Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 34.djvu/498

482 glistening with a greenish luster, jet-black skins, and other features like those of men. The tomb had become immensely large, and had taken the shape of a minaret towering into the clouds. It then began to shake, and Sheik Adi in his fright overturned a water-jar that was standing by his side; and the apparition, which had turned into the shape of a handsome boy with a peacock's tail, exhorted him: "Do not be afraid; the minaret, indeed, will fall and destroy the earth, but you and those who hear your word shall not be harmed, and shall rule over the ruins. I am Melek-Taus, and have chosen you to publish the religion of the truth over the earth." This said, he took Sheik Adi's spirit with him into heaven, where it stayed for seven years, receiving instruction in all truths, while the body of the saint remained asleep by the tomb of Abu Rish. When his soul returned to it from the sky, the water had not yet run out of the overturned jar.—Translated for the Popular Science Monthly from Das Ausland.



BOUT the 12th of September, 1888, there was brought into the laboratory of the United States Fish Commission a male specimen of the lady crab (Platyonychus ocellatus), which was placed in an aquarium with a female crab of the same species. During the evening of the 13th, while sketching some hermit-crabs which had previously been placed in the same tank, I was attracted by the movements of the male Platyonychus. Without apparent cause he was seen to rise upon the third and fourth pairs of legs; his large chelæ were thrown above his head with the claws open and their points touching in the middle line; his fifth pair of feet were held horizontally behind, and his body perpendicular to the floor of the aquarium, or at right angles to the normal position, as shown in the accompanying figure. The posture was ludicrous, and, when in this position he began slowly to gyrate, his movements and attitude were the cause of much merriment upon the part of the spectators. At times he balanced on two legs of one side, again on two legs of opposite sides. Now he advances slowly and majestically, and now he wheels in circles in the sand on the floor of the aquarium, and now for a few moments he stands as if transfixed in this unnatural position. An electric light hung above and to one side of the water, which suggested the possibility that it might be the exciting cause. It was turned out, and still the dance went on, and the joy was unconfined. At