Stesichorus

“ But, if we may believe Ctesias, there are some which have this peculiarity, for he mentions an Indian animal called Martichora, which had three rows of teeth in each jaw; it is as large and rough as a lion, and has similar feet, but its ears and face are like those of a man; its eye is grey, and its body red; it has a tail like a land Scorpion, in which there is a sting; it darts forth the spines with which it is covered, instead of hair, and it utters a noise resembling the united sound of a pipe and a trumpet; it is not less swift of foot than a stag, and is wild, and devours men. ”

“ The gonophores of the Stylasterina have been regarded as much altered medusiform gonophores, and this view may possibly prove to be correct. At present, however, the evidence of their derivation from Medusae is not conclusive, and it is possible that they may have had a totally independent origin.
Distichopora and some species of Stylaster are found in shallow water in the tropics, but most of the genera are confined to deep or very deep water, and have a wide geographical distribution. No species have been found hitherto within the British area. ”

“ In size the tsetse is somewhat less than the common blue fly that settles on meat, but its wings are longer. Yet, though so small and insignificant in appearance, its bite carries with it a poison equal to that of the most deadly reptile. Many is the traveler who, from his draft-oxen and horses having been destroyed by this pestiferous insect, has not only had the object of his journey completely marred, but his personal safety endangered by the loss of his means of conveyance. ”

“ Mouth truncate. Cephalis with a horn.
The genus Stichocorys is intermediate between the two preceding and the two following genera; the upper half of the shell with the three first joints is conical, the lower half with the fourth and the following joints cylindrical, of equal breadth. The third joint of the shell (or the abdomen of Theoconus) is constantly the largest, being broader than all the other joints. Stichocorys is a very common and characteristic form, and may be derived from Theoconus by development of a post-abdomen.
1. Stichocorys wolffii, n. sp. (Pl. 80, fig. 10) . ”

“ The landowner may erect his cattle-pound on one side of the stream in perfect security, although the opposite bank may resound with the hum of swarms of these insects. When the natives, who are acquainted with the localities in which the tsetse-fly abides, are compelled, as they constantly are, to shift their ground, and, in changing their pastures, to transgress254 upon the district of the tsetse, they usually select the moonlight nights of winter, when the insect, during the quiet hours of the cold season, is not likely to molest their charge. ”

“ Tezcoco, from which I presume your Protean must have come, is altogether of a different character, being salt as brine itself—so much that a man bathing in it comes out with a scaly crust over his skin, while waterfowl are often caught upon it, unable to fly through their wings getting thus encrusted! No fish can live in it, for the few minnow-like species there observed are found only by the estuaries of influent fresh-water streams. ”

“ The tsetse flies rapidly and directly to the objects it seeks, and must have a keen sense of smell or sight, or both, making straight for its prey, and being most persistent in its attacks. The buzzing which it produces when flying is peculiar, and easily recognized again when once heard. ”

“ The fore limbs are especially massive and powerful, and are much like those of the Jurassic Stegosaurus. There were five well-developed digits in the manus, and their terminal phalanges are more narrow than usual in this group. The ribs are T-shaped in transverse section, and thus especially adapted to support the armor over them. The caudal vertebræ are more elongate than those of Stegosaurus, and the middle caudal have a median groove on the lower surface of the centrum.
The animal when alive was about thirty feet in length. The known remains are from the middle Cretaceous of Wyoming. ”

“ A third expedition was successful, although the whole party came near perishing for want of water, and their cattle, which had been bitten by the 'Tsetse', died.
This insect—the 'Glossina moritans' of the naturalists—deserves a special paragraph. It is a brown insect about as large as our common house-fly, with three or four yellow bars across its hinder part. A lively, buzzing, harmless-looking fellow is the tsetse. Its bite produces a slight itching similar to that caused by the mosquito, and in the case of men and some species of animals no further ill effects follow. ”

“ The tsetse-flies reproduce differently from all other Muscidæ. The female produces at each birth a single full-grown larva, which is retained within the oviduct and there nourished by the secretion of special glands, and on being born crawls to some hiding place and at once becomes a puparium. ”

“ The tsetse-flies develop in a very different way from most insects. The female does not deposit her eggs, but a single one develops to the fully grown larval condition before being deposited. This larva soon pupates in the shade beneath the brush bordering the water where it has been dropped by the parent fly, and later emerges in the winged adult condition. The pupa? require such moist shade, and it is apparently for this reason alone that the flies never occur away from the immediate vicinity of the water. ”

“ The genus Artostrobus and the following Dictyomitra differ from all the other Stichocorida in the cylindrical or nearly cylindrical form of the shell, all the joints of which are nearly equal in breadth, and are very short, often with a single transverse row of pores only. The first joint or cephalis is usually different from the following, often hemispherical or cap-shaped joints. The last joint is truncate, and has a wide open mouth. Since the constrictions between the single joints are often very slight, some species are very similar to the Dicyrtide Sethocorys. ”

“ My own explanation of all these facts is that Stercorarius crepidatus—by my faith, 'tis a pretty « 23 » name, though not wholly deserved—having been, originally, a plain homely-coloured bird, like his relative, the great skua, is being gradually modified, under the influence of sexual selection, into a most beautiful one, as represented by the extreme light or half-cream form. Natural selection, in the more general sense, seems here excluded, or, at any rate, extremely doubtful ”

“ He then found that the tsetse-fly can produce, the disease in a healthy animal only when it has first charged itself with blood from a diseased animal, and he produced evidence that Clossina morsitans is not capable of producing the disease except by carrying the parasites from one animal to another in the blood that it takes through its proboscis into its stomach. ”

