(oe eee i i
BULLETIN
+—-OF THE——
My
SSGIENTITG= ASSOCIATION
; Be —~ oF ——
y Siw es PEORTA ILLINOIS.
: PUBLISHED By eae ASSOCIATION.
18 i937
[1S 7. UNIVERSITY OF 1 LENDS
cea ge CONTENTS: :
E ; Age.
hareae Petal AND OBJECTS OF THE Pionia SCIENTIFIC AssocrA TION, 3
“Recorpina. SECRETARY’ Ss REPORT FOR THE X#Ar ENDING May 1.1886, © 12
GroLogy (On Peoria. Country, 20). Ber ce: ; . 14
_PALRoNTOLOGy or PEORIA County, UR ORS, Ge a eo gape
FLORA OF Peoria, PS Ala ek as Ra Te. 8 AS Bab 27.98
THE CLIMATE OF Prortra, = ‘ am oe a, ; : 34
SKETCHES, OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND Bit: BULION OF VEGETATION, © 41
CATALOGUE OF COLEOPTERA, ; : Ae as
Tue Laws or NatuRs As APPLIED To roe Ave anis or LIFE ay 64
Is MAN A FINALITY OF ORGANIC Evouy BION el, HS ro ae
| THe LAKH ASA Microcosm, : Res, 4 2 as ee et 83
TNGRATION a aGue AND PLANTS, oe re re ce Dieppe Sp aa ot
hs Serene eRe eR ie ig a cet Dg a tel Agile nos
Return this book on or before the
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SCIENTIFIC*AS80G1 ATION,
APR RB Et ® ND A PY PRP me pee
ote Le SG
FEB 18 1937
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
PRORT Amel UINOLS.
eho lS ite )..BY THE ASSOCIATION.
ll Sesie.
Edward Hine & Co., Printers, Peoria.
HISTORY, AIMS AND OBJECTS
OF THE
PEORIA SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION.
BY DR. J. T. STEWART.
DELIVERED BEFORE THE PEORIA SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION,
FRIDAY EVENING, SEpt. 4, 1885.
Science may be defined as an assemblage of facts, truths
proved, demonstrated and systematized, and is therefore in its
essence irresistible, indestructible, eternal. Before it the dark
clouds of ignorance vanish; the black and dreadful pall of
superstition rolls away. Before it the fetters fall from the hu-
man mind; the prison doors are opened, it breathes the pure air
of heaven, it feels the warm sunshine, it sees the beauties, the
glories of the universe, it comes into possession of the rich
heritage which by right is its own. As the thermometer is a
measure of the temperature of the air, so science is a measure
of the civilization of a people. Just in proportion as science is
developed and diffused is civilization advanced.
In Egypt, Hast India and China science was in a high state of
development four thousand years ago, and those people were in
a correspondingly high state of civilization. Some of the sci-
ences were fully as highly developed as they are now with us,
and some of the arts were developed far beyond our present
knowledge of them.
As an example of the advanced state of those nations above
named, two thousand years before Christ, the healing art was
well established and systematized. Physicians were educated
_by the government and paid by the government, both in mili-
tary and civil practice, and were held in high esteem by the
‘ foo gray a
esa? aa
a “ae ees? &, seat Bay
4 Peoria Scientific Association.
people. Many of our modern discoveries were known to
them, as the circulation of the blood and anesthetics, which
are thoughtto be —and justly so—wonderful modern discoyer-
ies. They had fine surgical instruments, and understood their
use as well as we do now.
Medicine was systematized much as it is now, and some of
our best remedies were used by them and for the same purposes
we use them now.
Egypt was overrun with barbarian fanatics, her great libraries
burned, her institutions of learning, her sciences, medicine in-
cluded, buried, and, with them, her civilization. For more than
a thousand years she has been a land of darkness. With her
sciences went out light, liberty, peace, prosperity and happiness.
Some time before the Christian era the emperor of China
issued an edict, which was executed to the letter, directing all
scientific books in the realm, except those on astronomy, to be
destroyed. It was also ordered that any physician who used a
new remedy or anew method of practice should do so at his
peril—that was, if the patient died he should suffer death.
From that hour she began to retrograde, and continued to do
so until a general lethargy prevailed over the whole of that vast
country. Now our western civilization is beginning to stir her
stagnant waters, and it may be hoped that, with the reintroduc-
tion of science, after a long lapse of time, she may be again
renovated.
From some cause or causes with which I am not familiar a
knowledge of the sciences faded from India, and with it all
civilization that is worthy the name. 3
Science never conflicts with truth; it never yields to or com-
promises with error. What was truth a thousand years ago is
truth to-day, and will be forever, though it may be forgotten
by men. What was science a thousand years ago is science
to-day, and will ever be, though the dust of ages may have hid-
den it from view. There is truth without science, but there is’
no science without truth. All disputes among scientists are as
to what is true, not as to the truth of science. The moment a
proposition, a theory, or any thing, is demonstrated. to be a
truth, all disputes cease. :
Its Mistory, Aims and Objects. 5
The great importance of this subject — of searching for truth,
facts, elaborating and systemizing them and disseminating them
among the people was felt ten years ago by a few ladies and
gentlemen of this place. As a means of carrying out this idea
an organization was formed and styled the Scientific Associa-
tion of Peoria. The founders of it had no idea of making it
a strictly and rigidly scientific association. They knew well
that the scientists of this place, in the strict sense of the word,
could be counted on the fingers of one hand and that perhaps
they might be divided by five. But they knew there were
many who had some knowledge of science and who wished to
study some of its branches or departments, and others possess-
ing some literary attainments, and that there were many others
who might be induced to interest themselves in some branch of
science or literature; and the idea of the founders was to em-
brace all these in one organization.
The second article of the constitution reads thus: “The ob-
ject of this association shall be to increase the knowledge of
science among its members, and awaken a spirit of scientific
investigation among the people.” This article was, unfortunate-
ly, too limited. It should have embraced literature also, and
the society from the first to this time has done so.
Its object was two-fold: first, to study science ourselves, and
second, to awaken a spirit of scientific investigation among the
people. ‘T’o accomplish this, or even to maintain the existence
of a society, it was necessary to broaden the field and embrace
literature. Though this was not set forth in the constitution
I know it was true and it is proven by the records at an early
day by the appointment of, among other committees, one on
literature. How well the association has fulfilled its mission I
will endeavor to show by the records.
The Scientific Association of Peoria was formally organized
April 17, 1875, with the following corps of officers: President,
Dr. W. H. Chapman; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. B. L. T. Bourland,
Dr. J. T. Stewart and Dr. Frederick Brendel; Corresponding
Secretary, Prof. S. H. White; Recording Secretary, Miss Emma
A. Smith; Treasurer, Sidney Pulsifer.
The first work of the society was to organize a summer school
6 Peoria Scientific Association.
for the study of the natural sciences. This was in every sense
of the word a success. Prof. Wood, of New York, took the
botany class and gave a series of lectures and field excursions.
Prof. Hyatt, of New York, lectured on chemistry and botany.
Profs. Wilder and Comstock, of Cornell University, lectured on
natural history, entomology, zodlogy, etc. This was an exceed-
ingly interesting school conducted by some of the most talented
professors in America. The: society raised for it $928.75 and
expended $782.46, leaving a balance in the treasury of $146.29.
At the first meeting of the society after the close of the sum-
mer school the work was divided and committees appointed on
the following subjects: 1, Botany; 2, Geology and Palentology;
3, Mineralogy; 4, Zoology; 5, Entomology; 6, Literature.
Meetings were held at this time monthly and continued to be,
except in summer for about seven years. Since that time they
have been held weekly. The average attendance for the first
seven years was probably about twelve. Since that time it has
materially increased. During the first year besides the summer
school there were five papers read as follows: Crusts of the
Earth; Alternate Generation; Aphides; Geographical Distribu-
tion of Plants and Netreology.
Second Year— Arboriculture; A Paper on Words; Meteoro- ©
logical Report for Twenty Years; Amphioxis; Thermometrical
and Barometrical Observations for February; Lamprey Hels—6.
Third Year—Spiders; Geology; Fishes; Origin of Language; —
four papers on Fishes; Metric System; Serpents; Vines; Lecre
Orimmacoricola; Osteology of Amblytoma; Fossil Ganoids —11.
Fourth Year — Eye; Botany; Osteological Symmetry of the
Human Frame; Bark Louse; Coal Formation of Peoria; Scien-
tific Methods of Education; Meteorological Observations; Influ-
ence of Soil on Plants; Influence of Soil on the Growth of
Plants; Sound Producing Insects; Life in the Illinois River;
Anatomy of Vertebrates; Importance of Science and Develop-
ment of Scientific Knowledge; Flight of Birds; Zodlogy; Silk
Worms; Zodlogy—17.
Fifth Year— Prairies and Their Treelessness; Historical
Sketches of Early American Botanists; Ethnology; Does —
-
Its History, Aims and Objects. 7
Wheat Ever Change into Chess? Chemistry; Utilitarianism;
Coal Formations — 7.
Sixth Year—Origin of Life; Botany; Origin of Individuals;
Alternate Generation; Natural Science and Mechanical Inven-
tion the Basis of Civilization; The Sun and What We Know
About It; Artesian Wells; Influence of Science on Moral Pro-
gress and Material Improvement — 8.
Seventh Year—The Weather; Ethnography of European
Turkey; Farinaceous Seeds; How We Heat Our Houses; The
Relations of the Lower Animals to Man in the Matter of Intel-
lect, Instinct, Moral Faculties, ete.; Review of the Evolution
Theories; Moral Sense; Water Supply; Heat, Its Manner and
Mode of Motion; Darwinism; The Prairies and their Treeless-
ness; Geology; Composition and Theory of the Origin of
Coal — 13.
Highth. Year— Forestry, and the Doings of the American
Forestry Congress; Water; Use of the Microscope in the Detec-
tion of Adulterated Powder Drugs; Wonder Working Scien-
tifically Considered; Economical Generation of Steam; Oregon,
Its Climate, People and Inducements; Some Remaining Prob-
lems in Science; The Place which Hypothesis Holds in Science;
Theory of Heating Rooms; Growth of Plants; Electricity,
Scientific Methods in Education; Electricity and its Relation to
Other Forces in Nature; Witchcraft and Demonology; Growth
of Plants; Shade Trees, Indigenous Shrubs and Vines; Purifi-
eation of Water; Ghosts and What are They? A Physical
Reason why Man is Right-handed; Powers of the Microscope;
Edible Fruits and Their Acids; Essentials of Vision; Chemis-
try of Fruit-ripening; Antiquity of Prehistoric Man; Is the
Public School System a Failure? Engineering; Scientitic Theo-
ries Based upon Mere Apparent Truths; Testimony of the
Rocks; Is Darwinism True? The Origin of Man; Recent
Floods in Different Countries; Parasites of Man; What is an
Architect ?— 33.
Ninth Year— Hypnotism and Allied Phenomena; Volcanic
Action; Missing Link; Growth of Forests and Causes of Prai-
ries; Cosmical Dynamics; Government; Human Parasites;
Anatomy of Snakes; Steam Using; Amoebea and its Life;
8 Peoria Scientific Association.
Electricity, its Effects on Animal and Vegetable Life; Fuel of
the Sun; Archeology; Frictional Electricity; Mind Reading;
Ferns; The Effect of Climatic Influences on the Mental and
Physical Development of Man; Electricity as a Means of Com-
municating Thought; Mind and its Relation to Matter; Popu-
larization of Scientific Methods; Dawn of Authentic History;
Beginning and Progress of Evolution; Illusions and their
Causes; Modern Physical Science; Is the Supernatural Natural ?
Physical Effects of Mental Causes; Froebel Education; The
Properties of Matter; The Philosophy of Some Old Theories;
Who were Our Ancestors? Cause and Effect; Man—8S1.
Tenth Year—The God Serapis of American Politics; The
Geographical Distribution of American Plants; The Destructi-
bility and Utility of Water; The Life that Now is; Cyclones,
Storms and Tornadoes; Oxidation; Mounds and Mound Build-
ers; Personal Efforts in Promoting Longevity; Heredity; New
England, the Old and the New; Myths, their Origin and Devel-
opment: Unscientific Astronomy; Is This a Degenerate Age?
The Ear and its Cure; Coal Oil, its Source and Use; The Rise
and Development of the Healing Art; The Part that Oxygen
Plays in the Organic World; Some of the Relations of Heat to
the Living World; Electricity, Magnetism and Human Nature;
Mind in Animals; Materia Medica; One of the Great Literary
Secrets of the Nineteenth Century; Our Saxon Ancestors; The
Microscope, its Construction and Uses; Is there Scientific Evi-
dence for a Belief in Immortality? Customs and Manners;
Meteorology of the Present and Past Thirty Winters Compared;
Some Missing Links; Development; The Labor Question; The
Progress of thought; Nature; City Government and Historical
Sketches of Tammany Hall; Bearing of Skepticism on Science;
Outlines of Race History—35, aggregating 167 papers and lec-
tures which have been presented to this society since its organi-
zation. Some of them have been light, but the majority have
been elaborate and valuable, some of them opening a mine of —
thought and worthy a place in the best scientific or literary
magazines. After reading these papers it has been our custom
to discuss the subject of them. This exercise has been a source
of great interest and profit.
SSS eee
Its History, Aims and. Objects. 9
The number of charter members in May, 1875, was thirteen;
the enrolled membership now is seventy-three.
As I said before, for the first seven or eight years the average
attendance was about twelve; year before last it was thirty-five,
and last year fifty-four.
The museum now contains more than 10,000 specimens, some
of them very valuable. ‘The herbarium embraces the entire
flora of this section, and more.
The library contains about 150 volumes.
To show the interest the public are taking in this, I will say
that the curator’s books show that since the rooms have been
kept open to the public during year before last 5,948 persons,
not members, visited them, and last year 7,700.
