Esopus

“ Mount Utsayantha, for example, is named for an Indian woman whose life, with that of her baby and her white husband, was lost there. For the white men early found friends among these mountains. As far back as 1663 they spared Catherine Dubois and her three children, after some rash spirits had abducted them and carried them to a place on the upper Walkill, to do them to death; for the captives raised a Huguenot hymn and the hearts of their captors were softened.
In Esopus Valley lived Winnisook, whose height was seven feet, and who was known among the white settlers as "the big Indian." ”

“ From Phædrus, though not in the ordinary editions, the whole of the poem, however, can be restored from the prose version in the medieval Esopus ad Rufum. (See my History, p. 12.) The fable is told of a weasel by the dramatist Strattis, c. 400 B.C., and by Alexis, 375 B.C. Probably Indian, as a similar story occurs in the Panchatantra. A Brahmin saves a Mouse and turns it into a Maiden whom he determines to marry to the most powerful being in the world. ”

“ A serpent entwined round a knotted staff is the symbol of Æsculapius. A humorist of the present day has suggested that the knots on the staff indicate the numerous "knotty" questions which a doctor is asked to solve! Tradition states that when Æsculapius was in the house of his patient, Glaucus, and deep in thought, a serpent coiled itself around his staff. Æsculapius killed it, and then another serpent appeared with a herb leaf in its mouth, and restored the dead reptile to life. It seems probable that disease was looked upon as a poison. ”

“ It should be borne in mind that the alimentary canal is very different in different Insects, so that the brief general description we must confine ourselves to will not be found to apply satisfactorily to any one Insect. The oesophagus is the part behind the mouth, and is usually narrow, as it has to pass through the most important nervous centres; extremely variable in length, it dilates behind to form the crop. It may, too, have a dilatation immediately behind the mouth, and in such case a pharynx is considered to exist. ”

“ With little doubt the intima of the ducts of poison, spinning, and most, if not all the other glands, though certainly the dermal glands, is exuviated. We have found that the lobster in moulting sheds, besides the skin with the most delicate setæ, the lining of the proventriculus, and the apodemes of the head and thorax, hence it is most probable that the tentorium of the head of insects as well as the apodemes and phragmas of the thorax are exuviated. ”

“ Jupiter chose the oak, Venus the myrtle, Apollo the laurel, Cybele the pine, and Hercules the poplar. Minerva, wondering why they had preferred trees not yielding fruit, inquired the reason for their choice. Jupiter replied, “It is lest we should seem to covet the honor for the fruit.” But said Minerva, “Let anyone say what he will the olive is more dear to me on account of its fruit.” Then said Jupiter, “My daughter, you are rightly called wise; for unless what we do is useful, the glory of it is vain.” ”

“ This same genus includes a species (Œga spongiophila) which lives in the magnificent sponge, the Euplectella. We know also a certain number of isopods which prefer the interior of their neighbour’s body, and instal themselves in the cavity of the mouth, either to fish at the same time as their host, or to seize the food on its passage; others are of such a cruel nature, that they make no scruple to establish themselves in the stomach of a peaceable white fish. ”

“ She said she would be very grateful if he would give stings to the bees, to kill people who robbed them of their honey. Jupiter was greatly displeased with this request, for he loved mankind: but he had given his word, so he said that stings they should have. The stings he gave them, however, were of such a kind that whenever a bee stings a man the sting is left in the wound and the bee dies. ”

“ The only joint from which new growth can start in the crustacea is that connected with the body. The whole limb must be got rid of. The octopus, on the contrary, is incapable of voluntary dismemberment, but has the faculty of reproducing, as an outgrowth from the old stump, any portion of an arm (or leg) which may have been lost by misadventure. I say “arm or leg,” for one hardly knows which these eight appendages should be called. ”

