Chatterbox, 1905 Part 94

READY!

'What is the use of f.a.gging like that on a hot day?' asked Harold Lock of his brother Frank, who came and flung himself panting on the gra.s.s beside him.

'I must keep in training: a fellow so soon gets slack and out of practice if he is lazy,' was the answer.

'Well, being lazy is good enough for me in the holidays,' the elder boy said. 'I should think it pretty hard lines to have to run a mile in this sun.'

'It makes all the difference, though, if you are keen,' Frank told him.

'I want to be the fastest runner in the school, and I don't want to go back and find I am easily beaten in the sports.'

'I don't see the good of it myself,' said Harold, rather scornfully, but Frank only laughed good-temperedly, and began to swing himself on a branch of the tree for change of exercise. If there was one thing he hated more than another, it was sitting still for too long a time.

The same evening the boys were on the platform of the little village station, watching some trucks being shunted from the main line on to a siding. Suddenly there was a loud cry from one of the men engaged in the work as a heavy truck got off the rails, turned over, and dragged another with it. No one was seriously hurt, but the station-master, who was soon on the scene of the accident, turned pale as he saw the obstruction on the line.

'Stop the down express!' he shouted. But the signal-box was a quarter of a mile away, and precious minutes would have pa.s.sed before he could be near enough for his voice to reach the signal-man. By that time it might be too late to stop the express.

Then, like an arrow, a nimble little figure flew past him. It was Frank, his running powers put to some practical use at last. The station-master followed as quickly as he could. But when at last he came up breathless, he found that Frank had already done his work, and the signal was against the train.

'It's touch-and-go whether we have caught her,' muttered the signal-man, and they all held their breath as the rumble of the train was heard in the distance.

'She's slowing down--she's safe!' gasped the station-master, and he hurried down again, followed by Frank and the signal-man.

But it was only a few yards off the overturned trucks that the express was finally brought to a standstill. The few seconds gained by Frank's speed had saved her. Nothing could have prevented a terrible accident if the signal had not caused the train to slow down just in time.

The pa.s.sengers crowded round Frank, and thanked him warmly when they heard the story, and a few days later came a more practical expression of their grat.i.tude in the shape of a handsome gold watch.

'So your running was some good after all,' Harold said, and he no longer laughed at his small brother's hobby, but learned to admire the nimbleness of body which, with his ready wit, made him of so much use in an emergency.

M. H.

INSECT WAYS AND MEANS.

IX.--THE EARS AND NOSES OF INSECTS.

Most of us have a vague idea that what we call the 'ear' is only partly concerned with the work of hearing; but only a few know exactly what a complicated organ the ear, as a whole, really is. The external 'ear'

only serves as an aid to the collection of sounds, and the real work of hearing is performed by a delicate organ inside the head. Seals, moles, whales, and porpoises, birds, reptiles, and fishes have no visible ear; yet we know that they are not deaf, though in many the hearing must be dull. In all these creatures the sense of hearing lies inside the head.

But the ears of insects must be looked for in strange places indeed, and, when found, they seem to bear no sort of likeness to what most of us call ears. They may be on the antennae, on the trunk, or on the legs!

In the gra.s.shopper, for example (fig. 1), the ear is placed on the abdomen, just above the base of the great hind-leg, so that this leg must be pulled down before the ear can be seen. When this has been done, there will be found an oval drumhead-like spot (figs. 2 and 3); this is the outer surface of the ear. If you had sufficient skill to take away this part of the body, so as to show the inside of this drum, you would find two horn-like stalks, to each of which is fastened a small and very delicate flask, with a long neck. This is filled with a clear fluid, and corresponds to a similar structure within our own ears.

In the green gra.s.shoppers--those delightful sprites of hot summer days--'ears' of a precisely similar structure are found on the fore-leg instead of on the body.

In a little gnat-like insect known as Corethra, common in England during the summer months, the 'ear' takes the form of delicate hairs growing out from the body on a stem, like the teeth of a comb; the base of what corresponds to the back of the comb is connected with a delicate nerve, and this, as in the case of the similar nerve in the gra.s.shopper and locust, makes hearing possible.

Only in some ants and bees, and in some mosquitoes, is the organ of hearing placed on the head. We say _on_, rather than _in_, the head, because it is formed by a modification of part of the antennae. A German naturalist, named Mayer, performed an experiment to prove that the hairs on these antennae can be made to vibrate by means of a tuning-fork. Only those hairs which have to do with the production of sound answered to the notes of the tuning-fork, and these vibrated at the rate of five hundred and twelve vibrations per second. Other hairs vibrated to other notes, which were those of the middle octave of the piano and the next above it. Mayer also found that certain of these vibrations corresponded with the notes produced by the 'song' of the female mosquito.

Consequently, when she begins to 'sing,' her tune, like the tuning-fork, sets in motion those hairs on the antennae of the male which are tuned to these vibrations. Having once found, by the movement of his antennae, much as a horse moves his ears, from which direction the sound is coming, the male is able to fly at once to his mate. From the accuracy of this flight, Professor Mayer believes that the perception of sound in these little creatures is more highly developed than in any other cla.s.s of animals.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1.--Gra.s.shopper, slightly magnified.]