The liberal poliev of the county, through her board of super-
visors, in giving us the use of a suit of rooms for our museum,
and for holding our meetings in, has been a material benefit to
us, has reflected great credit on it, and is worthy of the highest
commendation. Not only this, but when these rooms became
well filled with a rich store of valuable specimens, and the mem-
bers increased at our meetings till they could not be accommo-
dated in them, we have been permitted to hold our meetings in
the supervisors’ room. Tor all this they have our hearty thanks
and the thanks of the public generally. The glory of Athens
was her schools of science and art. These schools made Athens,
made Greece. |
Heretofore, Peoria has never been noted for any high attain-
ments in science, literature or art, or of a high order of educa-
tional institutions, but it can now justly boast of the best scien-
tific association in the state. And I may add that it now has a
school of art which is fully equal to any other in the state. May
we not take courage from this and go on with our labor with
renewed energy, hoping for still better days?
Those who have attended these meetings for the last ten
years must have learned much. divsipaein spss cosa Sy aeeieN) vees veebmiieawam Bronb.
Sigillaria catenoides .......22-...-c-esseeunes seteeeseeneeeeeeceeteseetcrsesee ce ceeeeeees Dawson.
a GISCOIDEGS eee eelavesi ee ne eeeEMG se... secsmeeeMpaban «aa sWereeiimy ra zaitenys repre Lesq.
vi STMINENS 46 Ns Fadey oe np essen evs oc onbtmeMne en ses +>» 4 pruned Oey ea ena Daw.
GeNUS Stigmarla-....ceee -eccsscscrssecsseceeveteeeseerescesceesseeesveescceesesenas Brong.
Stig Maria ClIPtlCAe hscecsebesucs pene VUMMMe ss oss +s GeeeRRMe eb yss5 soy pos Memmi s ost aman Lesq
: DUINLON ies oye oh oh ness ss seg emMmnrs. «+054 cRmemaaa ay ses cbs )eys Maeeeme Nem Goeppart.
Genus Spermatosoma: { ?,)}\ pemeass.....s Jeg bieuesey. s\nncasphVcereabe@amee gi tenet Stevens.
bs
Spermatosoma polymorphia ( ?.).ceimes.. .....daseuibeysnc’sssorbeenad Ceueeevaeaer anne
ANIMAL KINGDOM.
Susp-Kine@pom PRoriIstTa.
CLASS RHIZOPODA.
Genus PuUsaling siecle: . cc agMaMNs s+ «..cndlsle an esas» «s'drelte iba ona e Means emene his Fisher.
Pusulinga cylindrica .veeic ick. Cuaieeed «,... stem a Meee sehen aie a aale ie remane ae aS
A VODLTICOBA Goes 53s dee 200MM ees. +. sKeeeehsssdegee cant whch Un naH een e ecutemeee M & H.
Sus-Kinepom RapDIATA.
CLASS POLYPI,
" ORDER ZOANTHARIA.
Family Cyathophyllide.
Genus Axopbyllui). .'.2/cetbemess sa.... ssaaeMapeds oss.osub eat ecceuse esas eee E. & H.
Axophyllim: infandibolum.’. cigars... ..cceeemembssesasosreetekes ceeenpuasLinee Worthen
Genus, Oyathophyl lium. aiiiee.:.......dedaugne tes seaanekedaseiecaue rag aeuems Goldtuss
Cyathophyllum carbonaria............... MMMM consi obi senses aedeeghol@eh ae « Gein.
CLASS BRACHIOPODA.
Family Discinide.
CLOTIUGN cL IISCIIIO, cacocketedeec’'s... SAME aeeccee o Seeae ves Ae dasa entes CARAS de SS fale -Lam.
Discina nitida...... wie Pek PHRIEG t.. . 2. Ree cdecd savteniacerUcebiak cates: ED,
Family Orthide.
Genus Meekella ................ ee SMR. os loss BRD wig! W. & St. I.
OICETIA BLEAILO-COSLACH a cisce'oere'’ + «+ baceMMeen (55~.. ologuaeoebales saucch cae sHedesadersics Cox
MAEETT PEELE IS cc ck sce sons oc 4s 0.060 see ERR EA ga Ss OS aS Set BY Salman.
BOREEIS? DOCOR Rss cox: voc'ets (used ducncs.s00 oosb ache BIE -<3-s JauasPaMmnesas «66 PYcsen4 stecaee payee Marcon.
Family Pentameride.
Genus Camerophoriars..........cecsercsesees + eee evesessogtaet oeecacses secsesees KING,
Camerophoria subtrigona.............. a Be, 1 ee ee eee .-M. & W.
; Family Productide.
Genus Chonetes.......6. cccsseevsees aR Ree ys Met Raa et ais Fish,
Chonetes costatus.......... Aa ee Joc CERMRERL, . \s 00 saMMEMEN Ga nso 000 ugg Gaduccine cod dalodebasocdbeekes Sow.
cora eteeseee. eeeesees teeeseseress oe Peer sosres serene eeeeseces PPO eens seoses Hi eeeees .DeOrb.
af lasallensis ....... Std siiaevee ss Sane BEN ik ooo PD) a eae tees Le Worthen.
. longispinus ........... Ries ss (am cre --- dane Bntnk Suercoeud Bers eae ... SOW.
. STVALT LOSE eae te ets oes os cans |, GEIR oe saben A boda ss dase NWN ee ES:
As nebrascensis -..... AS SE LE S- IES cc nleees vides calle decden -Owen.
st prattenanus............ pach. + Se . ee ERE EE ape be Norwood.
: punctatus...... steeeeeee ceneeeerenes Bem ba scam MEN Spaesivhv ins ses set enaas Martin.
ad BCLS) is caaeee ekeaked Ar. See | ERP ORE Se eee ere ae Martin.
ig tubulospinus (? ) ....-..e.- see - ee se aceae roc ctv iteltitstadys cabs McC.
Family ao
Genus aay ey | a SEaeE Soh cs |... sca di coats aw ehu oases sesees McCoy.
Athyris WEHRGLL Fag ores cA adc mu etARMe es 5s 6: GEMM Ravens ooo cae tite es A. Sag ..- Leville.
planosulcata. eedouee tierce Sd: 6 SCAMS oS. DEMIMEE, Cece otalde's Sele de tates lowe «Phil
Bs KUL GILLIES, sss tnvs shoes Seaakss so eset Os 0 ces We ooaia Sas boas ass od tepes Pi EL aAb
rs S11 DIG IOSA ss seedee cee ox edh A. Oe MPEG AS eds Sedans eo gtionsdet nests a te
66
af subquadrata........ eeenesete Seeeeeeee sesessavesee SCH SOSSEH “HHH SHOE HE SEH EEH OOOOH TETE CS
24 Paleontology of Peoria County.
Gontis, Reta sce s.cuccc dbo thas Slee « ineebe~ Ebon stn tabs cacetiaens Sistah Canines < --0n pins s +» Gag MMbeuels Juashs (ieGh imEmmnEEES is eee Swal.
CLASS GASTEROAODA.
on peter Opa
Genus: Bellerophon .:s:.dcccmmsie.... .sreiegtemted st ss + «saa ce Ceamenn enti amma Monttiort
Bellerophon CAYDONATIUS ~...02c05 caeMiavss-- ce qeOMWMMMth gs « +950ee pemagiie on aliesenn nent Cox.
WIATCOUATIUAS cic occ beRs s « « 00 cru Cnet Riess «on so nt mEae cea nanan a Geinitz.
" montiortanus ......s)seseeeens -. eg URNS PORE ss «'s'cis ede RL cones N. & P.
3 NAT ELOIMSB a ince.’ coc ceeMeetes vo clans coMMInG oncasisgt et canna -- Winchell.
Ee NLOGICATINGEUS oc. occcn sees. s... ocosah bec stint c's cacbont one tee eeenee tan Hall.
cL PeCariNatug’? .....ceaMMeeies...-..ceeNl-caaie sda agann see ieee ane Conrad.
i, Platyostorna a: ss....cMMREIMOR ss... aBRMis cb ieuwe (OlU Semen mig. enema M. & W.
tVICATINATUB Sesessns RAMEE ah «0. CHIE: «cote eeluices s+ + osanctbaee on ameet nb coals Ganges eae aman McCoy.
Naticopsis GISPASA sco cess es .s ++ geMMMMMioes + .-oces egies shh «ivan Sues NN ieierekseta at anne Win.
TBD Gis. ceddes ssc... ss dkeeneee We ccc KAU RMMER Sus sea clade raneeeestete ereeee ome M. & W.
% DLICL oo cs scicceieddohnie ook UMMEMS osha» «ose eiMnRen’ ondary seed teve temas gee eneean rSherm.
és SU DO VAR ciate a's on ca GUMS os « © oo co ReRine dass san bacare es Rane ane On nena Worthen.
ce WOTDLYECOBB sade ss. 0's pea woos» (smbRMIER #1 vic. bcc BeieU et saan Weer N. & P.
« WHE] Ori ss j.co-) 2. .sceMeebo ens: .... GUEDERD RE Ui cbacc « Gok poems akan ae teaIran cn nea Swal.
Genus-Trachydomia.. cis ca>.- ..cetneaeks «tices sasaueen ea teaaamienuaneerns M. & W.
Trachydomia nNOdosuii :...... cctmmiseeess...-- GsRmBees ss +o sch psenneeW anda aeiel es same 3
Family Pleurotomariide.
Genus Plenrotomaria cee sents. - sap Mbes cnc odncnaeaeuktan sss cucemenee DeFrance.
Pleurotomaria Donha@rborensismitances cs «.oncseabdben sa ces aceteealeuel cheska dock Cox.
Deck with 1a na vigeeies «<2... ocean tenes «oc ccn ana Utwese umes toast McC.
: CAT DOMATIO..: .cGUMEen ss c0ss's act Mkn Now ccleedeeeaienst eabenea aie aetna N.& P.
‘i gravillensis ...dMech ».:.....cMAbes ss sagisseatbecachvta..o be eke cs
INOMNAtA.:. ... . Ges sce... scans tolcwedhd bebe babe Rene ger anene ae Meek.
- SUDSINMAEA ’ .: Sse cs... cutee) abe dene se ouk Venein nas ban M. & W.
4 BPNETV ALS «. 5 geMMlign i's ence son ghiiblies ce ceutie deta iene de eLieeaaaae yy
BUDCONStICtA “MeN te cs. +e ceeeeRahwelap ed es coRAee Rene Cree en ne eee Con.
Paleontology of Peoria County. 25
Genus Murchisonia....... Ge Wes MME Shs ctche! cohen a ea Lav a... Meee DOA &. V.,
NRE NEON 1, TROT ALE cee ches acc sce cp yes. cueecs socees Veen ede -.... seunMi pes ies-. osaeBignanericcocde cssebense'do oe hen tee eae Stev.
Ae DELMOISENIUS yaceccs.-....- SER ves... «SGUPMb eats Bula cease ncscd, ene ume MUON).
Genus Polyphemopsis..... ...... sscece seoee. seeee ich AND Chae G as edinat te etme can asa Post.
Polyphemopsis CHEVSRIIS Catiewss s+. 00: eee _ NR eciaeets bel cscees M. & W.
TLUGLOULLG,; cecdme tas... 00s MMMM c'ys+ se OEMs. sy eduivce ti gtana sored svar a
zs PLAC UU air eae on. - 5.25 MEE» + «ik eeeabin ss op apdvnauoeites! Lerloeeaa tf
Family Solaridae.
rons CO philetariits...s..........40 SEs: s:. .. cues ves hoonde bd ouadecSes Vanuxem,
Ophileta owenana........ ...000. a aa IEP n svcd sucdevnsevesstdeuedl M. & W.
SPOTS PIAGYOSCO UIA race. .... 00 cece ore o0ss GPP cs tic rca avael eases bee Conrad.
PRM RAEI DCOTIOLISG ttn. .2.....00 5; spate: 00 +cun py aade pans sel tecee ... McChesney.
Genus Straparollus ............. scctees s0100e seeesecccres coreceeee sessssees soneeeers Mont.
Straparollus carinatus ...... eS. oecas as 5 «os REMY Ty Sc eubeae ss ars Silber? Chap.
subquadratus.............+. a eee ols gy ober M. & W.
s SUT GOS R ea rekiss-.cccney. nots ) ae Baifovs tiftoales cheed alacesee ts
CLASS CEPHALOPODA.
Family Goniatitide.
Genus Goniatites ........ ae ee «bcd, cs «Rees aes DeHaven.
MIL IGOR IETLIINI US. \.css¢ccee csc cececccce wae ae WH sé cc cumea aac aurea ..-sherm.,
STIS IN ALLGLIUIS cans ceece cusses 000g QMMersoe cee cosnouge Oia suite aeece. cadet ech hasesavagt LOW s
NEES oo cote 5 res, 5 ss ove SUMMED SS) ay > 00 ce Mabe loch oan | pas seimadedetesinias ee Cox.
a hilandensis ........... Reet vasa ee Pe ei iat yantnne Load ae, Wor.
= DIGDOVOLVIS 2. scam ance ics 5 Sesei . ae SOMEEE Ges ssjo0eners setade tus dvets Sherm.
s occidentalis ......... 15 Bee es cis ox: ee cp Mp eaina 15 ig Swal.
5 ESS TS a er, A A Re ae Dae Mont.
AIBC, COTLGELISLUIS 1, cbc ce ds oc'cscc oo 000k MADRUD cos cccces ovanuhy Rion ceakhiely alsa fei teind s WLOG
CFENUS 1 CINNOCHOCTIUS ..4-25.-000 . SUMMER dessa -++ MMMMED ten ess xetede chcdetiene recipes KIN
Allorisma ensiformis ............. ee 2 ae =. 5, SSR RIPEN lea att ss Swal.
o e sinuata..... eeeeee ce eee ee eeeeeeeee seeseee seereee eee ee oe @eeee cere eeee*t ceases eeeeee core. Mtr
26 Paleontology of Peoria County.
Genitts Clinopistha iy.) 7..5satie.: ates. cth seens 040 spas ween (annD Ee M. & W.
