Metapontum

“ He believed that the universe was created from a shapeless mass of passive matter by the hands of a powerful Being, who was the mover and soul of the world, and of whose substance the souls of mankind were a portion. The time and place of death of this great philosopher are unknown, but some suppose that he died at Metapontum about 497 years B.C.
Py ́thon. A celebrated serpent sprung from the mud and stagnated waters which remained on the surface of the earth after the deluge of Deucalion. Apollo killed the monster. ”

“ But in the Metazoa and Metaphyta at large, the associated units are, with the exceptions just indicated, completely subordinated. The unit-life is so far lost in the aggregate life that neither locomotion nor the relative motion of parts remains; and neither in shape nor composition is there resemblance to protozoa. Though in many cases the internal protoplasm continues to carry on vital processes subserving the needs of the aggregate, in others vital processes of an independent kind appear to cease. ”

“ Now it by no means follows that in stating the cycle he meant to assert that it was mathematically true. Whether he was himself the inventor of this remarkable period, or whether he found it elsewhere, cannot now be known.
The number of different persons to whom this astronomical period has been attributed (Fabric. Bibl. Graec. vol. iii. p. 9) , may furnish some presumption that Meton only brought forward and made popular a piece of knowledge which he and others had derived from an oriental source: a thing by no means unlikely in itself. ”

“ Again, from the same cause, it would be advantageous to the Melipona, if she were to make her cells closer together, and more regular in every way than at present; for then, as we have seen, the spherical surfaces would wholly disappear, and would all be replaced by plane surfaces; and the Melipona would make a comb as perfect as that of the hive-bee. Beyond this stage of perfection in architecture, natural selection could not lead; for the comb of the hive-bee, as far as we can see, is absolutely perfect in economising wax. ”

“ Unlike sponges, sea-anemones are very responsive to changes in their environment. If a fully expanded Metridium is disturbed by mechanical agitation, it will quickly retract its oral disk, discharge through its mouth the water contained in its gastrovascular cavity, and finally cover its tentacles and month by puckering in the oral edge of its column. ”

“ Then from the land of the Sindians to Themiskyra on the river Thermodon (for here is the broadest part of the Pontus) it is a voyage of three days and two nights, which amounts to thirty-three myriads 86 of fathoms or three thousand three hundred furlongs. This Pontus then and also the Bosphorus and the Hellespont have been measured by me thus, and their nature is such as has been said: and this Pontus also has a lake which has its outlet into it, which lake is not much less in size than the Pontus itself, and it is called Maiotis and "Mother of the Pontus." ”

“ The nucleus is single in all but the genera Actinosphaerium, Myxastrum, Camptonema, and Gymnosphaera. The movements of this group are very slow, and are not well understood. A slow rolling over on the points of the rays has been noted, and in Camptonema they move very decidedly to effect locomotion, the whole body also moving Amoeba-fashion; but of the distinct movements of the species when floating no explanation can be given. The richly vacuolate ectoplasm undoubtedly helps to sustain the cell, and the extended rays must subserve the same purpose by so widely extending the surface. ”

“ Mithradates V was king of Pontus, a state of Asia Minor. He is one of the most striking characters of Roman history. Possessed of a large and powerful frame, he was endowed also with a mind of great strength and alertness, indomitable courage, and consuming ambition. ”

“ If cells of two sponges of the same species are mixed it may be that they will recombine into the two original individuals—but this experiment never has been tried and would be quite difficult to interpret.
The sponge is the simplest, most primitive of metazoa, or many-celled animals. It acts as an individual, although there is apparently no central government, like a brain, controlling the behavior of the millions of individuals constituting the conglomeration. It ranges in size from organisms a fraction of an inch long, by far the most numerous, to masses several feet in diameter. ”

“ The most interesting feature is the shape of the metastoma, which is roughly oval, with a narrow notch at the anterior and a broad base which is slightly cordate or emarginate (see fig. 98) . It measures 8.1 mm. in length and 7.2 mm. in greatest width (see fig. 95) . The female, or Type B (see fig. 97) , operculum is well preserved, showing even such details as the setae. The appendage is small, about one-third the length of the operculum, and consists of an undivided, rather broad lanceolate joint, with two triangular joints at the distal end. ”

“ Definition.—Plectanida with four equal radial spines, arising from one common central point and corresponding to the four axes of a tetrahedron.
The genus Tetraplecta has been derived from Tetraplagia by union of the neighbouring branches of the four radial spines, diverging from a common point in different directions. In some forms of this genus the four rods seem to correspond exactly to the four axes, which are directed from the centre of a tetrahedron towards its four corners; whilst in other forms the four rods and the angles between them are perhaps not perfectly equal. ”

“ Both in the plant-world and in the animal-world there are types in which we see little more than simple assemblages of Protophyta or of Protozoa—types in which the units, though coherent, are not differentiated but constitute a uniform mass. In treating of structure we are not here concerned with these unstructured types, but may pass on to those aggregates of protoplasts which show us differentiated parts—Metaphyta and Metazoa: economizing space by limiting our attention chiefly to the last. ”

“ The pygidium of trilobites is compared with the metasomatic shield of Limulus. No homology, if homology is intended, could be more erroneous. The metasomatic shield of Limulus is, as shown by ontogeny and phylogeny, formed by the fusion of segments formerly free, and includes the segments between the cephalic and anal shields, or what would be known as the thorax of a trilobite. ”

“ Meton, an astronomer of Athens, discovered in 432 B.C. that after a period of 19 years the new and the full moons returned on the same days of the month as they had before, and this is called the cycle of the moon. The Greeks were so impressed with this calculation that they had it inscribed in letters of gold upon stone, hence the golden number. The First Council of Nicaea in A.D. 325 determined that Meton's cycle was to be used to regulate the movable feasts of the Church.
Immediately above the chapter rings is an opening through which the orb of the sun is visible. ”

