.
FABLE VII. Cephalus, having resisted the advances of Aurora, who has become enamoured of him while hunting, returns in disguise to his wife, Procris, to try if her affection for him is sincere. She, discovering his suspicions, flies to the woods, and becomes a huntress, with the determination not to see him again. Afterwards, on becoming reconciled to him, she bestows on him a dog and a dart, which Diana had once given her. ”

“ Surface smooth to the unaided eye; a strong lens shows a slight, irregular pitting where the outer surface is intact. The type specimen of the cephalon has a length of 20 mm.
Observations.—This species was at first confused with Chuangia batia. It differs from the latter in the form of the glabella, and the size of the palpebral lobes and frontal limb. The same features distinguish it from Chuangia nitida and C. fragmenta. ”

“ Cephalopyramis enneactis, Haeckel, 1881, Prodromus et Atlas, pl. lvi. fig. 7. Shell smooth, slender, pyramidal. Cephalis large, ovate, with pointed apex, nearly hyaline, with very few and small scattered pores. Thorax very slenderly pyramidal, with straight lateral outlines, and nine stout and straight radial beams, which are connected by fifteen to twenty horizontal complete rings. Meshes subregular, square, simple, without secondary network; their length and breadth equally increasing towards the mouth. ”

“ Length of the three joints = 2 : 3 : 16, breadth = 3 : 6 : 16. Cephalis hemispherical, with few small pores. From its apex arises vertically a very long three-sided prismatic horn with denticulate edges, three to four times as long as the shell. An inner thin prolongation of the horn descends vertically nearly to the mouth, and bears on its basal end three verticils of branched spines, each verticil with three divergent forked spines (fig. 1a) . Pores regular, circular, in the subspherical abdomen three times as large as in the hemispherical thorax. ”

“ For the plaited fibres encircle an object in a slackened condition, and when they are put on the stretch they grasp and cling tightly to whatever it may be that is in contact with their inner surface. Since, then, the Cephalopoda have no other instruments with which to convey anything to themselves from without, than either twining tentacles, as in some species, or proboscises as in others, they are provided with these to serve as hands for offence and defence and other necessary uses. ”

“ FOSSIL CEPHALOPODA
The molluscous animals named Cephalopoda (from their organs of prehension being arranged around the upper part « 448 » of the body) are the most ancient, numerous, and interesting of this division of animated nature; and their fossil remains comprehend the most varied and striking forms of extinct beings that occur in the sedimentary strata, from the earliest Secondary to the latest Tertiary formations. The living species are but a feeble representation of the countless myriads which swarmed in the ancient seas ”

“ Hermaphroditism is unknown in Cephalopoda; male and female individuals always being differentiated. The genital aperture and duct is sometimes single, when it is the left; sometimes the typical pair is developed right and left of the anus. The males of nearly all Cephalopoda have been shown to be characterized by a peculiar modification of the arm-like processes or lobes of the fore-foot, connected with the copulative function. ”

“ Yet in truth, men of Athens, so far as Aeschines is concerned, I too can make this noble boast that Cephalus made. For he has never yet preferred or prosecuted any indictment against me; so that by you at least, Aeschines, I am admitted to be no worse a citizen than Cephalus.
252 His want of feeling and his malignity may be seen in many ways, and not least in the remarks which he made about fortune. For my part, I think that, as a rule, when one human being reproaches another with his fortune, he is a fool. ”

“ They are very widely distributed; the garden snail is a familiar instance of a terrestrial Gasteropod.
c. Cephalopoda (feet around the head) .—The mollusca of « 379 » this order have powerful muscular arms, or tentacula, which surround the head, or upper part of the body; some genera have no shell, but possess an internal skeleton, as the recent Sepiadæ and the fossil Belemnitidæ. Most of the testaceous Cephalopoda have a discoidal, univalve shell, which is divided internally by septa or partitions; as the Nautilus. ”

“ Observations.—This subgenus is characterized by a nearly smooth surface on the glabella and fixed cheeks, rather large palpebral lobes, and narrow postero-lateral limbs. Unfortunately, no entire specimens of the cephalon and thorax are known, and the pygidia referred to it may or may not belong to the species to which they are tentatively assigned. Only when a thorough study is made of all the material within the Conocephalinæ will it be possible to make even a fairly adequate grouping of the species. ”