Clinopistha radiata... -... ogi. ssbess GMs beciee soQibevdetnistit ne setae cain. «sam ... Hall
Family Arcide.
Genus Macrodon. ...025...5 gaits... +s. iegaueeescavubeenesistayes seth... aims Lycette.
Macrodon tennistriata. :,.i2pos. 2: Scum. cs. a cetmeb ony SeM UEC Le vevuele emis os Sian M
Gents Solenomyas ::) ces... vaeus .....cienabercserpae ss sysyea kre neemniss ss cual Lemarch.
solenomya anodontoides,. 1.2%... .:cdMMerss-«.. saskeeuseuetbbl son Sruake(aptmeetiie +> slam Meek.
rs PALATE, Ficaiiin cu Sede ce'e CUM cla aoe conaeebivce te culcai ie Etta amma cam M. & W.
Family Aviculide.
Genus ENtOl amiss. oc... scvcelliee oo vaes ncaeleeibnd cde suas epee nual s bar CeNmEEnD pram Meek.
FEGntolim AV ICU Arie ek ccc alee ces vee GaeeMyss'c cc oc GUSMEt Gs ss gaat alee maietys pear aieeeaann Tan Swal.
Family Cardiamorphidie.
Genus Cardiamorphia...-..cime..).....2 vese@huwe coseetaceneveey sass aa ogeasiie cee DeK.
Cardiamorphiag) MissoUrICNSIS.;.:vomMe...... .cosblepebeessssncesus teperateen ens te + estapenss Sherm.
Family Cyprinide.
Genus Astarte 4.05550 62) .c2RBS a ee aRe ev dec ces, betwee pene ee ene cnaanens Sowb.
Astarte mortonensis iisciesccc. cede s «> s+ «04d SGAMyhoe 00 SitSESORISRINEERIGS o's 0 oul MERE TSSe REE uae ae
Family Cytherodontide.
CONUS SEDIZOM UB. ......5 cota nseenies «+s «cadens SV aEmnIN, 600. sahie waren nmin fed sd King.
Schizodtis Guxrtg s.ccscbie ies ee ce Ges s oo sees a aL sh TERE cece sea Le eer M. & W..
¥ POSSICTIS 2y cece solves «00 cae UUMes > 00 0cbrilebieg ss es Redics dom Di Ak Ge cksdaesveun. DED. Bees. ccocbavee ddd, stands. Been 58.2
Paris: >zc8s. ce B8.0i68..: sacs Panes HOS Sie csesten os 64.6 Shey... cae 52.5
Difference ... 8.9 0.7 10.9 + 0.7
Rome, in Italy, about one degree farther north than Peoria has a mean tem-
perature of 60.8, in summer 74.3 in winter 50. That makes the mean temper-
ature of Rome about 9 degrees and in winter 22.6 degrees warmer than at
Peoria, and the summer is nearly one degree cooler. These examples may be
sufficient to show the difference of the climate of western Europe and that of
the central part of North America.
WINTER.
The three winter months together had the lowest mean 20.7 in the winters
from 1872 to 1878, and 1874 to 1875. Above freezing point was the mean of
the winters 1862-68, 1875-76, 1877-78, and 1879-80; in all the rest it was be-
low freezing point. The coldest January was that of 1857 (13.5), the coldest
February 1875 (15.5), the coldest December 1876 (18.5). The warmest Jan-
uary was in 1880 (40.9), the warmest February 1878 (37.5), the warmest De-
cember 1877 (44.3). The coldest decade in Jamuary was 1864, 1st-10th (0.2)
in February 1875, 11th-20th (8) and in December 1872, 21st-31st, (8.8). The
warmest decade in January was in 1864, 21st—31st, (41.8), in February 1871,
2ist-28th, (41.2), in December 1862, 21st-31st, (41.7).
When we call the three months December, January and February the three
wintermonths, it is obvious that this is mere theory, Practically winter is
not restricted to those three months; there are no general limits which are
good for every year. When we take freezing as a distinctive quality of win-
ter we find its limits very variable in different years. The mercury is falling
below freezing point in a period commencing on the 1st of October and end-
ing on the 11th of May, so that the first frost days in the thirty years occurred
between the Ist of October and the 12th of November, the last between the
25th of March and 11th of May. The longest of those periods was that in the
winter from 1856 to 1857; the first frost was noticed on the Ist of October and
the last on the 11th of May, a period of 223 days; the shortest was that from
the 3d of November 1877, to the 25th of March 1878, a period of 148 days.
The former contained 142, the latter only 51 frost days. Computing the aver-
ages we find the first frost day to be the 17th of October,. for the last frost day
the 17th of April, a period of 138 days with 112 frost days and 48 days with
a mean temperature not rising above freezing point.
SPRING.
The mean temperature of the three spring months together is 50.2. The
lowest mean was observed in 1857, —43, the highest in 1878 =56.6. The
coolest March was in 1867 —29.5; the coolest April in 1857 =89.9; the cool-
est May 1867 —55; the warmest March 1878 —50.5; the warmest April 1878
' =57.9; the warmest May 1881 =71.4. The mean temperature of the decades
are in March, Ist =385; 2d —37; 3d —41.8, The lowest was the first in 1857
22.3; the highest the first in 1878 =52.5; in April the lst 47.8; 2d 51.7;
3d 55.5. The lowest the Ist in.1881 =32.7; the highest the 3d in 1879 =66.2;
in May the first =59.9, the 2d —63.3, the 3d 67.9; the lowest the 1st in
1867 =51.1; the highest the 8d in 1881 =—77. The highest mean temperature
of a single day of March was in 1875 on the 30th =65.6; of April in 1872 on the
29th =77; of May in 1860 on the 24th =85.1; the lowest of March in 1867 on
the 13th =4.7; of April in 1857 on the 6th =13.7; of May in 1875 on the Ist
The Climate of Peoria. 37
=39.5. The highest stand of the thermometer was observed in March 1860 on
the 30th =79; in April 1856 on the 26th =88.5; in May 1860 on the 24th =98.5;
the lowest in March 1867 on the 14th —6; in April 1857 on the 15th =18; in
May 1867 on the 8th =30.
There are in average 18 frost days in March, 5 in April, and in May 5 were
were observed in 30 years. The most frost days had the March in 1859 =29,
and April in 1857 =18, There was no frost day observed in April 1878; only
13 per cent. of the frost days of April occurred after the 17th, at which date
for the last time a mean temperature below freezing point was observed.
SUMMER.
The mean temperature of the three summer months is 75.5. The coolest
summer was in 1866 and 1869 =73; the warmest in 1874 =79. The coolest
June in 1869 =69; the coolest July 1865 —71; the coolest August 1866 =70;
the warmest June in 1873 =79; the warmest July 1868 =82.7; the warmest
August 1881 =80.5. The mean temperature of the decades was, of June, 1st
decade =70, 2d =73, 3d =77; of July lst =77.9, 2d =78.3, 8d =77.2; of August
Ist =77, 2d =756, 3d =73.3. The coolest decade of June was the ist of 1863
=63, of July the 2d in 1865 =65.3, of August the 3d in 1863 =—65.3; the warm-
est in June the 3d in 1858 =85, in July the 2d in 1878 =89.8, in August the
1st in 1861 =86.7.
Of the single observations was the highest for June on the 24th, in 1856
=100; for July on the 15th, 1859, on the 4th, 1874, and on the 30th, 1885=104;
for August on the 31st in 1873 =105; the lowest for June on the 4th, 1859,
=35; for July on the 2d in 1861 and the 16th in 1863 =50; for August on the
~ 29th in 1863 =41.
FALL.
The mean temperature of the three fall months is 53.3. The coolest fall was
in 1880 =48.9; the warmest in 1884 =658.1; the coolest September was in 1866
=60.5; the warmest in 1865 =73.1; the coolest October in 1869 =48.2; the
warmest in 1879 =62.7; the coolest November in 1880 =30,3; the warmest in
1867 =44.4. The mean temperature of the decades are the following for Sep-
tember: lst =70.8, 2d =66°4, 3d =63; for October 1st =59.7, 2d =53.5, 3d
=48.5; for November Ist =45.5, 2d =38.8, 3d =33.9. The coolest decade in
September was the 3d in 1856 =—52.7; the warmest the lst in 1884 =81.3;
the coolest in October the 3d in 1869 =36.3; the warmest the lst in 1879=76.3;
the coolest in November the 3d in 1880 =20.3; the warmest the lst in 1874
=64.5. The highest stand of the thermometer was observed on the 3d of Sep-
tember 1864, and 5th of September 1881 —98, on the 3d of October 1856, 12th
of October 1879 and 8th of October 1884 =—90; on the 7th of November 1874
=77; the lowest on the 29th of September 1871 =384; on the 24th of October
1869 =14; and 23d of November 1857,=—1.5.
By comparison of the temperature of different places in Illinois during the
meteorological year December 1869 to November 1870 we find in the mean
temperatures of Peoria, Springfield, which is nearly a degree farther south,
and Ottawa which is more than half a degree farther north, scarcely any differ-
ence, but Galesburg, farther west and on a higher elevation, had that same year
a mean of one degree lower and a January very much colder. Of the same
year the temperatures of Steubenville, O., Fort Madison on the Mississippi
and Nebraska City on the Missouri, all nearly in the same latitude with
Peoria, compared show the following figures:
Mean of the year. In winter. In summer.
Steubenville .............. DAD... coum. 00+ cake Oh easy 03 hth ss sos ae 75.2
GONE Tih edoe ss >> >>> bb bb
Coptotomus interrogatus Fabr.
Copelatus glyphicus Say.
Matus bicarinatus Say.
Agabus obtusatus Say.
A. stagninus Say.
A. seriatus Say.
A. reticulatus Kirb.
Rhantus calidus Fabr.
Colymbetes sculptilis Harr.
Hydaticus bimarginatus Say
. Dytiscus fasciventris Say.
D. Harrisii Kirb.
D. hybridus Aube.
Acilius fraternus Harr.
A. mediatus Say.
Thermonectes basilaris Esh.
Cybister fimbriolatus Say.
Gyrinus analis Say.
Dineutes vittatus Germ.
D. assimilis Aubé.
HYDROPHILID.
Helephorus lineatus Say.
Hydrochus excavatus Lec.
Hydrophilus glaber Herbst.
H, triangularis Say.
Hydrocharis obtusatus Say.
Berosus striatus Say.
B. infuscatus Lec.
B. exiguus Say.
Hydrobius etal Say.
H. subcupreus Say.
Philhydrus perplexus Lee.
Ph. nebulosus Say.
Hydrocombus fimbriatus Mels.
H. maculicollis Mels.
H. rotundatus Say.
Cercyon apicale Say.
C. anale Payk.
SILPHID®.
Leptinus testaceus Mill.
Necrophorus americanus Oliv.
N. marginatus Fabr.
N. orbicollis Say.
N. pustulatus Hersch.
N. vespilloides Herbst.
Silpha ramosa Say.
S. surinamensis Fabr.
S. inaequalis Lec.
S. lapponica Herbst.
S. noveboracensis Forst.
Lyrosoma opaca Mann.
Ptomophagus parasiticus Lec.
Agathidium ruficorne Lec.
Scydmaenus clavipes Say.
S. capillosulus Lec.
S. magister Lec.
‘PSELAPHID&.
Adranes coecus Lec.
A. Lecontei Brend.
Ceophilus monilis Lee.
Cedius spinosus Lec.
T'mesiphorus costalis Lec.
T. carinatus Lec.
Ctenistes piceus Lec.
Tyrus humeralis Aubé.
Pselaphus Erichsonii Lec.
Tychus longipalpus Lec.
T. minor Lec.
Bryaxis conjuncta Lec.
B. Brendelii Horn.
. Illinoiensis Brend.
B. abdominalis Aubé.
B. dentata Say.
B. rubicunda Aubé.
B. congener Brend.
Decarthron abnorme Lec.
ee)
Catalogue of Coleoptera.
D. longulum Lec.
Batrisus ferox Lec.
B. monstrosus Lec.
B. frontalis Lec.
B. riparius Lec.
B. globosus Lee.
B. nigricans Lec.
Rhexius insculptus Lec.
Trimium americanum Lec.
Euplectus crinitus Brend.
E. arcuatus Lec.
STAPHYLINID®.
Lomechusa cava Lec.
Aleochara fuscipes Grav.
A. bimaculata Grav.
A. cadaverina Er.
Conosoma crassum Grav.
Quedius fulgidus Fabr.
Creophilus villosus Grav.
Listotrophus cingulatus Grav.
Staphylinus maculosus Er.
St. tomentosus Gray.
St. violaceus Gray.
Si. badipes Lec.
St. vulpinus Nordm.
Ocypus ater Grav.
Philonthus cyanipennis Fabr.
Ph. thoracicus Grav.
Ph. confertus Lec.
Ph. baltimorensis Grav.
Ph. paederoides Lec.
Ph. apicalis Say.
Stenus colon Er.
St. juno Say.
St. colonus Er.
St. egenus Er.
St. femoralis Er.
St. annularis Er.
St. punctatus Er.
Euaesthetus americanus Er.
Edaphus nitidus Lec.
Cryptobium bicolor Gray.
C. cribratum Lec.
C. pallipes Grav.
Lathrobium angulare Lec.
L. simile Lec.
Stilicus dentatus Say.
St. angularis Lec.
Lithocharis confluens Say.
Paederus littorarius Grav.
Sunius binotatus Say.