“ Up to the present year the very essence of the whole Weismannian theory of evolution has been that, owing to the stability of germ-plasm since the first origin of sexual propagation, “the origin of hereditary individual variations cannot indeed be found in the higher organisms, the Metazoa and Metaphyta; but is to be sought for in the lowest—the unicellular organisms,” because “the formation of new species, which among the lower Protozoa could be achieved without amphigony, could only be attained by means of this process in the Metazoa and Metaphyta. ”

“ The metastoma has not been seen well preserved in position, but we refer several metastomas to this species [pl. 66, figs. 3, 4] because they possess, on one hand, the form of that in H. socialis and on the other exhibit a peculiar striated ornamentation apparently characteristic of H. shawangunk. These metastomas are elongate cordate, broadest anteriorly to the middle, with cordate or deeply notched anterior and an evenly rounded posterior extremity in some and a truncated one in other specimens. ”

“ This thin band of protoplasm seems to be continuous with the large spindle-shaped body of the trypanosome, but at the free margin it takes on the red tint of the micro-nucleus instead of the blue tint of the protoplasm. The undulatory membrane, as this band is called, is narrowest at the posterior end, getting broader and broader until the micro-nucleus is reached, beyond which it tapers off irregularly until finally it merges in the flagellum. ”

“ For the fashion of his men was to disperse and again to come together, so that Sertorius often wandered about alone, and often appeared again at the head of one hundred and fifty thousand men, like a winter-torrent suddenly swollen. Now, when Pompeius went to meet Metellus after the battle, and they were near one another, he ordered his lictors to lower their fasces out of respect to Metellus as the superior in rank. ”

“ The process afterwards travels down the tentacles, being arrested for a short time at each transverse partition. The small spheres coalesce into larger spheres, or into oval, club-headed, thread- or necklace-like, or otherwise shaped masses of protoplasm, which, suspended in almost colourless fluid, exhibit incessant spontaneous changes of form. These frequently coalesce and again separate. If a gland has been powerfully excited, all the cells down to the base of the tentacle are affected. ”

“ But the further researches of physiologists and the improvements in the technique of the microscope proved that protoplasm does not exist independently in nature; because living cells are always a combination of protoplasm and a nucleus. If the nucleus is extracted from a radiolarium, the latter mortifies, and the protoplasm also dies; if an amœba is severed in such a manner that one part contains nucleus and protoplasm and the other protoplasm alone, it will be found that the latter part mortifies and dies, while the first part continues to live. ”

“ The specimen has not been figured.
[62]
None of the specimens shows much more of the appendages of the cephalon than, the hypostoma and the antennules, so that we are still in ignorance about the mouth parts.
The most striking characteristics of the appendages are as follows: the antennules are long, and turn backward instead of forward; none of the limbs projects beyond the margin of the dorsal test; the exopodites extend beyond the endopodites, reaching very nearly to the margin of the test ”

“ Most of these have been classed under the genus Ceratopogon, but the group has been broken up into a number of genera and Ceratopogon, in the strict sense, is not known to contain any species which sucks the blood of vertebrates.
The Ceratopogoninæ—The Ceratopogoninæ are among the smallest of the Diptera, many of them being hardly a millimeter long and some not even so large. They are Chironomidæ in which the thorax is not prolonged over the head. The antennæ are filiform with fourteen (rarely thirteen) segments in both sexes, those of the male being brush-like. ”

“ Metagenesis may further originate in various ways. In the first place, from metamorphosis, as for example, in the propagation of the celebrated Cecidomyia with nursing larvæ. The power which these larvæ possess of propagating themselves asexually has evidently been acquired as a secondary character, as appears from the fact that there are many species of the same genus the larvæ of which do not nurse, these larvæ being themselves undoubted secondary forms produced by the adaptation of this stage of phyletic development to a mode of life widely different from that of the later stages. ”

“ But Merope had borne to Cresphontes a third son, called Æpytus; him she gave to her own father to bring up. He, when he came to man's estate, returned secretly to Messenia, and slew Polyphontes and the other murderers of his father."
Hyginus says:—"Merope sent away and concealed her infant son. Polyphontes sought for him everywhere in vain. He, when he grew up, laid a plan to avenge the murder of his father and brothers. In pursuance of this plan he came to king Polyphontes and reported the death of the son of Cresphontes and Merope. ”

“ They can be retracted into tentacle-sheaths. When the animal is excited it throws out the whole tentacle in a cloud of white filaments, "and to watch it at such a time, shooting out and retracting the tentacles, moving along the side of the aquarium like a battleship in action is truly a remarkable spectacle." [434] On the dorsal side of the body there is a series of processes which are called the dorsal tentacles. The statolith is very small, and is not surrounded by sensory processes as it is in Ctenoplana. There are no ctenophoral plates. ”

“ And thus he so wearied out the Roman army, that when Sertorius challenged Metellus to fight singly with him, they commended it, and cried out, it was a fair offer, a Roman to fight against a Roman, and a general against a general; and when Metellus refused the challenge, they reproached him. Metellus derided and contemned this, and rightly so; for, as Theophrastus observes, a general should die like a general, and not like a skirmisher. ”

“ We must suppose the Melipona to arrange her cells in level layers, as she already does her cylindrical cells; and we must further suppose, and this is the greatest difficulty, that she can somehow judge accurately at what distance to stand from her fellow-labourers when several are making their spheres; but she is already so far enabled to judge of distance, that she always describes her spheres so as to intersect to a certain extent; and then she unites the points of intersection by perfectly flat surfaces. ”