The treasury of natural history, or, A popular dictionary of zoology / by Samuel Maunder.
- Maunder, Samuel, 1785-1849.
- Date:
- 1870
Licence: Public Domain Mark
Credit: The treasury of natural history, or, A popular dictionary of zoology / by Samuel Maunder. Source: Wellcome Collection.
777/856 (page 755)
![I of tin; valley of Egypt, and it was here that I God confined the flies; for he says, it shall be a sign of this separation of the people, that I not one fly should be seen in the sand or J pasture-ground, the land of Goshen ; and this kind of soil has ever since been the refuge j of all cattle emigrating from the black earth to the lower part of Atbara.” i To the foregoing graphic narrative by Bruce we shall only add, that, much as this, as well as other particulars on subjects equally extraordinary, were at one time ri- I diculed and regarded as unworthy of belief, strong corroborative testimony may be found i in the works of modern naturalists, as well as of recent African travellers (Denham and Clapperton among others), whose veracity has never been called in question. ZOANTHUS. A genus of Zoophytes es- tablished by Cuvier, and giving its name to a division of the great group of animals to which it belongs (Zoantlmria); in this genus the body is elongated, conic and peduncu- lated, and springs from a base common to several individuals ; os the name implies, the 6pecies of the genus resemble flowers, such as an expanded daisy. ZOEA. The name given by Bose to what he regaided as a distinct genus of decapod Crustacea, different species of which are found in the ocean ; Mr. Thompson dis- covered that these curious-looking spined creatures were the larva; of long and short- tailed Crustacea, immediately after their ex- clusion from the egg. Mr. Arthur Adams whs ‘ much struck with tneircurious and fantastic shapes ; one form, lie observes, would serve as an excellent model for a grotesque mon- ster in a pantomime ; in fact they all more • resemble phantasms than the ordinary or- ganizations we are in the habit of contem- plating. He doubted the accuracy of Mr. ! Thompson’s opinion, that these whimsical- looking creatures are merely the larva; of j different kinds of crabs, particularly as they are found in the high seas, where few of the larger Crustacea are ever discovered. How- 1 ever in many cases Mr. Thompson has ob- served the metamorphosis take place, espe- • cially on the Irish coast. We must refer to his memoirs in the third volume of the En- tomological Magazine, as well as to his Me- i moirs on Crustacea. ZONITIS. A genus of Coleopterous insects ' belonging to the family Cunthnridae, the i species of which are found on flowers. ZONURIDAC. A name given by Dr. Gray to a family of Saurian reptiles. ZOOARCES. [See Viviparous Blexxy.] ZOOPHYTES. A great division of the Animal Kingdom, containing beings which are always evidently more simple in or- ganization than in the other divisions, and which have their parts more or less distinctly arranged round an axis, a dispositon which ' frequently gives them the shape of flowers, I and hence the name, whicli means living plantm, or plant-like unimalt. The name Uadiuta, or radiuted animals, is also applied to this division. It contains the Star-flslies J and Sea-eggs, as well as the Actiniae, Corals, ! and Corallines. For the history of the two ; first of these, so far as they are found in the British Islands, we must refer our readers to j the work of Professor Forbes, which is de- voted to them, while Dr. Johnston’s History j j of British Zoophytes will give ample and ; interesting information, as well a9 admirable j figures of all the genera and species belong- ; ing to the last mentioned. There are none i who have opportunities of visiting the sea- ] coast who should neglect to examine and i study these animals. The Reverend David j Landsborough, in his Excursions to Arran, has well alluded to one of these Coralline < Zoophytes, which he had taken from a 1 I scallop-shell to which it was attached. When ' out of the water, the Plumularia pinna fa i ' looks like a dirty and worn white feather. 1 He says, you would not think that that fea- I ther had life, but, place it in water, it imme- diately recovers from its state of collapse, and, though still a feather, has become one | of great beauty and elegance. “ But it is only | the habitations that you see; the alarmed ji j inhabitants have fled into their houses. But I! place the polypidom, us it is culled, in a • tumbler of sea-water, and, when the alarm ! | is over, the inhabitants will again appear. |! The polypes are hydra-form, and spread ' j forth many tentacula in search of food, | which they greedily grasp. The feather is j | formed of calcareous matter, mixed with I gelatine, to give it flexibility, so that it may j the better stand the buffeting of the waves. Observe the stem or quill of the feather, and you will see that it is full of red matter. That is the medullary pulp. Every plumule of the feather is a street. Even with the ! nuked eye you may observe on each plumule about a dozen notches or denticles. Each ! of these is the house or cell, as it is called, I of a polype : so that, in a good specimen, we j 6ce a kind of marine village, which, under | the teaching of God, has been beautifully I constructed by the thousand inhabitants which it contains.” Many of the more trans- parent Zoophytes are highly luminous, and, in some eases, as Mr. Landsborough men- tions in the Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xxxii. p. 170., each polype seems as if it had u will of its own. for when agitated, after being taken from the water. “ l*»ey lighted and extinguished their little || lamps, not simultaneously, but with rapid irregularity, so that this running fire had a i very lively appearance.” Mr. Darwin, in i the admirable journal to which we have re- I, ferred so often, speaks of a Zoophyte closely j allied to Clytiu, of which lie put a large tuft >. in u basin of salt-water. “ When it was i! dark,” he adds, “ I found that as often as J rubbed any part of a branch, the whole be- j came strongly phosphorescent with a green j light; I do not think 1 ever saw any object more beautifully so. But the remarkable I, circumstance was, that the flashes of light always proceeded up the branches, from the || base towards the extremity.” This lumi- 1 nosity would seem to be chiefly produced by irritation, for living specimens have been ' kept for days in sea-water, and observed at](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b24864201_0777.jp2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