S. longiusculus Say.
S. prolixus Er.
Pinophilus latipes Er.
P. parcus Lec.
Tachinus fimbriatus Er.
T. memnonius Gray.
T. limbatus Mels.
Tachyporus jocosus Say.
T. acautus Say.
Oxyporus vittatus Gray.
O. stygicus Say.
O. femoralis Gray.
Bledius troglodytes Er.
B. fumatus Lec.
B. annularis Lec.
B. semiferruginosus Lec.
Platysthetus americanus Er.
Oxytelus rugosus Gray.
O. sculptus Grav.
O. insignitus Gray.
QO. nanus Er.
O. nitidulus Gravy.
Geodromicus caesus Er.
Olophrum obtectum Er.
Siagonium americanum Mels.
Coproporus ventriculus Say.
SCAPHIDIID®.
Scaphidium piceum Mels.
S. quadriguttatum Say. .
Scaphisoma convexum Motsch.
COCCINELLID®.
Hippodamia tridecim-punctata
H. parenthesis Say. [L.
H. glacialis Fabr.
Megilla maculata Degeer.
Coccinella novem-notata Hbst.
C. munda Say.
C. binotata Say. [ Oliv.
Anatis quindecim punctata
Psyllobora viginti-maculata 8.
Chilocorus bivulnerus Mels.
Exochomus tripustulatus Deg.
Brachyacantha ursina Fabr.
B. decem-pustulata Mels.
ENDOMYCHID&.
Endomychus biguttatus Say.
Mycetina perpulchra Newm.
Aphorista vittata Fabr.
Phymaphora pulchella Newm.
Lycoperdina ferruginea Lec.
Rhanis unicolor Ziegl.
Languria bicolor Fabr.
L. Mozardi Latr.
L. trifasciata Say.
Dacne quadrimaculata Say. ~
Megalodacne fasciata Fabr.
M. heros Say.
Ischyrus quadripunctatus Oliv.
Tritoma thoracica Say.
T. festiva Lec.
T. biguttata Say.
T. angulata Say.
T. unicolor Say.
Catalogue of Coleoptera. 57
T. humeralis Fabr.
Mycotretus pulchra Say.
M. dimidiata Lec.
MYCETOPHEGID.
Mycetophagus punctatus Say.
M. flexuosus Say.
M. pini Ziegl.
Litargus didesmus Say.
COLLIDIIDA.
Synchita granulata Say.
S. nigripennis Lec.
Ditoma quadri-guttata Say.
Aulonium paralellopipedum §.-
Pyenomerus sulcicollis Lec.
Bothrideres geminatus Say.
Rhyssodes exaratus Ill. ©
Sylvanus planatus Germ.
S. surinamensis L.
S. imbellis Lec.
S. advena Walt.
Nauribius dentatus March.
Catogenus rufus Fabr.
Cucujus puniceus Mann.
C. clavipes Fabr.
Lacmophloeus adnotus Lec.
L. biguttatus Say.
Brontes dubius Fabr.
Telephanus velox Hald.
Antherophagus ochraceus Mels.
Cryptophagus cellaris Scop.
Atomaria mesomelas Herbst.
A. ochracea Zimm.
DERMESTID&.
Byturus unicolor Say.
Dermestes lardarius L.
D. marmoratus Say.
D. caninus Germ.‘
Attagenus pellio L.
Anthrenus castaneus Mels.
A. varius Fabr. [ Lee.
Cryptorhopalum haemoroidale
~ Orphilus ater Er.
HISTERID &.
Hister americanus Payk.
. sedecim-striatus Say.
. abbreviatus Fabr.
. subrotundus Say.
. merdarius Hoffm.
. interruptus Beauv.
. bimaculatus L.
. lardarius Payk.
. carclinus Payk.
. Memnonius Say.
Dendrophilus punctatus Say.
Tribalus americanus Lec.
ao fan) enfcejanjanjasias ce
Haetereus brunnipennis Rand,
‘Paromalus aequalis Say.
P. bistriatus Ev.
Hololepta aequalis Say.
Saprinus assimilis Payk.
S. pennsylvanicus Payk.
S. fraternus Lec.
S. impressus Lec.
NITIDULID A.
Brachypterus urticae Fabr.
Nitidula zigzag Say.
N. bipunctulata Say.
Carpophilus dimidiatus Fabr.
Epuraea rufa Say.
E. aestiva L.
Stelidota octo-maculata Say.
St. geminata Say.
Omosita colon L.
Soronia undulata Say.
Phenolia grossa Fabr.
Meligethes rufimanus Lec.
Amphicrossus ciliatus Oliy.
Palodes silaceus Er.
Cryptarcha ampla Er.
Ips fasciatus Oliv.
I. sanguinolentus Oliy.
LATRIDIIDA.
Latridius lineatus Lec.
L. sculptilis Lec.
L. pulicarius Lec.
Corticaria grossa L.
C. rugulosa Lec.
C. Kirbyi Lec.
C. americana Mann.
C. pumila Mels.
Trogosita mauritanica L.
T. castanea Mels.
T. dubia Mels.
T. laticollis L.
Peltis ferruginea L.
Monotoma picipes Herbst.
Nosodendron unicolor Say.
Cytilus sericeus Forst.
Byrrhus americanus L.
Limnichus punctatus Lec.
PARNIDZ.
Psephenus Lecontei Dej.
Helichus fastigiatus Say.
H. lithophilus Germ.
H. striatus Lec.
Elmis nitidulus Lec.
E. quadrinotatus Say.
E. pusillus Lec.
E. fastiditus Lec.
Stenelmis crenatus Say.
Macronychus glabratus Say.
Ancyronyx variegatus Germ.
Heterocerus cuniculus Kirb.
H. ventralis Mels.
Catalogue of Coleoptera.
H. mollinus Kirb.
H. collaris Kies.
DASCYLLID.
Cyphon ruficollis Say.
Prionocyphon discoideus Say.
Zenoa picea Beauy.
Sandalus niger Kn.
ELATERID&.
Tharops obliquus Say.
Dromeolus cylindricollis Say.
Microrrhagus humeralis Say. -
Adelocera marmorata Fabr.
Lacon rectangularis Say.
Alaus oculatus L.
Horistonotus curiatus Say.
Cryptohypnus pectoralis Say.
C. obliquatulus Mels.
Elater nigricollis Say.
E. linteus Say.
E. sanguinipennis Say.
E. obliquus Say.
E. discoideus Fabr.
E. areolatus Say.
Drasterius dorsalis Say.
Monocrepidius bellus Say.
M. vespertinus Fabr.
M. lividus Degeer.
Megapenthes rufilabris Germ.
Ludius abruptus Say.
L. alternatus Say.
Agriotes pubescens Mels.
Glyphonyx testaceus Mels.
Melanotus fissilis Say.
M. communis Fabr.
M. cinereus Say.
M. americanus Herbst.
Limonius griseus Beauv.
L. auripilis Say.
L. basilaris Say.
L. hirticollis Say.
Pityobius anguinus Lee.
Athous cucullatus Say.
Sericoromus silaceus Say.
-$. humeralis Motsch.
Corymbites pyrrhus Herbst.
C. hieroglyphicus Say.
C. sulcicollis Say.
C. inflatus Say.
Asaphes memnonius Herbst.
A. decoloratus Say.
Melanactes piceus DeGeer.
Cebrio bicolor Fabr.
Drapetes geminatus Say.
BUPRESTIDEZ.
Chalcophora campestris Say.
Ch. virginica Drury.
Melanophila longipes Say.
Anthaxia cyanella Lap.
A. subaensa Lec.
A. viridifrons Say.
Xenorhipis Brendelii Lee.
Chrysobothris femorata Fabr.
Acmaeodera pulchella Herbst.
A. tubulus Fabr.
Ptosima gibbicollis Say.
Agrilus ruficollis Say.
. politus Say.
. subfasciatus Lec.
. plumbeus Lee.
. arcuatus Say.
defectus Lec.
. bilineatus Say.
fallax Say.
. interruptus Lec.
. puncticeps Lec.
. otiosus Say.
. pusillus Say.
. latebrans Lap.
Brachys ovata Web.
Pachyscelus laevigatus Say.
LAMPYRIDA.
Calopteron typicum Lec.
C. terminale Say.
Caenia dimidiata Fabr.
Eros oblitus Newm.
E. mundus Say.
EK. trilineatus Mels.
Plateros mollis Lec.
P. canaliculatus Say.
P. sollicitus Lec.
Calochromus perfacetus Say.
Ellychnia corrusca L.
Pyropyga nigricans Say.
Photinus pyralis L.
Ph. consanguineus Lec.
Ph. marginatus Lec.
Ph. scintillans Say.
Photuris pennsylvanica DeGeer.
Pyractomena angulata-Say.
Phengodes plumosa Oliv.
Chauliognathus pensylvanicus
Ch. marginatus Fabr. [DeG.
Podabrus modestus Say.
P. tomentosus Say.
PEPE EEE bbb b>
P. flavicollis Lec.
P. tricostatus Say.
P. rugulosus Lee.
Ditemnus bidentatus Say.
Trypherus latipenis Germ.
Collops tricolor Say.
C. quadrimaculatus Fabr.
Attalus otiosus Say.
A. scincetus Say.
A. terminalis Er.
Catalogue of Coleoptera. 59
Pseudebzeus apicalis Say..
P. oblitus Lec.
CLERID.
Cymatodera bicolor Say.
C. undulata Say.
C. inornata Say.
Trichodes Nuttalli Say.
Clerus nigripes Say.
C. rosmarus Say.
C, thoracicus Oliv.
Thanasimus dubius Fabr.
T. undulatus Say.
Thaneroclerus sanguineus Say.
Hydnocera verticalis Say.
H. longicollis Ziegl.
Phylloboenus dislocatus Say.
Chariessa onusta Say.
Enoplium quadrinotatum Hald.
Orthopleura demicornis Fabr.
Necrobia rufipes Fabr.
N. violacea L.
N. ruficollis Fabr.
PTINIDA.
Gibbium scotias Scop.
Ptinus fur L.
Ernobius mollis L.
Trichodesma gibbosa Say.
Anobium notatum Say.
Trypopitys sericeus Say.
Petalium bistriatum Say.
Protheca puberula Lec.
Coenocera oculata Say.
Endecatomus rugosus Rand.
Synoxylon basilare Say.
Bostrichus bicornis Say.
Amphicerus bicaudatus Say.
Dinoderus punctatus Say.
Lyctus striatus Mels.
Cupes capitata Fabr.
Lymexylon sericeum Fabr.
LAMELLICORNI®.
Lucanus elephas Fabr.
L. dama Thunb.
L. placidus Say.
Dorcus parallelus Say.
Platycerus quercus Web.
Ceruchus piceus Web.
Passalus cornutus Fabr.
Canthon laevis Drury.
C. vigilans Lec.
C. chalcites Hald.
C. nigricornis Say.
Choeridium histeroides Web,
Copris minutus Drury.
C. anaglypticus Say.
C. carolina L.
Phanaeus carnifex L.
Orthophagus Hecate Panz.
O. orpheus Panz.
O. janus Panz.
Aphodius fimetarius Fabr.
A. bicolor Say.
A. terminalis Say.
A. femoralis Say.
A. serval Say.
A. granarius L.
A. stercorosus Mels.
Oxynomus porcatus Fabr.
Euparia castanea Serv.
Ataenius abditus Hald.
A. gracilis Mels.
A..imbricatus Mels.
Dialytes strictum Say.
Bolbocerus farctus Fabr.
B. tumefactus Beauv.
B. lazarus Fabr.
Odontaeus filicornis Say.
Geotrupes splendidus Fabr.
G. opacus Hald.
G. Blackburnii Fabr.
G. Eyerici Germ.
Clocotus aphodioides Ill.
C. globosus Say.
Trox asper Lec.
T. terrestris Say.
T. erinaceus Say.
T. tuberculatus DeGeer.
Hoplia modesta Hald.
Dichelonycha fuscula Lec.
D. subvittata Lec.
Serica sericea Ill.
S. vespertina Gyll. Fabr.
Macrodactylus subspinosus
Diplotaxis fronticola Say.
D. Harperi Bland.
Lachnosterna futilis Lec.
L. fraterna Harr.
LL. ilicis Knoch.
L. hirticola Knoch.
L. hirsuta Knoch.
L. querecus Knoch. -
L. crenulata Frol.
L. prunina Lec.
Anomala binotata Gyll.
A. luciola Fabr.
A. minuta Burm.
Strigoderma arboricola Fabr.
Pelidnota punctata L.
Cotalpa lanigera L.
Cyclocephala immaculata Oliv.
Chalepus trachypygus Burm.
Ligyrus relictus Say.
Aphonus tridentatus Say.
Xyloryctes satyrus Fabr.
Catalogue of Coleoptera.
Phileurus tomentosus Beauv.
Allorhina nitida L.
Euphoria fulgida Fabr.
E. inda L.
KE. sepulcralis Fabr. [ Kirb.
Cremastochilus canaliculatus
Osmoderma scabra Beauy.
O. eremicola Knoch.
Gnorimus maculosus Burm.
Trichius piger Fabr.
T. viridulus Fabr.
T. aflinis Gory.
T. delta Forst.
Valgus squamiger Beauv.
V. canaliculatus Fabr.
CERAMBYCIDZ.
Parandra brunnea Fabr.
Orthosoma brunneum Forst.
Prisonus laticollis Drury.
P. imbricornis L.
Asemum moestum Hald.
Criocephalus agrestis Kirb.
Smodicum cucujiforme Say.
Physconenum brevilineum Say.
Hylotrupes cajulus L.
Phymatodes variabilis Fabr.
Ph. varius Fabr.
Ph. amoenus Say.
Merium proteus Kirb.
Callidium antennatum Newm.
Dryobius sex-fasciatus Say.
