Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 11.djvu/655

Rh cell-action, commonly preceding this disorder. The inebriate is literally in a toxic condition, in which all the organs are both unduly depressed and exalted, or in a state of suspended activity, bordering on paralysis. The mortality of the inebriate is further increased by the favoring conditions which bring on inflammatory affections, as pneumonia, pleurisy, gastritis, diseases of the kidneys, etc. Severe bodily injuries, too, have generally a fatal termination in inebriates. The existing degenerations seem to intensify the lesion and its effect, and reduce the resisting power of Nature to its minimum. The fatality of inebriety is increasing, and its complications are becoming more profound and general.

Uses of the Antennæ of Insects.—In working on the problem as to the use of the antennæ of insects, Mr. L. Trouvelot, as he states in the American Naturalist, procured a large number of butterflies of Limenitis disippus, and with about a dozen of these tested the truth of a statement to the effect that a butterfly deprived of its antennæ, on being thrown up into the air, falls heavily to the ground without spreading its wings. All these butterflies took flight, but there was a certain hesitation in their movements. The author next carefully covered with thick Indian-ink the eyes of several individuals; when this coating was dry they were allowed to go free. They could fly, and, though blind, avoided hurting themselves by dashing against any hard object. Both antennæ having been cut off from a blinded butterfly, the insect when thrown up fell heavily. Another butterfly, blinded and with antennæ removed, was set at liberty on a table. Then with a small brush a drop of sweetened water was held very near the mouth, head, spiracles, etc. The insect remained perfectly still; but, when the stumps of the antennæ happened to be touched, it unrolled its proboscis and searched for the sweet liquor. The next insect was treated like the last, save that a drop of thick gum-arabic was allowed to dry on the stumps of the antennæ. The insect could not use its wings, and was insensible to the touch of sugar-water on the sealed stumps. Experiments showed that insects deprived of their antennæ do not copulate. The author next cut off the antennae of ants, and then let) them go free with their comrades; these mutilated ants did not seem to recognize their fellows, nor did they follow the same path, but kept moving in a circle. The author, in summing up the results of his experiments, says that the sense located in the antennæ is not merely that of touch, hearing, or taste, nor a combination of all these: it appears to differ essentially from any of man's senses; it is a "kind of feeling or smelling at a great distance."

Moss-Copper.—The term "moss-copper" is used to designate accumulations of filamentous copper found in cavities, in pigs of certain kinds of regulus. This moss-copper appears to be formed at a comparatively low temperature, and it has actually been produced at a temperature far below redness, by W. M. Hutchings, who gives in the Chemical News an account of his interesting experiments. He fused a button of regulus, one-quarter of a pound in weight, under borax in a clay crucible, and then poured the molten mass into an iron mould. After it had cooled in the mould for some time, so that it had been quite solidified for some minutes, it was broken in two by a blow with a hammer. It had now cooled below redness, even in the centre. At the moment of fracture the surfaces exposed were perfectly clean and lustrous, but after a minute or two they became slowly covered with a growth of minute copper filaments, which increased till in some places it resembled a coarse velvet. After three or four minutes one of the halves was again broken in two, and again the exposed surface was lustrous. The piece was now just cool enough to hold in the hand, yet the moss-copper slowly began to appear here also, though not so abundantly as before, and only in patches.

Fauna and Flora of the Florida Keys.—L. F. de Pourtalès, in The Naturalist, signalizes the Florida Keys as a curious example, though on a very small scale, of a land of comparatively modern origin, which has received its fauna and flora from two different and very distinct sources—the West Indies and the North American