In our ill.u.s.tration some of these curious 'ears' are shown. Fig. 2 shows the ear of the gra.s.shopper magnified. In fig. 3 this is further magnified to show the V-shaped mark which represents the h.o.r.n.y stalks to which we referred, seen through the clear membrane of the drum. The dark border (B) around the drum represents a raised ridge. In fig. 4 we have the antennae of a gnat, some of the hairs of which serve as sound-conductors to delicate nerves lying at their base.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2.--Ear of Gra.s.shopper, drum at A, greatly magnified.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 3.--Drum of Gra.s.shopper's Ear, greatly magnified.]

The sense of smell in insects lies mainly in those wonderful organs, the antennae or 'horns.' Scents of various kinds are perceived either through pits, or through peg- or spike-like teeth filled with fluid. The leaf-like plates of the antennae of the c.o.c.kchafer (fig. 5) have these pits very highly developed. On the outer surface of the first 'antennal'

leaf, as also on the edges of the other leaves, only scattered bristles are seen; but on the inner surface of the first and seventh leaves, and on both surfaces of all the other leaves, there are close rows of shallow, irregularly shaped hollows. Their number is enormous--in the males as many as thirty-nine thousand, and, in the female, thirty-five thousand on each antenna. As some of the scent-laden air reaches the surface of these pits, it causes the nerves of smell to be roused, and so guides the beetle to its mate, or to its food, according to the nature of the smell. These pits are so tiny that they cannot be shown on the antennal leaves of the c.o.c.kchafer shown in fig. 5, but they are there. On fig. 6 a highly magnified section of one of these 'leaves' of the antenna is shown: 'P' is the pit, 'N' is the nerve, and 'S. C.' the sense-bulb of the nerve in which it terminates--the point at which the smell is perceived.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 4.--Antenna of Gnat, greatly magnified.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 5.--Antenna of c.o.c.kchafer, greatly magnified.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 6.--Section of "leaf" of c.o.c.kchafer's Antenna, greatly magnified.]

It has been proved that insects which have lost their antennae have no sense of smell.

W. P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S., A.L.S.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "The donkey-man caught hold of Kruger's tail with both hands."]

AFLOAT ON THE DOGGER BANK.

A Story of Adventure on the North Sea and in China.

(_Continued from page 279._)

Fourteen days after leaving Liverpool the _Twilight_ arrived at Port Said, and Fred, Charlie, and Ping w.a.n.g at once went ash.o.r.e. The Pages thoroughly enjoyed their first glimpse of the East, for Ping w.a.n.g, knowing the place, took care that they should see everything worth seeing. After sitting for a time in a big _cafe_ which was crowded with men of almost every European nation, they wandered through the shop district, and out into the Arab portion of the town.

After they had looked at the sights for some little time, Ping w.a.n.g suggested that they should have a donkey ride. They had noticed the large, handsome donkeys soon after they landed, but as the pa.s.sengers from a big P. & O. vessel had come ash.o.r.e just before they arrived, all the animals were engaged. But when they returned to the busy part of the town they found three donkeys on hire, and the donkey 'boys,' two of whom were elderly men, at once shouted out the names of their animals.

A Port Said donkey sometimes has its name changed three or four times in a year, in consequence of its proprietor's desire that it shall always bear one which is just then popular with Englishmen. You may ride on 'W. G. Grace' in June, and on returning to Port Said in December will discover that the same animal is now called 'Mr. Chamberlain,' or 'Lord Charles Beresford.' The donkeys which Fred, Charlie, and Ping w.a.n.g found on hire were named respectively 'Lord Roberts,' 'General Buller,' and 'Kruger.'

Charlie sprang on to 'Lord Roberts's' back; Fred made a rush for 'General Buller,' and left Ping w.a.n.g to mount 'Kruger.'

'Let us have a race,' Charlie suggested, when they were getting clear of the crowded narrow streets, and immediately all three urged on their donkeys; but, before they had gone many yards, 'Kruger' began to leave his companions behind.

'This will never do,' Charlie declared, and touched up 'Lord Roberts'

with his stick. Fred tried to hurry up 'General Buller.' Neither of the animals, however, appeared to be at all anxious to exert themselves, and they would have lost the race had not the donkey-man, remembering that his English patrons always seemed pleased when 'Kruger' was last, caught hold of 'Kruger's' tail with both hands, and, throwing back his head, pulled as if he were engaged in a tug of war. 'Kruger,' not liking this strain upon his tail, slackened speed and stopped. 'Lord Roberts' and 'General Buller,' evidently fearing that if they continued running they would be treated in the same way as 'Kruger' had been, stopped with such suddenness that Fred was shot over his animal's head into the road, and Charlie only just escaped a similar fate by throwing his arms round his Jenny's neck.