Chion garganicum Fabr.
Eburia quadri-geminata Say.
Romaleum atomarium Drury.
R. rufulum Hald.
Elaphidium villosum Fabr.
E. mucronatum Say.
E. parallelum Newm.
E. unicolor Rand.
Molorchus bimaculatus Say.
Callimoxis sanguinicollis Oliy.
Tragidion coquus L.
T. fulvipenne Say.
Purpuricenus humeralis Fabr.
P. axillaris.
Batyle suturalis Say.
Arrhopalus fulminans Fabr.
Stenosphenus notatus Oliv.
Calloides nobilis Say.
Cyllene pictum Newm.
C. decorum Newm,
Plagionotus speciosus Say.
Xylotrechus colonus Fabr,
X. undulatus Say, [Fabr.
Neoclytus erythrocephalus
N. luscus Fabr.
N. colonus Fabr.
N. capreae Say,
eal al cal al nl al al al oy
Clyanthus ruricola Oliv.
Cyrtophorus verrucosus Oliy.
Euderces picipes Fabr.
E. pini Oliy.
Microclytus gibbulus Lee.
Atimia confusa Say.
Distenia undata Oliv.
Necydalis mellitus Say.
Encyclops coeruleus Say.
Toxotus vitiger Rand.
T. cinnamopterus Rand.
T. cylindricollis Say.
Gaurotes cyanipennis Say.
Rhagium lineatum Oliv.
Acmaeops proteus Kirb.
Bellamira scalaris Say.
Strangalia famelica Newm.
St. luteicornis Fabr.
St. acuminata Oliv.
St. bicolor Swed. .
Typocerus lunatus Fabr.
T. lugubris Say.
T. zebratus Fabr.
T. sinuatus Newm.
Leptura rubrica Say.
. lineola Say.
pubera Say.
proxima Say.
ruficeps Lec.
. saucia Lec.
. cruenta Hald.
. vittata Germ.
. capitata Newm.
. Sphaericollis Say.
Psenocerus supernotatus Say.
Monahamus confusor Kirb.
M. titillator Fabr.
Goes oculata Lec.
G. pulverulenta Hald.
Dorcaschema nigrum Say.
D. alternatum Say.
Hatoemis cinerea Oliv.
Plectrodera scalator Fabr.
Acanthoderes decipiens Hald.
Leptostylus aculiferus Lec.
L. commixtus Hald.
L. macula Say.
Liopus alpha Say.
L. cinerea Lec.
Lepturges signatus Lec.
L. angulatus Lec.
L. farctus Say.
Hyperplatys aspersus Say.
H. maculatus Hald.
Graphisurus pusillus Kirb.
Urographis fasciatus DeGeer.
U. triangulifer Hald.
Acanthocinus obsoletus Oliv.
" Eupogonius vestitus Say.
Ecyrus dasycerus Say.
Catalogue of Coleoptera. 61
Pogonocherus mixtus Hald.
Saperda calcarata Say.
. vestita Say.
. candida Fabr.
. cretata Newm.
. lateralis Fabr
. tridendata Oliv.
. discoidea Fabr.
. moesta Lec.
Oberea mandarina Fabr.
O. Schaumii Lec.
Tetraopes femoratus Lec.
T. tetrophthalmus Forst.
T. quinque-maculatus-Hald.
CHRYSOMELID®.
Donacia rufa Say.
D. palmata Oliv.
Zeugophora abnormis Lec.
Lema collaris Say.
L. ephhippiata Lec.
L. trilineata Oliv.
Crioceris asparagi L.
RARNNNRMN
Coscinoptera dominicana Fabr.
Babia quadriguttata Oliv.
Saxinis omogera Lec.
Exema dispar Lec.
Bassareus congestus Fabr.
B. lituratus Fabr.
B. luteipennis Mels.
Crytocephalus dispersus Hald.
C. quadri-maculatus Say.
Pachybrachys luridus Fabr.
P. trinotatus Mels.
P. M-nigrum Mels.
P. femoratum Oliv.
P. abdominalis Say.
P. othonus Say.
Monachus saporatus Fabr.
Xanthonia decem-notata Say.
Adoxus vitis L.
Glyptoscelis crypticus Say.
G. pubescens Fabr.
G. barbatus Say.
Chrysochus auratus Fabr.
Paria six-notata Say.
P. quadri-notata Say.
P. aterrima Oliv.
Metachroma interrupta.
Graphops pubescens Mels.
Colaspis favosa Say.
C. puncticollis Say.
C. strigosa Dej.
Entomoscelis adonidis Fabr.
Prasocuris phellandrii L.
Doryphora decem lineata Say.
D. juncta Germ.
D. clivicollis Kirb.
Chrysomela exclamationis Fabr.
Ch. philadelphica L.
Ch. Bigsbyana Kirb.
Ce. scalaris Lec.
Ch. similis Rog.
Ch. subopaca Rog.
Gastroidea polygoni Fabr.
G. dissimilis Say.
Lina scripta Fabr.
L. obsoleta Say.
Cerotoma caminea Fabr.
Phyllobrotica discoidea Fabr,
Phyllechthrus atriventris Say.
Monocesta coryli Say.
Diabrotica vittata Fabr.
D. duodecim-punctata Oliv.
D. longicornis Say.
D. fossata Lec.
Galeruca notata Say.
G. decora Say.
Trirhabda attenuata Say.
Adimoria rufo-sanguinea Say.
Blepharida rhois Forst.
Oedionychis vians II].
O. gibbitarsa Say.
O. six-maculata Il.
O. quercata Fabr.
O. miniata Fabr.
Disonycha alternata Il.
D. collata Fabr.
D. tyjangularis Say.
D. bimarginata Say.
Haltica deities Ill.
H. exapta Say.
H. bimarginata Say.
H. foliacea Lec.
Crepidodera rufipes L.
C. helxines L.
C. eucumeris Harr.
Caeporis nana Er.
Systena frontalis Fabr.
S. blanda Mels.
Aphthora picta Say.
Phyllotreta vittata Fabr.
Chaetocnema denticulata J]l.
Microropala vittata Fabr.
M. cyanea Say.
Odontata scapularis Oliv.
Octotoma plicatula Fabr.
Stenispa metallica Fabr.
Porphyraspis cyanea Say.
Cassida bivittata Say.
Coptocycla aurichalcea Fabr.
C. clavata Fabr.
TENEBRIONID ©.
Nyctobates pennsylvanica DeG.
Upis caramboides L.
Merinus laevis Oliv.
Haplandrus femoratus Fabr.
Scotobates calearatus Fabr
Tenebrio obscurus Fabr.
T. molitor L.
T. castaneus L.
Catalogue of Coleoptera.
Opatrinus notus Say.
Blapstinus moestus Mels.
B. interruptus Say.
Crypticus obsoletus Say.
Uloma impressa Mels.
Anoedus brunneus Zieg].
Phaleria picipes Say.
Diaperes hydni Fabr.
Hoplocephala bicornis Oliv.
Platydema ruficorne Sturm.
P. ellipticum Fabr.
P. excavatum Say.
Hyplophloeus parallelus Mels.
H. thoracicus Mels.
Boletophagus corticola Say.
Helops micans Fabr.
H. venustus Say.
Meracantha contracta Beauv.
Stenochidius gracilis Lec.
Allecula nigrans Mels.
A. punctulata Mels.
Hymenorus obscurus Say.
H. pilosus Mels.
Cystela sericea Say.
C. brevis Say.
Androchirus fuscipes Lec.
Statyra gagatina Mels.
Arthromacra aenea Say.
MELANDRYID&.
Penthe pimelia Fabr.
P. obliquata Fabr.
Synchroa punctata Newm.
Eustrophus bicolor Fabr.
Melandria striata Say.
Emmesa labiata Say.
Serropalpus striatus Hell.
Dircaca quadri-maculata Say.
Hallomenus scapularis Mels.
Orchesia castanea Mels.
Scraptia pusilla Hald.
Mycterus scaber Hald.
Boros unicolor Say.
Oxacis thoracica Fabr.
Asclera puncticollis Say.
Cephaloon lepturoides Newm.
MORDELLID ,
Anaspris rufa Say.
A. lineella Lec.
A. bidentata Say.
Mordella melacna Say.
. oculata Say.
. octo-punctata Fabr.
. marginata Mels.
. lineata Mels.
. triloba Say.
. undulata Mels.
Mordelistena ustulata Lec.
M. lutea Mels.
M. pubescens Fabr.
M. scapularis Say.
SSSS55
M. marginalis Say.
Pyrochoa flabellata Fabr.
P. femoralis L.
Schizotus cervicalis Newm.
ANTHICID®.
Eurigenius Wildii Lec.
Stereopalpus badiipennis Lec.
Corphyra labiata Say.
C. terminalis Say.
Xylophilus basalis Lec.
X. fasciatus Mels.
Macratria murina Fabr.
Notoxus bicolor Say.
N. monodon Fabr.
N. anchora Hentz,
N. bifasciatus Lec.
Tomoderus interruptus Laf.
Anthicus cinctus Say.
. elegans Laf.
. ephippium Laf.
. cervinus Laf.
. pubescens Lec.
. floralis L,
. vicinus Laf.
. confusus Lec.
. spretus Lec. ;
Dendroides canadensis Latr.
MELOID &.
Meloe angusticollis Say.
Henous confertus Say.
Tricrania sanguinipennis Say,
Nemognatha vittigera Lec.
N. cribraria Lec.
N. nemorensis Hentz.
Epicauta vittata Fabr.
E. ferruginea Say.
E. cinerea Forst.
E. pennsylvanica DeGeer.
Pyrota melabrina Chey,
Pomphopoca aenea Say.
Rhipiphorus dimidiatus Fabr.
R. limbatus Fabr.
Myodites fasciatus Say.
CURCULIONID&.
Rhinomacer elongatus Lec.
Rhinchites bicolor Fabr.
R. aeneus Boh.
Attelabus analis Il.
A. bipustulatus Fabr. :
Eugnamptus angustatus Herbst.
Eu. collaris Fabr.
Brachyderus incanus L.
Panscopus erinaceus Say.
Otiorhynchus sulcatus Fabr.
Pandeletejus hilaris Herbst.
Sitones tibialis Germ.
Phytonomus comptus Say.
Lepyrus geminatus Say.
Ithycerus noveboracensis
Apion segnipes Say.
p> > p> > p> p> > pe
Catalogue of Coleoptera. 63
A. Sayi Schonh.
A. nustrum Say.
Listronotus caudatus Say.
Hylobius pales Boh.
Pissodes Strobi Peck.
Grypidius equiseti Gyll.
Acalytus carpini L.
Smicronyx vestitus Lec.
Magdalis pandora Say.
M. armicollis Say.
M. pallida Say.
Anthonomus quadri-gibbus Say,
Orchestes pallicornis Say.
Elleschus ephippiatus Say.
Conotrachelus nenuphar Harr.
C. crataegi Walsh.
C. porticatus Boh.
Rhyssematus lineaticollis Say.
Tyloderma foveolatum Say.
Cryptorhynchus bisignatus Say.
Gymnetron teter Schoenh.
Lixus concavus Say.
Mononynchus vulpeculus Boh.
Copturus operculatus Say.
Coeliodes acephalus Germ.
Centorhynchus sulcipennis Lec.
C. triangularis Say.
Trichobaris trinotata Say.
Madurus undulatus Boh.
Centrinus scutellum-album Say.
Balaninus nasicus Lec.
EKupsalis minuta Drury.
Brenthus anchorago L.
Sphenophorus sp.
Calandra oryzae L. [Ill.
Rhodobaenus tridecim-punctata
Dryophthorus corticalis Say.
Cossonus platalea Say.
C. concinnus Boh. [ Fitch.
(gnathotrichus materiarius
Tomicus pini Say.
Xyloborus xylographus Zimm.
Hylesinus aculeatus Fabr.
Cratoparis lunatus Fabr.
Brachytarsus tomentosus Say.
THE LAWS OF NATURE AS APPLIED TO THE AFFAIRS
OF LIFE,
READ BEFORE THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION OCTOBER 238, 1885, .
.BY C. S. CLARK, VICE-PRESIDENT.
In the effort to make life worth living on this earth, there has been such an
appalling waste of energy, and such puny results have followed, that the
thinking men of all ages have seemed to abandon their efforts with a feeling
of despair. Some have come to the conclusion that by reason of some defect
or sin of our remote ancestors a punishment has been allotted to all their suc-
cessors to the end of time. That we are entangled in the meshes of a web,”
from which there is no escape, unravel as we will. That there is no hope,
except in spending our lives in trying to get into a better world when we are
compelled to leave this. Others have thought that there was something
wrong in the substance of matter itself, for which there was no remedy. The
Mahommedan reduced it to few words, and said: ‘It is the will of Allah,”
and so resigned himself under adverse circumstances as best he could.
All have agreed, however, that evil predominates so largely over good, that
there must be another world where compensation will be made, at least to a
part of mankind. A very large majority still hold to one or the other of these
views, but within the last fifty years, there has been a growing feeling that
the world may have been mistaken, that it might turn out quite differently
if we could only gain knowledge sufficient to inquire into the facts of such
phenomena as presented themselves to our senses. Acting upon this hope,
schools have multiplied, science has been encouraged, facts have been gathered,
classified, and reduced to some order. It has been discovered during the in-
vestigation, that what appeared to be discord and confusion, was really the
closest order and regularity; so much so, that the wise ones began to say every —
thing was regulated by law, and they called this uniform succession ‘The
laws of Nature.”’ These laws, or some of them as applied to the affairs of life,
is the subject of my paper to-night. |
It has been said by eminent historians that during the religious wars of
Europe more than a million of men were killed over the disputed meaning of
one Greek word. Men no longer resort to arms to settle definitions, still many
disputes have occurred and great bitterness engendered by reason of a mutual
misunderstanding of the meaning of the terms used. The term “laws of
nature”’ is a very misleading one, and has probably crept into scientific litera-
ture from theological and legal modes of expression. Doubtless learned men
have a common understanding of its true meaning, but they do not always
make themselves clearly understood by the people. The plain, common sense
meaning, as I understand it, is that things in this world move and act in a
certain observed way and have always done so, under the same or similar cir-
cumstances, and therefore we feel justified in thinking they always will.