“ In its most complicated form the alimentary canal is composed of an œsophagus, or gullet, of a crop, of a gizzard, of a chylific ventricle or stomach, a small intestine, a large intestine, divers appendages, salivary, biliary, and urinary glands. The œsophagus is often not 9 wider than a hair, and part of it in many species is enlarged into a pouch, which is called the crop, because it occupies the same position, and performs analogous functions with that organ in birds. ”

“ Indeed, it cannot be said to exist at all except among the mandibulated tribes, for, in a suctorial mouth, the esophagus is in strict continuity with the sucking tube; it can only be defined therefore as the distended opening of the esophagus in masticating insects. The mouth and pharynx are usually upon the same plane, but in such insects as chew the food for a length of time, it lies a little higher, doubtless for the purpose of preventing the aliment finding its way into the esophagus before being sufficiently masticated. ”

“ The middle lobe of the abdomen, is rarely more than one-fifth the width of the body. As the abdomen and tail of the Asaph are the only portions of the animal commonly found entire, the distinctive characters of the genus above given, may generally be ascertained. ”

“ I guessed at rather than saw a hideous head rolling from side to side at the end of a long and sinuous neck, and writhing, reptilian coils lashing the rock at the edge of the water, like the tentacles of an octopus, only many times larger. The body itself was larger than that of any animal I had ever seen, and blacker even than the darkness. ”

“ The carapace widens, the fore part of the head is modified so as to bring about the formation of the characteristic metope: and the abdomen, losing more or fewer of its posterior appendages, takes up its final position under the thorax.
In the Zoæa state, those thoracic limbs which give rise to the maxillipedes are provided with well-developed exopodites, and in the free Mysis state all these limbs have exopodites. In the Opossum-shrimps these persist throughout life; in Penæus, the rudiments of them only remain; in the lobster, they disappear altogether. ”

“ The Historian speaks of a certain Person, who, in digging, happened unawares to cut an Asp with his Spade, and went mad upon it,—was taken into the House of Serapis, an Egyptian Idol,—the Relatives of the Patient praying the Spectrum of that Serpent might be destroyed,——which being accordingly done by Magick Art, the Man was cured.——By this we see, how highly Asps were venerated among the Egyptians, who not only suffer’d them to live, but to live in their Houses, where they were carefully fed, as Favourites of the Family [136] . ”

“ Genus Esacus, Less. The genera Œdicnemus and Esacus are merely modifications of the same form; the variation in that of the bill being expressly adapted for procuring the kinds of food upon which the species respectively subsist; the Œdicnemus frequenting the stony deserts of the interior of the country feeds upon insects of various kinds, and the tender shoots of herbage; while the Esacus, resorting to the salt-marshes and the shores of the sea, lives upon crabs, mollusks and other marine animals. ”

“ Layers of Septaria or cement-stones are of frequent occurrence. Sheppy is the great locality for London clay fossils, as the sea annually washes down large masses of the cliffs and breaks them up on the beach. A great many fossil fruits and seeds, remains of crabs, shells of Nautili, Volutes, and other mollusca, besides turtles, a species of snake, a bird with teeth, and a tapir-like animal, have at different times and in various places been found in this deposit, which sometimes attains a thickness of over 400 ft. ”

“ Those who have studied that monster, the Octopus, at close quarters, as I have, will find no difficulty in appreciating the awfully fascinating glance, in the baleful eye of that odious creature, an eye in itself conveying the most frightfully malignant expression of any living thing upon which I have ever looked. ”

“ The Serpent of Æsculapius, the reputed God of Physick, had its Rise from the miraculous Cures done by Moses’s Serpent in the Camp of Israel. Serpents of bright and golden Colour were all counted sacred to Æsculapius, and were cicur’d, or made tame by human Arts. A Dragon was usually annex’d to his Image, and to that of Health, nothing being thought available without the Presence of a Serpent. ”

“ The octopus, the sepia, and the calamary are all constructed on one fundamental plan. A bag of fleshy muscular skin, called the mantle-sac, contains the organs of the body, heart, stomach, liver, intestines, a pair of gills by which oxygen is absorbed from the water for the purification [Pg 13] of the blood, and an excurrent tube by which the water thus deprived of its life-sustaining gas is expelled. ”

