The Wonders of Micro-Photography.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue IX, 26 August 1899, Page 14

The Wonders of Micro-Photography.

Some time ago we gave a series of microscopic photogravures taken f i-oin pictures supplied us by Mr 'Diomas Hodgson, of Auckland, and prepared by Mr C. Thompson, of Sunderland. England, who sent them to Mr Hodgson. The first picture to attract attention will doubtless be that of the male flea (I’ule.x irritans). Of the various insects that torment humanity. fleas aie perhaps the most common and numerous, but how few persons tormented by it know much about its anatomy, its early form of life, or the method by which it obtains its food, and dines upon its host. Though ninety in every hundred persons will say that it “bites" you and sucks your blood, the fact is that the flea is a toothless animal; it has no mouth or teeth that meet to bite with. 'Die microscope has revealed to us the construction of this blood sucking tormentor. It is provided with six spiked legs, with several joints, terminating in two sharp curved claws to each foot. The two hind legs are extra long, and are

worked by powerful muscles for long jumps. Along each side of the body are a number of apertures or spiracles. through which the air enters to the lungs or breathing apparatus. Hut the most important part that concerns us is the apparatus by which it procures its food. This is shown in the picture of the Trophi. which represents the front part of the head. The club-like appendage is one of the antennae. The long central portion is a horny hollow tube with openings out between teeth-like spans, and is flat shape at nd: it acts as a tongue, lance, ami suctional tube. Below are two scabbards for the two saw-edged lancets when not in use. Now. Mr or Mrs Elea commences operations upon their host by plunging the two sawedged lancets into the skin, working

them backwards and forwards to make an opening for the flesh, the hollow tongue in the meantime being drawn back. When the lancets are withdrawn the central tongue is inserted into the jagged wound, and pushed deep into the flesh. An acrid

fluid is injected through the hollow longue, which liquefies the blood, and the blood and fluid are then sucked back through the openings of the tongue, and on to the stomach of the flea. When the acrid fluid comes in contact with nature's vital fluid (the blood) it produces the sensation of a burning bite, hence the belief of a flea biting. The flea begins life from an egg covered by a clot of blood. The egg hatches a small maggot, which eats the blood, then passes into a chrysalis state similar to the butterfly, and then emerges a fully matured flea.

The house fly comprises a numerous family. Over 800 specimens are British. about 4000 are European, ami there are supposed to be about 30.000 species distributed over the work!. As

this family have only, one pair of wings, each wing consists of a thin, double membrane, strengthened by six hollow ribs or nerves; the larger contain breathing tubes and nerves. 'Die wing of the "Blue Bottle” vibrates 10.000 to 21.000 times per minute. The photo shows what would appear to be a portion of a second wing; and some scientists say the house fly and kindred possessed at one time, ages ago, double wings on each side, the same or similar to the bee, wasp, or dragon fly, and that these extra appendages have, by the law of evolution, disappeared for want of use. This belief can have little favour, for we find the house fly exactly in the same condition as at present embedded—along with nearly every other species of winged insects —in the crystal rock amber of the Baltic, now below other rocks in the sea. It is estimated that it is not less than two millions of years since the amber was on the earth in a liquid form. The impress of numerous wings, house fly. and others, may be seen on coal shale brought from a mine 2418 feet deep.

The fine dust that adheres to the fingers when you touch a moth or butterfly are called scales. They act the same part as feathers do to the winged fowl. The beautiful variegated colours on the various butterflies are due to the arrangement of these different coloured scales, as is the case with the plumage of birds. Both sides of the wings and the body are covered with these feathers, which are fixed with great regularity in the same

manner as the slates of a house. The nature of these scales is shown in the picture of those taken from the wing of the Blue Argus butterfly (a pretty little butterfly often seen on sunny banks and in quiet lanes in England). The scales are highly magnified, about 875 times. The actual length of the largest is l-350th of an inch, by l-630th inch wide, showing 15 rows of corrugations in this space with perfect regularity. The scales have pen ends. like ordinary feathers.