Water always seeks its level, or, to use a common phrase, runs down hill.
Apples fall to the ground by reason of the law of gravity, which is believed to
~
The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life. 65
be the fact with all falling bodies. If a farmer in this latitude should plant
his corn in January we would say he had departed from the law governing the
germination of seed. When an oak tree is cut down and begins to decay we
say that tree is dead, and will appear as a live-oak tree no more forever,
as that has been the observed fact or law of oak trees since the time when they
were first felled. A similar experience includes all the different trees of the
forest, and we say that is a fact or law of all trees which are severed from their
roots. All these and a thousand others which might be mentioned are facts
of common observation. No one disputes them or deems them worthy of a
moment’s discussion; and yet, so far as they go, they embody what we call
“laws of nature.” Upon such beliefs and similar facts of observation each
individual acts, and always has. No sort of intelligent life could go on with-
out a belief in the orderly sequence of all the common movements of nature.
The same recurrence of events under the same circumstances is all that is
meant by this term. Why it isso we do not know. All people in past ages,
and a majority in this, could give you a complete answer to the ‘why’ but as
science offers no opinion about things it cannot demonstrate, it simply says I
don’t know. But we do know that chemists, astronomers, mechanics and all
the workers in the exact sciences, base their work upon this principal of uni-
formity; without it the ship could never find its way over the trackless ocean.
Upon land no one would know in the evening that he would find the home he
‘left in the morning; without it everything would be chaos. The brain of
man would lose its equilibrium and the human race would disappear. So
much for adefinition. It is not obscure, needs no man of science to explain
it, or a learned man to assure you of its truth.
So far, I think, you will give your ready assent to what I have stated. Now
I desire to make you see and feel that this orderly sequence of the ways of
matter and man, is not only true in the common affairs of life, but is equally
true throughout the whole universe; not only in the starry heavens above, but
in the earth beneath our feet, and in all there is in it or of it, including the
grandest movements of nature, and the feeblest efforts of men.
It seems strange that this conclusion should not have been reached at an
earlier age, from the very logic of things always known since man began to
think or reason. Not until Sir Isaac Newton published his “ Principia,” just
two hundred years ago (which Laplace pronounced “ preéminent above all
other productions of the human intellect’), was there any general assent even
among the most learned, to any such universal principle governing even ma-
terial things. For the first time since the advent of man on earth, the move-
ments of the sun and planets were known to observe a uniform movement in
obedience to a law, called the force of gravity. The majesty of this discovery
is beyond the power of language to describe, yet it was simply a logi®al de-
duction from his observance of little things, verified by numerous experi-
ments, and many mathematical calculations.
James Watts’ observation of the effect of boiling water in his mother’s tea-
kettle, led to his applying the same principle or law to a propelling engine.
A little over a hundred years have passed, and to-day it would take an ency-
clopedia to enumerate its wonderful benefits to mankind. Many of the grand-
est discoveries have been made by unlearned and unlettered men, but whether
they knew it or not, the mental process was the same: applying the facts of
observation to some other thing, or other circumstances which is purely a sci-
entific mode of reasoning.
It is often said that many of the most valuable discoveries have been the
result of accident, but it is not true. The logical deduction from our premises
says there is no such thing as accidents, and that the word ‘‘luck”’ is the lan-
guage of ignorance. Does what are called accidents teach the fool anything?
No, though you bray him ina mortar he is still a fool, and only knows he has
66 The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life.
been pounded. An accident, if you please to call it, befell Charles Goodyear.
Some of you remember the first rubber shoes, one-half an inch thick, melting
in the sun and congealing in the cold to the hardness of cast iron. Goodyear
was an unlearned inventor; ‘‘every effort to make his mixture pliable in both
heat and cold had proved a failure; he had exhausted his resources, the pa-
tience of his friends, and reduced his family to the greatest poverty.
“At Woburn one day in the spring of 1839 (says his biographer), he was
standing with his brother and several others near a very hot stove; he held in
his hand a mass of his compound of sulphur and gum, upon which he was
expatiating in his usual vehement manner. In the crises of his argument he
brought the mass in contact with the stove, which was hot enough to melt
India rubber instantly. Upon looking at it a moment later he perceived that
his compound had not melted in the least degree. The result was absolutely
new to all experience.” The possible application of this seeming accident
flashed like lightning through this man’s brain; the color ieft his face; he
could not speak. After many trials he applied the law deduced from this
accident to his compound. His children no longer cried in vain for bread, and
the whole world is to-day reaping the fruit of that poor man’s scientific
brain. Do you call that an accidental discovery?
Another result of these investigations, beyond all the advantages to man-
kind in the greater supply of his comforts; and relief from labor, is another
good, better perhaps than all the rest. The relegating of all things to univer-
sal law, has emancipated man in a great measure from a mass of superstitions
and theological terrors. Comets, and strange appearances of the heavens, are
no longer thought to be exhibitions and warnings of an angry God, or the
lashings of the tail of an escaped demon. Kingly crowns, phylacteries, robes,
or a militia general’s uniform, no longer impress the looker-on with the idea
of divine power. The form may still exist, but it is known to be a shell de-
pending for influence, not upon robes and epaulets, but upon the character of |
the man beneath them. Slowly but surely this great truth is gaining ground,
permeating through all classes of society, lifting them to a higher plane of
thought, making them eager to discuss new truths, hoping thereby to harmon-
ize themselves with the forces surrounding them. Also enlarging their views
of nature, and exalting beyond anything heretofore dreamed of, their concep-
tion of the Creator, and as a necessary sequence, a diminished respect for his
mundane advisers. There is also manifest a growing desire on the part of
many enlightened legislators, to get the laws of the land in harmony with the
natural movements of the people, so that great hopes are expressed that the
phrase, “‘ History repeats itself,” will not last forever. A memorable instance
of growing knowledge in that direction occurred in the English government
but a f€w years since. In the year 1770 no rain fell in the province of Bengal,
India. This fine country is situated mostly on the Ganges river, and contained
at that time thirty millions of people, who were without bread. There was
no grass and the cattle began to die. Food products rapidly advanced in
price, and the people began to murmur and cry out against the monopolists
and forestallers of food. They demanded that the government should imme-
diately put a check upon their inhuman conduct of making merchandise of a
starving people. The government of Great Britain did what I think nearly
all good men and women in America would to-day heartily approve of. They
caused laws to be passed in that province severely punishing all who should
speculate upon the sufferings of the people, and sent soldiers to see that these
laws were obeyed. The clergy in all the pulpits of England thanked the goy-
ernment in the name of God and humanity for their prompt action to a dis-
tressed nation. Notwithstanding all this, and all the charities sent them, the
people began to die. The husbandmen sold their cattle, and then sold their
implements of agriculture. After consuming everything, they sold their sons
The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life. 67
and daughters, till at last there were no buyers of children to be found. The
living ate the dead; the mother devoured the child lying dead upon her breast,
which had long since ceased to furnish sustenance to her once loved babe.
The story, as told by an eye-witness, is too full of horrors to repeat further.
Out of thirty millions of people, ten millions were dead before the next har-
vest. Nor was this all. Society was completely demoralized; whole states
were abandoned and grew up to jungle, and what was once the garden home
of a happy people became the lair of wolves and tigers. Bengal did not re-
cover for.fifty years, though the succeeding crops were bountiful. Nearly a
hundred years after this dire calamity — that is to say in 1866, only nineteen
years ago — a similar want of rainfall occurred and a similar famine impended.
At this time — thanks to the growth of knowledge and a close observance of
economic laws —a few of the governing class of England said in this case his-
tory shall not repeat itself. Now, can you imagine what they did? I am sure
it will astonish you as much as it did me when I read it some ten years ago.
They sent orders to India to encouragé speculators and monopolists to the
greatest possible extent; to lend them all the money they could, even to the
point of danger; to build boats and sell them on credit to speculators moving
grain; to leave trade perfectly free, leaving sellers and buyers to make their
own bargains. Surely nothing could appear more cruel and cold-blooded than
this. But mark the result. Rice, wheat and food-stuffs of all kinds flowed to
this province in obedience to the laws of trade in such quantities that ware-
houses could not be built fast enough to hold them. The government again
sent word to lend money to the storehouse monopolists. The famine was stayed.
Out of thirty-five millions of people less than a thousand died of starvation.
I imagine the books were made up by the recording angel about as follows:
Ignorance, sentiment and good intentions killed 10,000,000. Science and
reason, obeying the laws of trade, 1,000. Balance to the credit of common
sense, 9,999,000. Report to be sent to St. Peter without remarks.
Another remarkable instance of the violation of the rights of the people,
which means a violation of the laws of nature, is quite familiar to you, so far
as the facts of history are concerned; but perhaps you have not considered it
in the light I am trying to impress you with to-night. France had been goy-
erned for a thousand years by priests and nobles, who owned all the land. A
vicious court, together with a monastic priesthood, devoured everything. The
people were slaves, or worse than slaves. Misery that would appall us at this
day existed everywhere. The teachings of Voltaire, Rousseau and other
thinkers, together with the example of America, finally aroused the people to
frenzy. They guillotined their king and queen, destroyed the nobles and
divided their lands among the people, committing in their madness many ex-
cesses and cruelties, which humanity has good reason to regret. It hits been
a standing rebuke and supposed to be a crushing argument to this day, when-
ever a freethinker airs his views, to say: See what infidelity did in France,
especially in ’98. You! perhaps remember the answer Victor Hugo puts into
the mouth of the dying revolutionist when visited by the good. bishop. The
old patriot defended the revolution with great force and feeling. At last the
good priest, being driven from point to point, said with great severity: “What
of 93?” With superhuman effort the old soldier raised himself to his feet,
and with a countenance radiant with the memory of a hundred battles fought
for the liberties of the people, said: ‘‘ Monsieur, a cloud had been gathering
in France for fifteen centuries. Ninety-three was the thunderbolt.”’ Ah, yes!
Thunderbolts are terrible things; it isnature’s way of clearing the atmosphere,
whether in the heavens or on the earth. A cloud had been gathering in
America for two hundred years. Sixty-one was our thunderbolt. Its rever-
beration was heard around the globe, and when the storm cleared away a
million men lay dead, and the habiliments of woe pervaded the land from
ocean to ocean.
68 The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life.
Perhaps the labor trouble is another forming cloud. If so, it becomes this
people to see that history does not repeat itself, as surely it will if we do vio-
lence to the right relation between capital and labor. Three times the writer
has seen a commercial thunderbolt fall upon the manufacturers of America,
arising from absurd tariff laws. The railroads are now getting the lightning
which they themselves manufactured by their pooling system, which is a pal-
pable violation of trade laws. Some of the manufacturers of our own city are
going through the same process of purification. The sad feature of these
thunderbolts is, that they pound away at you until you have paid .back the
last farthing, and then add penalties for violating the law. Until we learn
that the principle of uniformity is universal, and applies to every act of man,
as well as to the forces of nature, we shall ever be getting thunderbolts, and
ever saying, ‘‘ History repeats itself.’ If our home teaching, school teaching
and pulpit teaching would grind these truths into the boys and girls, until it
became part of their constitution, so that when they became men and women
their acts would flow from them without effort, then many of the errors of our
day, and of generations before us, would .disappear, and the evils of history
would not so often repeat themselves. :
Prof. Huxley says: ‘‘Education is the instruction of the intellect in the
laws of nature, under which name I include, not merely things and their
forces, but men and their ways, and the fashionings of the affections and of
the will, into an earnest and loving desire to move in harmony with those
laws. For me,” he says, “education means neither more nor less than this.
Anything whieh professes to call itself education must be tried by this stand-
ard, and if it fail to stand the test, I will not call it education, whatever may
be the force of authority, or of numbers, on the other side.”’
Parents and teachers would do well to remember these words. I fear our
public school system would be sadly deficient if tried by this standard.
The teaching of some of these laws to the young does not seem to me to be
so very difficult. Let us try one of them, and a very important one, I think
it will be granted by all parents. How can we teach our sons so they will not
become addicted to one of the worst of vices, that of gambling? Certainly
not by good advice, and not by telling them it is wicked, for they rather enjoy
that; and then they do not have to go far from church fairs to convince them
that it cannot be so very wicked.
Has science anything better to offer? It seems to me it has. Teach your
boy by actual experiment that he cannot, in the long run, by any possibility
win. Take a true dice and let him calculate how many sixes he ought to have
in ninety-six throws (a larger number would be better), provided all the num-
bers came up an equal number of times. Now let him shake the box and keep
tally. @Let him try again and again, and he, and perhaps you will be sur-
prised at the results. His first lesson is now learned, and the answer is, there
is no such thing as luck. Now tell him that‘all gambling games have a per-
centage in favor of the man who runs the game —never less than ten and as
high as forty per cent. Then take a hundred coffee beans and call them dol-
lars (silver or nickels would be better), and arrange the game with ten or even
five per cent. advantage in your favor. Give him the money, and tell him if
he will play against you one hour every night for a week he shall have all he
can win. Lend him money whenever he gets broke. At the end of a week
settle with him, and his second lesson is learned, and the answer is indelibly
fixed in his mind that he cannot by any possibility gain money in this way.
