Science from an Easy Chair

PREFACE

This volume is a collection of some of the papers which I have contributed to the Daily Telegraph during the years 1908-1909, under the title “Science from an Easy Chair.” I have revised and corrected the letterpress, and have added some illustrations. A smaller volume containing earlier papers was published by Messrs. Constable in 1908, with the title From an Easy Chair. It is my intention now to produce additional volumes (under the title “Easy Chair Series”) as their constituent articles accumulate, and I hope to be able to publish a second and a third instalment at no distant date.

I should like to draw the special attention of the reader to the Frontispiece (Plate I.), which is very beautifully executed, and is, I believe, the first coloured drawing yet published showing the difference between the adult “silver” eel and the more abundant immature “yellow” eel—sometimes called the “frogmouthed eel.” The original drawings were prepared for me through the kindness of Dr. Petersen, of Copenhagen, who is the discoverer of many interesting facts about the common eel, and is director of the Danish Biological Laboratory.

I also wish to draw the attention of any one who is kind enough to look at this preface to one or two more of my illustrations, because they are, I think, of exceptional interest, and should be looked at, at once, before a decision not to read the book is made. These are the prehistoric engraving of a horse’s head, with rope-bridle in place, on page 81; the drawings of the leaves of the American Poison-vine and of the Virginian Creeper on page 95; of the nettle-sting on page 113; of the Dragon of the Hesperides on page 122; of the big tadpoles on page 217; of the jumping bean on page 298, and its moth on page 301; of the ant milking a green-fly for its honey-dew on page 324; and lastly, the accurate drawing on page 370 of the most ancient human skull yet discovered, and the other drawings of skulls (all to the scale of one-third the actual length), and those of prehistoric weapons and carvings which follow it. These drawings have been made from original scientific memoirs, or in some cases from actual specimens, for the present volume.

E. RAY LANKESTER

February 1910

		PAGE
I.	Science and Practice	1
II.	University Training	6
III.	Darwin’s Theory	12
IV.	Darwin’s Discoveries	18
V.	Darwin’s Theory Unshaken	27
VI.	Metchnikoff and Tolstoi	38
VII.	The Land of Azure Blue	46
VIII.	Fresh-Water Jelly-Fishes	58
IX.	The Story of the Common Eel	65
X.	Modern Horses and their Ancestors	77
XI.	A Rival of the Fabled Upas Tree	91
XII.	Poisons and Stings of Plants and Animals	100
XIII.	The Dragon: A Fancy or a Fact	114
XIV.	Oysters	128
XV.	Maternal Care and Molluscs	143
XVI.	The Heart’s Beat	147
XVII.	Sleep	155
XVIII.	The Universal Structure of Living Things	170
XIX.	Protoplasm, Life and Death	180
XX.	Chemistry and Protoplasm	187
XXI.	The Simplest Living Things	193
XXII.	Tadpoles and Frogs	209
XXIII.	About the Stars	220
XXIV.	Comets	227
XXV.	About Cholera	237
XXVI.	Sea-Breezes, Mountain Air, and Ozone	251
XXVII.	Oxygen Gas for Athletes and Others	258
XXVIII.	Sparrows, Trout, and Selective Breeding	266
XXIX.	The Feeble-Minded	271
XXX.	Death-Rates	283
XXXI.	Gossamer	287
XXXII.	The Jumping Bean	296
XXXIII.	Protective Colouring in Animals	304
XXXIV.	Hop-Blight	314
XXXV.	Green-Flies, Plant-Lice, and Parthenogenesis	322
XXXVI.	The Deadly Phylloxera	334
XXXVII.	Clothes Moths	339
XXXVIII.	Stone and Wood Borers	346
XXXIX.	Christmas Fare	356
XL.	The Origin of Opium	363
XLI.	The Most Ancient Men	371
XLII.	The Cave-Men’s Skulls	391
XLIII.	More About the Neander Men	402
	Index	413