The photo of the ovipositor and saws of the fly is from the species of small fly that makes sad havoc with the gooseberry bushes. Nature has provided it with a compound ingenious instrument at the end of the body in a pair of curved

saws with large teeth and numerous finer teeth between the larger ones. The saws are strengthenel by a thick rib on the back, like a cabinetmaker's tenon saw; the other appendage is a hollow shell instrument connected with the ovum, or egg chamber, and is furnished with a piston rod. This is called the ovipositor. Mrs Saw Fly commences operations on the underside of the leaf of the gooseberry bush by sawing a couple of grooves across tlie mid-rib. Then she pushes the point of the ovipositor into the groove and forward between the skins of the leaf. Down the ovipositor is sent an egg. pushed forward by the piston. Then the ovipositor is withdrawn, leaving the egg, which in due course hatches a maggot. The maggot eats up its nursery blanket and surrounding leaves: then spins itself a fine thread by which it lowers itself down to the ground. The maggot enters into the chrysalis state, and emerges a perfect saw fly in due time. •> ® ® Inlets Ugcd for Food. “Man is what he eats," says an old proverb. Modernised, this ancient adage may be construed to mean that the material needs of a people denote the ratio of its intellectual devlopment. The trapper and hunter who lives in the wilderness has not so many requirements as the average Chicagoan. What the one enjoys is disgusting to the other; what agrees

with the one nauseates the other. Thus, it is not advisable to recommend on general principals insects as diet. But why is it not the custom among the denizens of a metropolis to make a meal of locusts and maggots? Because they are not appetising? Is it not a fact, on the other hand, that Indian birds’ nests, frog legs, excrement of snipe and snails, aux truffes, are highly prized delicacies? Just think of the courage (or hunger) of the first man who ate lobster or oysters'

Looked upon from this standpoint, is it not folly to wonder about the Arabs because they eat locusts and to be laughed at by them because we eat crabs. lobster and oysters? In our cultural development insects have not become a form of diet, though with

some of the most cultured ancients they were much liked, and in exotic countries they are to-day even a much appreciated article of food. Among the bugs the first place as delicacy is taken by the palm bug, somewhat of a creature as our Colorado potatoe bug. Its larva lives in the marrow of the palm tree and reaches the size of half an inch. It has been highly prized in the Indies for centuries. Reaumier speaks of an ancient Indian King who served his Greek guests for dessert instead of Fruit a worm taken from a plank and roasted, probably the larva of the palm bug. The Greeks who partook of this delicacy are loud in its praise. The “cossus,” of which Pliny speaks, and which was fattened with flour by the gourmands of the Roman Empire, was in all probability the horned beetle of to-day. FOUND IN DECAYING WOOD. To-day a similar bug, or rather the larva of one. Prion us cervicornis, which is found in South America in decaying wood, is not only eaten by the natives of those countries, but also by the acclimated whites. It is disembowelled. washed and roasted in olive oil, and is said to be a veritable delicacy in this shape. Similar to this is the larva of Lamia kribulus. a horned beetle found in Africa. All the bugs of this family have large and fat larvae. But not only larvae of bugs, even the fully developed bug. is an article of food in many countries to-day. There is for. instance, the Blaps in Egypt (Blaps sulcata), which has the reputation of making lean people stout, and which is eaten broiled in butter. The cynic, of course, may say that the butter has as much to do with the fattening process as the bug. The reader may decide this as suits himbest. Not so far back Europeans ate cockchafers stewed in sugar, like burned almonds. Much simpler do some of the boys in certain parts of Germany at the present day, who eat the May bugs whole and unadulterated, and who assert that they taste like hasel nuts and can be obtained with far less trouble. May bug soup is eaten in some parts of Germany to-day, and is said to have great

medicinal properties as an anti-rheu-matic remedy. The order of lepidopterae, or butterfly, furnishes few, if any, for food, probably because the small and hairy body is too insignificant, but the larva and caterpillar, of which some are of great size, have found admirers among eaters. Chief among the latter are the natives of Australia, who have caterpillar soup and a sort of stew made from the larva of the butterfly. The frugal Chinese, the originators of silk manufacture from the cocoon of

the silkworm, eat the chrysalis after the silk has been removed, and no less an authority than Darwin commends a Chinese Caterpillar soup and a cocoon stew as an excellent dish. WHERE THEY EAT BEES. The order of hymerioptera, or insects with membranous wings, also furnishes some members and products which are eaten. No reference is had here to the honey furnished by the busy bees, and which probably would be refused by nobody, but to the bees themselves. They are eaten this day

in Ceylon, by acclimated whites as well as by the natives, and they’ are said to be not only nourishing but quite tasty. More important than the bees, however, are the ants. Tn some