“ The œsophagus, a b c, which is fifteen inches long, is very wide, having at its upper part, when inflated, a diameter of 2 inches, but gradually contracting to 1/2 inch at its entrance into the thorax, and again expanding to 1 inch. Its walls are extremely thin, and when contracted, its mucous coat forms strongly marked longitudinal plaits. The proventriculus is very wide, its glandules oblong and arranged in a belt 10 twelfths in breadth. The stomach, e, is of moderate size, membranous, that is with its muscular coat very thin, and not forming lateral muscles ”

“ The œsophagus passes along the right side of the neck, for six inches has a diameter of 5/12 then dilates to 9/12, so as to form a slight crop, again contracts as it enters the thorax, and in terminating forms the proventriculus, which is 1 3/4 inches in length, with oblong glandules, generally a twelfth of an inch in length. The stomach is a very large and powerful gizzard, of a broadly elliptical form, with extremely thick lateral muscles, the left being 11/12 in thickness, the right 10/12, the tendons large and strong. ”

“ The story of the bringing of Æsculapius to Rome, like that of the bringing of Cybele from Pessinus in Galatia, is an interesting one, and must be known if one would fully appreciate the fact of the god being given the serpentine form, the serpent being generally regarded as only an attribute of him at his chief seat, the great Epidaurian Asclepion, or Temple of Health. ”

“ Esculapius was always pictured with a knotty rod in his hand, the knots indicating the many difficult problems of physic to be solved in the treatment of the ailments of mankind. Therefore, applying these thoughts to the symbol, we have in the entwined serpent, power, wisdom and health, together with the protection and support against disease and the difficulties to be overcome by the knotty rod. ”

“ By the contraction and expansion of the cells, prominence is given to one or another of these colours, at the will of the owner; and not only do the spots appear, and fade, and alternate in position, but, like human beings, the octopus turns pale when exhausted, and flushes red under the influence of anger or excitement. A curious play of colour, which I have elsewhere compared with the flashing and dying out of sparks in tinder, often takes place on the skin of the cephalopods by the continued action of the pigment cells, long after the death of the animal. ”

“ I rather deserve to be praised for what I have been, than to be blamed for what I am.”
The Bee and Jupiter
A BEE from Mount Hymettus, the queen of the hive, ascended to Olympus to present Jupiter some honey fresh from her combs. Jupiter, delighted with the offering of honey, promised to give whatever she should ask. She therefore besought him, saying, “Give me, I pray thee, a sting, that if any mortal shall approach to take my honey, I may kill him.” Jupiter was much displeased, for he loved the race of man, but could not refuse the request because of his promise. ”

“ Probably those organs which have the greatest effect in modifying the shape of the body are the septa, for we find in the long, free-swimming worms that these are regularly present throughout the body, and external "segmentation" of the body is well marked. In burrowing and tubicolous forms the septa are frequently incompletely developed, or more or fewer may be absent; and the body becomes less distinctly segmented externally, tends to vary greatly in diameter during movement, or becomes plumper. ”

“ It being reasonably certain that only one kind of serpent “was nourished in the land of the Epidaurians,” and regarded as sacred to Æsculapius, the following passage from Pliny is interesting: “The Æsculapian snake was first brought to Rome from Epidaurus, but at the present day it is very commonly reared, in our houses even; so much so, indeed, that, if the breed were not kept down by the frequent conflagrations, it would be impossible to make head against the rapid increase of them.” ”

“ Under a low power a young octopus was seen moving freely in the fluid contained in each transparent granule, the bright orange-brown colour in the pigment cells of its skin flashing, dying out, and re-appearing in another place, like sparks in tinder. And I was astonished to see that the little creature within the unbroken membrane was already endowed with the power of assimilating its colour to that of its surroundings. ”