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

DIAGRAMS IN THE TEXT

FIG.	PAGE
1.	The Little Green Tree-Frog or “Rainette” of the Riviera (Hyla arborea)	51
2.	The Common Jelly-Fish (Aurelia aurita)	59
3.	The Fresh-Water Jelly-Fish (Limnocodium)	60
4.	Four Jelly-Fish-producing Polyps adhering to a Root-Fibre of a Water-Plant	61
5.	The African Fresh-Water Jelly-Fish (Limnocnida)	62
6.	Young Stages of the Common Eel	72
7.	Drawing of an Ivory Carving of a Female Head	80
8.	Drawing of a Fully Rounded Carving in Reindeer’s Antler of the Head of a Neighing Horse	80
9.	Drawing of a Flat Carving in Shoulder-Bone of a Horse’s Head, showing Twisted Rope-Bridle and Trappings	81
10.	Fore-Foot of the Horse-Ancestor, Hipparion	84
11.	Skulls of Horses and of Deer	86
12.	Fore and Hind Legs of Horse and Ass	88
13.	Diagram of the Under Surface of the Foot in the Dog, Tapir, and Horse	89
14.	Drawings of the Leaves of the Common Quinquefoliate Virginian Creeper, of the Adherent “Ampelopsis Veitchii,” and of the Poison-Vine (Rhus toxicodendron)	95
15.	Drawing from Life of the Desert Scorpion (Buthus australis, Lin.), from Biskra, North Africa	109
15 bis.	Highly Magnified Drawing of a Stinging Hair of the Common Nettle	113
16.	The Heraldic Dragon	115
17.	The Heraldic Griffin	116
18.	Hercules destroying the Hydra	116
19.	The Heraldic Wyvern	117
20.	The Heraldic Basilisk, also called the Amphysian Cockatrice	117
21.	The Chinese Imperial Dragon	121
22.	A Flying Snake with Two Pairs of Wings	121
23.	The “Dragon” Guarding the Tree in the Garden of the Hesperides	122
24.	A Votive Tablet	124
25.	Ancient Roman Painting of a so-called Marine Serpent	124
26.	Egyptian Four-Winged Serpent	125
27.	Two-Winged Serpent	125
28.	An Oyster with the Right-Side Shell Removed	130
29.	Part of a Row of the Lashing Hairs or “Cilia” which cover the Gills of the Oyster	131
30.	The Animal of an Oyster Removed from the Shell	132
31.	The Eggs of the Oyster	133
32.	The Sperms or Spermatozoa of a Ripe Oyster	134
33.	Development of the Egg of the Common Oyster	135
34.	Free-Swimming Young Oyster or Oyster Larva	136
35.	Young of the Pond-Mussel after Escaping from the Maternal Gill-Pouch	145
36.	Simple “Cells,” consisting of Naked Protoplasm, Changing Shape and taking in Solid Food Particles	171
37.	Cells forming Tissues	172
38.	Copy of Part of Robert Hook’s Drawing of a Magnified Piece of Cork	173
39.	A Piece of Cartilage	174
40.	Three Kinds of Cells	175
41.	Two Specimens of a Bell-Animalcule (Vorticella)	196
42.	Six Successive Stages in the Division of a “Cell”	201
43.	Stages in the Growth from the Egg of the Common Frog	210
44.	Outline Drawings of Three European Tadpoles	217
45.	The Comet shown in the Bayeux Tapestry	232
46.	The Cholera Spirillum, or Comma-Bacillus of Koch	241
47.	A Young Spider	288
48.	View of the Lower Surface of the Head and Body of a Large Burmese Spider	290
49.	Section through the Body of a Spider to show the Spinning Organs	291
50.	One of the Two Middle Spinnerets of the Common Garden Spider (Epeira diadema)	292
51.	The Common Garden Spider, correctly called the White-Cross Spider (Epeira diadema)	293
52.	On the Right Two Jumping Beans: on the Left the Caterpillar Removed from the Jumping Bean	299
53.	The Caterpillar of the Moth (Carpocapsa saltitans) removed from the Jumping Bean	300
54.	The Moth (Carpocapsa saltitans)	301
55.	Early Winged Female Hop-Louse	316
56.	Male Hop-Louse	317
57.	Ordinary Wingless Female Hop-Louse	318
58.	Foundress or Stock-Mother of the Hop-Louse	323
59.	Side View of Winged Viviparous Female of the Hop-Louse	323
60.	An Ant “Milking” a “Plant-Louse” or “Green-Fly” for Honey-Dew	324
61.	Single Egg-Tube or Ovarian Tube of an Insect	329
62.	The Death-Watch Beetle (Xestobium tessellatum)	350
63.	The Silver-Fish Insect (Lepisma saccharina)	353
64.	The Book-Louse, or Atropos divinatoria	354
65.	The Human Skull from the Chapelle-aux-Saints	370
66.	An Unpolished but Beautifully Chipped Flint Knife of the Neolithic Age	374
67.	A Polished Flint Axe-head of the Neolithic Age	375
68.	Harpoons of the Palæolithic Period	379
69.	A Piece of Mammoth Ivory Carved with Spirals and Scrolls	380
70.	Carving on an Antler of a Group of Three Red Deer and Four Fishes	381
71.	Painting of a Bison	382
72.	Back and Front View of a Flint Implement of the Moustier Type	384
73.	Flint Pick from the Lower Pleistocene of the Thames Valley	387
74.	A Rough Type of Flint Implement from the Lower Pleistocene of the Somme Valley	388
75.	A Profile and a Front View of the Skull and Lower Jaw of a Man of the Cromagnard Race or Reindeer Men	389
76.	Three Views of the Skull-Top from near Dusseldorf on the Rhine, known as the Neanderthal Skull	392
77.	The Gibraltar Skull from a Cave in Gibraltar	394
78.	The Skull-Top of the Primitive Kind of Man from Pleistocene Sands in Java, called Pithecanthropus	400
79.	Drawing of the Left Side of the Lower Jaw of a Modern European	404
80.	Outline of the Skull of the Neander Man from the Chapelle-aux-Saints	404
81.	The Skull of a Male Chimpanzee	405
82.	The Heidelberg Jaw	405

PLATES

I.	Immature and Mature Specimens of the Common Eel of the Natural Size	Frontispiece
II.	Real Dragons. The Extinct Flying Reptiles known as Pterodactyles	Facing p. 118

SCIENCE FROM AN EASY CHAIR