parts of Europe the red forest ant is eaten, or at least chewed, and is said to have a fine, aromatic taste which revives the tired traveller. In Sweden ants are immersed in brandy to give the latter a fine aromatic flavour. But the most diversified methods of preparing ants for food are found in the South American States. Humboldt re-

ports that the natives along the Rio Negro eat the Sauba, a form of large ant quite common there, as a great delicacy, particularly the female Sauba during the period of gestation. The hind part of the body is eaten raw with a bit of salt. If the catch of ants has been so large that the insects cannot be consumed at once the ants are roasted and preserved in salt, or they are mashed and formed into pies, which, also preserved in salt, are a favourite dish for the natives the year around. A similar report is made by Reng-

pt r, a Dutch scientist, according to whoia the natives of Paraguay vat the hind part of the body of thv i>au ant. which, Lieing of aliout the >i« of a pea. is said to taste like lav kernel of a hazelnut if eaten raw, anti like burnt almonds if roasted and immersed in sirup. But the Old World had its ant-eaters also. Nicolas Vvnetus. an Italian author, writes of the Akowes. an East Indian people, which devoured ants prepared in pepper sauce. Of the flies little is known as an article of food, unless it be in the regulation boarding-house in summer time, when people all over the world vat more or less flies unknowingly, however. Some enthusiasts on cheese maintain that cheese mites are really the best part of the cheese. ’This is. probably, upon the principle that wasps never attack any bail fruit but only the best of its kind. In this connection it may be mentioned that the Mexicans in tin* vicinity of Lake Tezcoco gather the eggs of a fly which abounds there in myriads, and eat these eggs either raw or baked, w hen they art* preserved for months. FLIES NOT POPULAR. Of the order of neuroptera. net-w inged insects, the tennit or winged ant forms an important article of food for several African tribes. Tin* Hottentots eat termites both raw and broiled, and the Senegalese also look upon this insect as a favourite dish. There the termites are mostly caught when they’ swarm. At this time millions of them settle upon shallow’ waters, when they* are fished up and slowly broiled in earthen pots until they are done to a turn. Then they are eaten without condiments, and Sweathman, an Eng-

lish scientist, asserts that they taste like almond meringue. Among the order of orthoptrra. or straight-winged insects, tin* common locust furnishes as an article of food for many’ tribes some restitution for the enormous damage it does to vegetation. The Bible tells us of the Jews and of John the Baptist that they ate locusts, usually with the seasoning of honey’ from wild bees. Strabo. the Roman historian, reports that some Ethiopian tribes, on account of their fondness for locusts |acridia| were named Acridophages. Pliny reports that tin* Parthians preferred fried locusts to any other dish. From more modern times Frederick Hassel(piist, a Russian physician, and traveller. reports anent a trip to Palestine, undertaken in 1749. that the Arabs, first during a famine and subsequently because they liked it. dried locusts over slow fires and then pulverised the insects. This locust flour was made with water into a dough and then baked. Tie asserts that this cake or bread has almost the same taste as oatmeal bread, which cannot he wondered at because of tin* fart that oatfields seem to hr the favourite prey of the locusts. At least, they’ leave other vegetation alone so long as oats may be devoured. Sparrmann, who lived at the ( ape of Good Hope during the last years of the eighteenth century, and who travelled extensively in Africa, states that the Hottentots rejoice when their country is visited by a locust plague, though the voracious inserts devour every bit of vegetation. The Hottentots eat locifists like the civilised world rats oysters, “in every style.” They also prepare a brown soup from the

eggs. which in flavour anil noiirishmenf is said to vie with the turtle soup of a London alderman. THE DESPISED IXMTST. In Morocco at this time entire waggon loads of locusts are brought to the market in Eez. Im cause they form a regular article of food for the Moors who inhabit this part of north Africa. Here. also, the locusts are eaten in exert style, pickled, salted, simply dried, smoked, or in any other possible* xxay. except raxv. The negroes on the northern coast of Africa prefer locusts to pigeons, ami they cat from 2<mi to .:ou at a sitting. They remove head, wings, and legs, boil them for half an hour in water, then add salt ami pepper. and fry them in vinegar. In a similar way locusts ar • prepared al other points in Africa and in Asia. Preserved in salt pickle they form a staple article of commerce. Locusts in Africa tire also compressed, when fresh, in barrels, am] are then dished out like butter at meal times.