Then add your moral and religious teaching and your boy is saved from that
vice, if he is worth saving. When he is grown and becomes a clerk in a bro-
ker’s office, or a grain commission house, you will wish to keep him from
gambling in. stocks or speculating in wheat or corn in the bucket shops
or on change, and he now needs another scientific lesson. Take a hundred ~
4
The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life. 69
\
coffee beans and a hundred navy beans, mix them together and take them out
one by one and have him guess what you have, not allowing him to see them
till you are through (and it would be well that you did not see them your-
self). Put each kind as he guesses into separate bowls. When he has tried
this a few times he will have learned this pyschological law, that you cannot
by any possibility guess right about unknown things more than half the time
when any considerable number is involved. Now charge him for guessing, a
quarter of one per cent. (bucket shop price), and he will see at a glance that
in any event in four hundred deals the innocent commission merchant would
have all the money, no matter how large his gains may have been at some
period of the game.
I could give you many such examples, but one more will suffice; and this is
addressed to older heads, men of solid sense, men who know all about it, men
who stand on their feet and consider advice to them superfluous. They have
made money and know how to do it again. These men often become seized
with a desire to own a large farm and raise wheat and corn on a large scale.
They try it and always fail, from the fact that three-fourths of the cereals
grown in America are raised by the family, who get no wages excepting board
and clothes. They are free sellers from necessity and make the market. Com-
petition using hired labor is out of the question. Like the other examples,
the percentage is against them, It is evidently true and ought to be pro-
claimed everywhere that the immutable, unchangeable laws are immanent in
every department of life, and it should be the duty of parents and teachers to
search for them, not only for themselves, but especially to impart their great
truths to the plastic youth of the land, compelling them to learn some of these
fundamental facts. Do not be alarmed at the word compulsion. Nature es-
tablished compulsory education long ago. She says to man, Some of my laws
you must learn or I will kill you. You can have your choice of hunger, frost,
fire or water. They are all the same to me. I care not, whether your diso-
dience arises from ignorance or intention, as 1am without anger, mercy or
love; benevolence or malevolence is no part of my business. Obey and you
live; disobey and I will make you over into other forms.
To the man in haste she says: Hitch your car to my forces, and I will carry
you around the earth; sit down in my way, and I will grind you to powder;
make your bridges good and honest, or [ will hurl mother and child, the
sweet singer and the hardened criminal to one common destruction; launch
your boat upon my bosom; set your sails to my breeze, and I will waft you to
isles of perpetual bloom; but see to it that my laws are not violated in boat,
captain or crew, or I will leave you a thousand fathoms beneath the sea.
To the farmer she says: Plant your seed corn according to my order; care
for it in its infancy, and I will fill your barns with golden ears; I have corn
and weeds; it is for you to say which you will have.
To the young man and maiden: Mate yourselves in my ways, and I will
give you children of joy; disobey and I will send you sons and daughters who
will make you bow your heads in anguish, and bring you in sorrow to the
rave. :
. She says to the benevolent: Distribute the gifts of generous hearts and lov-
ing souls with great care and solicitude, or I will send you generations of pau-
pers, who will devour the food intended for your own children.
To the merchant: Conduct your business in obedience to the laws of trade,
and you will be rewarded according to your several capacities.
To the legislator she says: See that you do not run counter to my will in
making your laws, for disaster may engulf a whole people by the disobedience
of a few.
To all, she says: My world is neither good nor bad; the good and evil are
within you, and you get out of the universe just what you are fitted to
receive, no more, no less.
70 The Laws of Nature as Applied to the Affairs of Life.
It is the study of the laws of nature and the conflict with the elements, of
which we have only a partial knowledge, that makes intellect. It is the use
of her forces, which are free to all, without tariffs, or restrictions, that enables
us to live with comfort and to prolong our lives.
So far, science has gone but over the threshhold. Scientists know that
where they have discovered and made sure of a thousand facts, and arranged
them under the domain of law, there are millions yet to be learned. They
feel confident, however, in announcing to the world that the fundamental
‘truth upon which all investigation must be based, is what I have feebly been
trying to show you to-night. That law, or orderly sequence prevails every-
where. It may be charged that this is materialism; that it is a cold and cruel
way of spreading nature’s feast; that it is unlovely, unfeeling, and heartless to
the last degree. It may be so, but if it be true, it cannot be helped. We may
have to look farther to get our highest enjoyment. Science only treats of
phenomena; behind them there may be other truths and other laws, the
knowledge of which will fill the highest aspirations, satisfy the intellect, and
soothe the deepest sorrows. Surely no one has any authority to deny this,
and all the inferences from phenomena would seem to indicate that behind the
veil there is an eternal force, persistent energy, or God as you may choose to
call it, which is behind all, over all, in all, and ‘‘ maketh for righteousness.”
Do not forget, however, that every fact must agree with every other fact; if
all that we see is harmonious and orderly, it must be equally true of things
beyond the point of vision; and if any one has reported differently, he must
have either misunderstood the words spoken, or what is more probable, has
been incorrectly reported by his biographers.
In conclusion, do not understand me to say that if we obey all the laws of
nature now known, we can get rich, be free from disease, mistakes and errors.
If we could know them all, it might be so, but then we should no longer need
to live; we should have eaten of the tree of life and become Gods. If life
could be prolonged for a thousand years, we might possibly learn one in a
million of nature’s laws, but I think not. AsIsee it, the pursuit of knowl-
edge and the classifying of it under the domain of law together with the kicks
and cuffs we get for disobedience, is life itself, and if life is eternal, the pur-
suit will continue with ever increasing pleasure. Were it not so, individual-
ism would be lost, Nirvana would be reached and we should be absorbed into
the infinite. Wecan, however, by lovingly obeying the laws we do know,
and can find out, greatly lessen our sufferings by decreasing our mistakes,
errors and sins, even to the extent that we shall no longer ask the question,
“Ts life worth living?”
It may happen after generations of obedience, that life may be extended to
a time when all the senses shall be fully gratified, and death will come like
sleep to a tired child, who, having had all of the day he wanted, has peace-
fully and lovingly gone to rest upon the bosom of his mother,
IS MAN A RINALITY OF ORGANIC EVOLUTION?
DELIVERED BEFORE THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION, Fripay Eve., JAN. 14, 1887,
BY JOHN F. KING.
Ir is wonderful to behold one of Nature’s great plans worked out with such
undeviating unity of purpose. Though incalculable ages have passed since
the nucleus of the American Continent was lifted above the waves, we find
the announcement then made to have been faithfully prosecuted to the end.
What convincing proofs of the unity of the creative intelligence? The plastic
rocks have always been moulded by the hands of the same all-providing
Artificer. How it exalts our apprehension of His infinite attributes to behold
Him bringing into existence a series of secondary causes so simple in them-
selves, but working out a succession of results so complete in their details and
presenting a history stamped with such uniformity of plan, such harmony of
parts and such wisdom of design? ‘These are only His doings in the material
world.
But let us turn to consider the method which reigns among creatures ex-
alted with the gift of life. Who has not been amazed at the endless variety of
animal forms existing upon the earth? ‘There seems to be no conceivable con-
formation, no possible situation, no circumstances of element, climate, food, or
condition that have not been made the fitting and essential conditions of some
type of conscious existence. One animal dwells on the land, another in the
soil, a third in the air, a fourth in salt water, a fifth in fresh. One burrowsin
a log, another in a rock, a third in the mud, a fourth in the flesh, or brain, or
liver, or even in the eye of another animal. Ponderous quadrupeds move
through the jungle, wily serpents glide among the reeds, the centipede
crouches under a stone, the minnow darts beneath the sedgy bank, and the’
lazy oyster sleeps in the mud at the bottom of the bay. We place beneath the
microscope a specimen of the mud in which the oyster spends his drowsy life,
or wsample of the water in which the familiar frog delights, and lo! another
world is revealed to our vision — vegetable and animal life in forms as varied
as all that the united eye has seen in the greater world.
Nor is this all. Every one who has read of forms long since extinct, of
strange and monstrous forms that sported upon the earth before the empires of
the brute creation had been subjugated by the intellect of man. As we run
back through the sons preceding, we tread upon the graves of myriads of
beings which, in their day, swarmed in the depths of the sea, but whose
lineage and likeness are now known in history; we push back through the dim
dawn of beings and stand upon the sandy shore of that uneasy sea in which
creative power first essayed to mould the plastic clay into animal forms and
plant in them ethereal fire. How reverently do we turn up the cleaving stone
and gaze upon a little coral, a lingula, or a trilobite, and think that these
were the forms which God first exerted his skill upon, and placed first in pos-
session of our round and verdant planet; and how different those beings from
all we know upon the earth to-day. What an infinite range of altitudes be-
72 Is Man a Finality of Organic Evolution?
tween that humble lingula and the majestic mien of man? Such is the ex-
haustless fertility of God’s conception. |
We place ourselves, then, upon the threshold of animal existence, and in-
quire what course creative power will pursue. Shall we witness a series of
experiments for the slow perfection of «a plan — models and methods tried and
abandoned — detached essays, having no intelligent connection with an ulti-
mate or central scheme? With a finite intelligence such experiments would
have been unavoidable. But Nature has served no apprenticeship; the end
has been contemplated from the beginning. There are two things which strike
the attention of every one who studies the history of the ancient populations
of our globe. First, their forms and features; their habits and the details of
their living are often in wide contrast with anything we behold in the present
day. Secondly, while so peculiar in their details, their fundamental features
are identical with those of existing animals, so that we call them by the same
generic titles — corals, shells, crustaceans, etc. — and if we. scan the long line
of beings from the Laurentian to the present, we shall find nothing which may
not be embraced under the most general designations which we apply to exist-
ing animals.
Now which of the two features of the fossil world is the most instructive?
Theis- wild and extravagant forms astonish us and attract the curiosity of the
marvel-loving public. Their identity of fundamental plan impresses us with
awe and reverence, and breathes thoug!its of a world-embracing scope of intel-
ligence. The first converts the anima! creation into a vast menagerie for the
curious to wonder at. The latter shows it to be a lesson of wisdom traced by
the finger of the Omniscient himself.
Let us see what is the nature of this identity of plan which runs through all
existence and all times. It is a wonderful fact in nature. From the epoch of
the St. John molluscs and the Potsdam trilobites; through all the dreary ages
of the earth’s preparations for man, but four fundamental types of animal
structure have ever existed. All the varied forms of extinct monsters have
been constructed upon one or the other of these four fundamental plans.
Throughout the wide range of existing beings inhabiting the deep sea, popu-
lating the air, swarming the land and the forest and the jungle — countless
equally in the number of individuals and in the number of distinguishable
species — we discover but the same four fundamental plans of structure which
we find exemplified in the creation of the ancient world. What are the zoé-
logical characters of these four fundamental forms may be learned from any
elementary work on the science. It is the magnificent generalization — for
which we are indebted to the genius of George Cuvier — that I wish to im-
press. Suffice it to say that all animalsjare either vertebrated — possessed of a
backbone; articulated — with an external horny crust, composed of rings, like
insects, lobsters and worms; molluscons— with soft bodies like slugs, very
often covered with a shell, like snails and oysters; or radiated — with bodies
composed of parts somewhat symmetrically arranged on all sides with refer-
ence to the center, like the starfish and the corals. I have named the most
striking character which distinguishes each of these great branches of the
animal kingdom. Three of these fundamental plans are called into requisition
in the constitution of the very first population of our globe. The coral was a
radiate; the lingula was mollusc; the trilobite was an articulate. The fourth
plan was drawn upon before the close of the first great period of animal his-
tory and was realized in the form of a fish. In the very first chapter of the
book of Nature there we read the announcement of a programme which is still
in process of execution. The type of the primeval coral has sprouted into the
tea-nettle and the star-fish; the type of the lingula has expanded into the
snail, the clam and the cuttle-fish; the type of the trilobite has varied into
the worm below and the insect above; while the vertebrate type, beginning
Is Man a« Finality of Organic Evolution? , 73
with the fish, has developed into the reptile, the bird, the quadruped and man.
Nor does method.end here, nor the method which had its first announcement
on the morning of animal existence. J have already alluded to the varied
conditions under which animal life presents itself; the various ends with refer-
ence to which animals have been modified — some to swim, some to fly, some
to climb, some to burrow, some for exalted powers and active habits, others
for a degraded and sluggish existence. Each fundamental type has been
moulded and warped and adapted to these varied ends and conditions of being.
At the same time the grand characteristics of the type have been conserved
even in its extremest modifications. The modifications of the fundamental
plan to adapt it to these varied ends are class characters, and we thus find
that Nature has herself grouped the members of each branch into classes.
This method is as old as the animal creation. Not only did each creature
which played its part in the primordial fauna conform to one of the four fun-
damental types of structure, but it also conformed to the characteristics of one
of the pre-conceived class modifications of that type. Each class-group is com-
posed of different grades of animals, constituting so many different. orders
within the limits of the class. This gradation of ordinal types was also recog-
nized in the organization of the earliest animals; thus the whole plan of cre-
ation was mapped out to the mind of the Creator from the beginning.
We shall see as we,proceed that every step in the evolution of continents and
the establishment of a home for the coming man, was a monument in a defin-
ite direction, effected by forces chosen from the first, and shaped always with
reference to exigencies which were to arise in the far distant future. We shall
see how the simple animal forms of the primeval ocean embodied in themselves
germs which were capable of unfolding into the richest variety of adaptations
and the most exalted capabilities. There can be no nobler, no more instruct-
ive and inspiring employment than to stand where we do, at the end of this
long history, and, looking back upon it, catch its method and reproduce in
our own minds the sublime conceptions of the Architect of the world. To
him that has glanced over this long line of organic history and observed
how the ascent from the seaweed to man has been effected, step by step in
regular succession, can not fail to start the inquiry: “Is man destined to be
the last term of this series of improving types”? Science affords some inti-
mations which tend to assure us in the possession of the dignity which we
now enjoy as the archontes of terrestrial existence.
In the first place, all geological preparations and ideas converge in man.