“ This genus seems closely related to Selasphorus, agreeing in character of throat, the curious attenuation of outer primary, and the general shape of the tail, with its rufous base and edging. The feathers, however, are not lanceolate and pointed, either sharply as in S. rufus, or obtusely as in platycercus, but are more equal to near the end, where they round off. The white tip of the tail in the male seems to be the principal reason why Mr. Gould removes the single species from Selasphorus, where it was previously placed by him, and where perhaps it might have not inappropriately remained. ”

“ They are liberated in a mature condition, and probably live but a short time, merely sufficient to spread the species. The manubrium bearing the gonads is mouthless, and the umbrella is without tentacles, sense-organs, velum or radial canals. In the Stylasteridae sessile gonophores are formed, always by budding from the coenosarc. In Distichopora the gonophores have radial canals, but in other genera they are sporosacs with no trace of medusoid structure. ”

“ We cannot fail to learn more of the tsetse. The humble black horse-fly, indistinguishable to the casual observer from harmless types, except that his wings are folded neatly like a pair of shut scissors, instead of splaying out on either side of his back, is now under a bright, searching, and pitiless eye. ”

“ In these they lay their eggs, and hatch out their young ones. Soon after the time when these young storks are able to fly, the whole community generally starts off on its winter pilgrimage to warm countries; but the old storks always return in the spring to the same nest that they left, while the young ones, if they choose to join that community at all, must make nests for themselves. Although these nests are nothing but rude structures of sticks and twigs, made apparently in the roughest manner, each pair of storks evidently thinks that there is no home like its own. ”

“ Discosomatidae.—The tentacles are all of one kind and are very numerous. The mesenteries are also very numerous. The sphincter muscle is strong.
This family includes a rather heterogeneous assembly of forms, and will probably require some rearrangement as our knowledge increases. Nearly all the species are found in the shallow waters of the tropics, and among them are to be found some of the largest Anemones of the world. Stoichactis kenti, from the Barrier Reef, is from one to four feet in diameter across the disc. ”

“ Tescheron, who was something of an expert on fish, and had written a number of articles on rare specimens in the line of his specialty for the Fish Journal, was glad to take up the subject of rare birds and pursue it with similar interest. Birds and fish are allied in the student mind. Under the tutorship of Emil, he drank from the Hoboken source of bird wisdom. If Emil by some stroke of Fate had been thrown into Fulton Market for six weeks he might have [Pg 188] become a student of fish, and Mr. Tescheron the enthusiastic teacher. ”

“ As in all insects, the body is divided into head, thorax, and abdomen. The eyes are large, and are so arranged that the animal can at the same time see objects both above and below—a great advantage to a creature living so active a life. The feelers are very sensitive organs of touch, and possibly of smell also. The jaws consist of one pair of mandibles and two pairs of maxillae, and are shaped much like those of the cockroach; they are powerful, and render Dytiscus a very formidable enemy to the more peaceable inhabitants of the pond.
Fig. 224.—A beetle of the Dytiscus family. ”

“ Tristram mentions that it builds so plentifully in the thorn-bushes of the Jordan valley, that he has seen the branches borne down by the weight of the nests. The same writer, in remarking upon the difficulty, not to say impossibility, of defining the precise bird which was signified by a Hebrew word, says that, exclusive of the crow tribe, the swifts, cuckoos, rollers, kingfishers, &c., nearly one hundred and fifty species of passerine birds are known to inhabit the Holy Land, any or all of which may be signified by the word tzippor. ”

“ The points of disagreement are many, and such as to make it entirely improbable that this fly is the true tsetse, though my men unanimously stated that its bite was fatal to horses as well as to donkeys. A descriptive abstract of the tsetse would read thus: "Not much larger than a common house-fly, nearly of the same brown colour as the honey-bee. After-part of the body has yellow bars across it. It has a peculiar buzz, and its bite is death to the horse, ox, and dog. On man the bite has no effect, neither has it on wild animals. ”

“ The writer is informed that this skeleton is not yet mounted in the Yale College Museum, but that it will be before long. Our artist has drawn it as if set up, with a man standing by for comparison.
In 1879 Professor Marsh announced the discovery of additional [111] remains from several localities. The most striking feature—from which the Stegosaur takes its name—was the presence of huge bony plates belonging to its skin, as well as large and small spines. Some of the plates were from two to three feet in diameter, and they were of various shapes. ”

“ A man [Pg 164] who slips and skids around all day in a wholesale fish market is usually rich and, I find, makes up his average on pulchritude after business hours.
Mr. Tescheron maintained a high record. When he was not in his shop togs you would not recognize him any more than the made-over old family umbrella that has ten times recovered its ribs and boldly fronted the hilarious wind, ever ready to blow it off. It was always surprising to me how he could produce such marvelous synthetic effects from the elemental forms found on the Monday morning's clothes-line. ”

“ One thing I liked about Tescheron—he talked business from the start. He jumped into it at once, so that I had no time to take notice of anything except that he talked without an accent, was probably French only in name and that he wore clothes which were superfine. I never saw such a dresser for a man with iron-gray hair and fifty-five years to contend against in the youth-preserving business, which I calculated was one of his pleasures in life, if not his vocation. ”

“ July 7—New hybrids are out! Disguise is excellent as to shape, but sheen of wings still suggests palpalis. Thorax has faint suggestions of the stripes of the tsetse. Slight variation in individuals. Am feeding them all on tainted crocodile meat, and after infectivity develops will try them on some of the blacks—apparently, of course, by accident. There are so many mildly venomous flies around here that it can easily be done without exciting suspicion. I shall loose an insect in my tightly screened dining-room when Batta, my house-boy, brings in breakfast—keeping well on guard myself. ”