The world seems to have been designed with the view of stimulating to
activity the powers of a thinking being. The universe is a rational pro-
duct, and every department of it and every isolated object sustains an intel-
ligible relation to other parts and objects. We are not left to infer, or even
to know, that intelligent design is locked up in the secret plans of creation;
but what is more suggestive, as well as more satisfactory, is the fact that this
intelligence is potent ‘before our eyes; so that we read, as it were, a reve-
lation of the thought embodied in the works of thevisible universe, as much
of that which is not at once manifest yields to investigation, while a stimulus
to investigation is found in the hints and suggestions which Nature seems
intentionally to have dropped along the pathway of him who follows the
beckoning of his thoughts. Not only were these germs of thought planted
from time to time during the whole progress of the past creation, and not only
is man the first creature capable of responding to the stimuli to mental activ-
ity, but more, this mentality, while it differs qualitatively from the highest
endowments of the lower animals, is in itself the highest’ possible grade of
endowmer.. It is qualitatively identical with that infinite intelligence whose
‘presence and supremacy are recognized throughout the universe. It is a fair
presumption that when the course of animalization has attained the point
74 Is Man a Finality of Organic Evolution?
toward which all these intellectual adaptations converge, a point is reached
which will not be passed except under a different general scheme.
Similar remarks apply to the co-ordination existing between the material
and the idea of the beautiful in man. The beauty and sublimity of nature
have no relation to any other creature. Man is the consummation of a dual-
ism; while the beautiful implies man it excludes a successor. No endowment
beyond or higher than a response to the provisions of nature is possible. The
beneficent provisions of the earth’s crust not only prophesy man, but they
reach their finality in man. It was only for human uses that the coal was
treasured in the recesses of the earth. For human uses alone the mountains
have lifted up their burdens of iron. For human uses only the grandest
movements of geological history elaborated and distributed a soil. It is only
for man that the forests yield their abundant supplies of timber and fuel. For
man the edible and medicinal vegetables were provided. For man the natures ©
of the domestic animals moulded, and their domestic attachments are directed
to no other being.
It may be added that vertebrate developments both points towards
man and attains its consummationin man. The earliest fish, which in the
waters of the Paleozoic seas, embodied in its asteological organization a
prophecy of man; the Mesozoic reptile still pointed onward toward man; Ter-
tiary monkeys were a higher summit of verterbrate organization, from which
the yet higher alp of human structure was still pointed to, illumined by the
rising dawn of the modern world. In the skeleton of man we have at last the
fulfillment of the prophecies of ages. Man stands in the focus of all the con-
ceptions embodied in past history. We are as little authorized to allow that
the course of development is destined to advance beyond him as to deny that
it has furnished intimations in all ages that it was destined to reach him.
Consider, in the second place, man’s superiority over the brutes. Among the
myriads of animals which populated the earth during the cycles of geological
history supremacy was the reward only of superior force. Man gains suprem-
acy through his intellect. Brutes dominate through the physical forces be-
longing to matter; man, through the immaterial forces which are the attri-
butes of Deity. The chasm which separates the intelligence of man from that
of the brutes is broad. It is not simply a step in the easy gradations observed
among the brutes themselves — it is a break in the chain of gradations. Even
if not qualitatively superior to that of brutes, its sudden expansion is so
great that its sphere of activity creates: a new quality in the being. Man is
the first being in all the history of the world that could contemplate creation
and abstract the intelligence displayed in it, and experience a glow of satis-
faction in attaining to the thoughts first conceived in the mind of the Omnis-
cient. Man is the first animal capable of contemplating Deity. In these
extolled endowments not only does he excel the brutes, but he excels them in
so vast a degree as to suggest the belief that the gradations of animal exist-
ence had been concluded, and Nature had reached a full pause; the material
part —the framework — of animality had been perfected by slow gradations;
and now on the creation of man, Nature superadded an unprecedented endow-
ment — a spiritual organization, which makes man both a prince and a master-
piece of creation. .
When we speak of man’s moral nature we touch a subject which recalls all
that has just been said of his intellect, and affirms it with redoubled em-
phasis. There are reasons for believing that this endowment differs in
kind from anything in the nature of the brute. This, to the ability to under-
stand God, adds the ability to sympathize in his moral attributes, and to
enter into moral relations with him and with humanity. Man stands in con-
tact with God. A farther approximation is impossible. He must be the
limit, as he is the existing culmination of organic life. These various con-
Is Man a Finality of Organic Evolution? 75
siderations, with others, seem to teach that the column of organic suc-
cession is complete in man. The lower forms, gradually and regularly ascend-
ing from base to summit, constitute to the shaft of the column; but in man we
have a sudden expansion, an ornateness of finish, an incorporation of new
ideas, which designate him as the capital and completion of the grand column
of organic existence. Consider, in the third place, man’s unlimited geo-
graphical range. When the first animals were introduced upon the earth they
found the ocean encompassing it on every side, and creating a uniformity of
physical conditions which enabled them to range through every latitude and
longitude in later ages, as the continents with their mountain ranges. Because
differentiated from the terrestrial mass, and diverse climates were called into
existence, we find that animals were restricted to successively narrower
limits. Not only did the growing differentiation of the different regions of
the earth lead toward the restriction of the faunas, but there is something in
the higher organisms themselves which specializes them in their adapta-
tions and unfits them for so wide a range, even with external conditions un-
changed. Thus, as animal life advanced upward, it became more narrowed
in the range of its species. The species in possession of the earth immediately
previous to man were more restricted than any of their predecessors. It would
certainly be expected from all these analogies that man, on his appearance,
would be limited to the narrowest bounds of all. What is the fact? Man
overleaps all barriers. Climates, mountains, oceans, deserts, form no impedi-
ments to his migration. He, the first of all animals, has literally extended
over the whole earth, and fulfilled the command to take possession, to use and
toemploy. What does this signify, if not that man is the completion of the
series? Animal existence, first narrowed to the smallest limits in its specific
range, thus suddenly extended to the widest. Man occupies the whole earth;
he is not only the finishing stroke, but excludes a successor.
Consider, lastly, man’s erect attitude. When the fish, the earliest repre-
sentative of the type which embraces man, was introduced into the waters of
the Devonian sea, the vertebral axis was hung in a hosizontal position, and
the animal was not endowed with even the power to raise the head by bending
the neck. Triassic and jurassic enabiasaures, while they continued to inhabit
the water, breathed the air, and held the head habitually a little elevated.
The crockadillions, to these endowments, added the power to crawl upon the
ground. The Dinornis of the crustaceous age walked upon the land with
the body elevated above the ground, but the head remaining nearly horizontal;
the birds assumed an oblique position of the spinal axis; and most of the Ter-
tiary mammals, which followed them, could carry this attitude from the hori-
zontal to the semi-crest position; the higher monkeys lived normally in a sub-
erect position, still supporting themselves by the four extremeties. Man,
first and alone, assumed a perpendicular attitude, and turned his countenance
toward heaven and talked with the Being who formed him. It is evident no
further progress can be made in this direction. The elevation of the spinal
axis has reached a mathematical limit; the consummation of organic exalt-
ation is attained. Life has been likened unto a tree and man the fruit
thereof; and, if he is, beyond the fruit the tree cannot grow. A tree ad-
vances from root to stem, from stem to branch, from branch to leaf, and from
leaf to blossom and fruit, each rising in importance above the other; but
when the fruit is attained all that can be done is to perfect it. The root of
the great tree of life is the radiata, thus raying, ramifying arms and fingers,
forming its spreading radicles; the trunk of this tree, the mollusca; their
shelly covering, its bark; the jointed bodies of the articulates form its
branches, the vertebrates are the leaves. [very leaf has a mid-rib passing
through its center, from which ribs go to each side to strenghten it, as in ver-
tebrates the backbone passes through the centre of the animal and ribs proceed
76 Is Man a Finality of Organic Evolution?
from it on both sides; the blossoms are the mammalia, or milk-producin
animals; and its fruit humanity, waiting for the ages to ripen it. This gran
old tree has been advancing for ages, renewing its rootlets and shedding its
bark, losing unnumbered branches in the storms of the past, and dropping
myriads of leaves and blossoms, but, with a sound heart, reproducing better
than it lost and fruiting in good time, with the promise of the rest when that
fruit is fully ripe. But what evidence is there that man is the fruit of
this wonderful tree? What peculiarity is there in the fruit of a tree that dis-
tinguishes it from every other part? It contains a living principle which
possesses unlimited duration, and, under favorable circumstances, may unfold
into a tree equal, or superior, to that from which it sprang; let a piece of the
root be separated from the tree, it speedily dies and is dissolved to dust. In
like manner, bark, branches, blossoms and leaves perish when their connec-
tion with the parent plant is dissevered. The fruit alone contains the power
of continuous existence within itself. Drop it on the ground or bury it, and
it lives and grows and sends its type down the ages. So man, the polyp, the
snail, the worm, the fish, reptile, bird and beast may die when death comes and
return to the undistinguished dust from which they sprang, but man possesses
that over which death has no power, and the extinction of one life is but the
dawn of another. :
Did not man possess the power of unlimited progress, he would be dropped
for some form superior to him in this respect. Nature progressed in the fish
till the fish could advance no further and be a fish; she then progressed in the
reptile till, in the pterodactyl and allied forms, they could advance no further
and be reptiles; she then chose the bird, and for the same reason left it behind
and took the beast. She now has chosen man in whom to embody this prin-
ciple, and in him she finds that power of unlimited progress which satisfies her
asarace. Then we satisfy the law, and, as individuals, the great future opens
its portals for us and presents us a boundless field for our advancement. As
the earth is being gradually cured of its evils, and as its organic forms have
been manifested in continually progressive forms, so we may reasonably expect
a superior race of human beings, and the eventual destruction, by the growth
of the superior faculties, of the moral evils that war with our higher interests,
as we have outgrown canibalism to which our forefathers were addicted. As
we have advanced from the wild savages, with their rude stone weapons, that
hunted the mammoth through the woods of Great Britain and dwelt in caves
by the shore, so shall we outgrow war, intemperance, licentiousness, lying,
bigotry, and every form of wrong-doing, and grow into intelligence, culture
and every manly virtue.
What will be the final destiny of the earth? As there was a time when the
world was not, so there will come a time when it will cease to exist. When
fruit trees can produce fruit no longer they die and return to the earth to give
place to those that can produce fruit in turn. And when the earth is old and
worn out and can no longer administer to man, then we may reasonably
expect that it will die and return to the sun, from which it probably came.
THE LAKE AS A MICROCOSM.
READ BEFORE THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION FEBRUARY 25, 1887,
BY S. A. FORBES, A.M., A. A. A. 8., ETC.,
Professor of Zoélogy and Entomology in Lilinois State University, and State Entomologist.
A lake is to the naturalist a chapter out of the history of a primeval time,
for the conditions of life there are primitive,—the forms of life are, as a
whole, relatively low and ancient, and the system of organic interactions by
which they influence and control each other has remained substantially un-
changed from a remote geological period.
The animals of such a body of water are, as a whole, remarkably isolated,—
closely related among themselves in all their interests, but so far independent
of the land about them that if every terrestrial animal were suddenly anni-
hilated, it would doubtless be long before the general multitude of the inhab-
itants of the lake would feel the effects of this event in any important way.
One finds in a single body of water a far more complete and independent
equilibrium of organic life and activity than on any equal body of land. It
is an islet of older, lower life in the midst of the higher more recent life of the
surrounding region. It forms a little world within itself,— a microcosm with-
in which all the elemental forces are at work and the play of life goes on in
full, but on so small a scale as to bring it easily within the mental grasp.
Nowhere can one see more clearly illustrated what may be called the sensi-
bility of such an organic complex,—expressed by the fact that whatever affects
any species belonging to it, must speedily have its influence of some sort upon
the whole assemblage. He will thus be made to see the impossibility of study-
ing any form completely, out of relation to the other forms,— the necessity for
taking a comprehensive survey of the whole as a condition to a satisfactory
understanding of any part. If one wishes to become acquainted with the
black bass, for example, he will learn but little if he limits himself to that
species. He must evidently study also the species upon which it depends for
its existence, and the various conditions upon which these depend. He must
likewise study the species with which it comes in competition, and the entire
system of conditions affecting their prosperity, and by the time he has studied
all these sufficiently he will find that he has run through the whole compli-
cated mechanism of the aquatic life of the locality, both animal and vegeta-
ble, of which his species forms but a single element.
It is under the influence of these general ideas that I propose to examine
briefly to-night the lacustrine life of Illinois, drawing my data from collections
and observations made during recent years by myself and my assistants of the
State Laboratory of Natural History.
The lakes of Illinois are of two kinds, fluviatile and water-shed. The fluvia-
tile lakes, which are much more numerous and important, are appendages of
the river systems of the State, being situated in the river bottoms and con-
nected with the adjacent streams by periodical overflows. Their fauna is
therefore substantially that of the rivers themselves, and the two should, of
course, be studied together.
78 The Lake as a Microcosm.
They are probably in all cases either parts of former river channels, which
have been cut off and abandoned by the current as the river changed its course,
or else-are tracts of the high-water beds of streams over which, for one reason
or another, the periodical deposit of sediment has gone on less rapidly than
over the surrounding area, and which have thus come to form depressions in
the surface which retain the waters of overflow longer than the higher lands
adjacent. Most of the numerous “horse-shoe lakes” belong to the first of
these varieties, and the “‘blufflakes”’ situated along the borders of the bottoms,
are many of them examples of the second.
These fluviatile lakes are most important breeding grounds and reservoirs of
life,— especially as they are protected from the filth and poison of towns and
manufactories by which the running waters of the state are yearly more deeply
defiled. .
The amount and variety of animal life contained in them as well as in the
streams related to them, is extremely variable, depending chiefly on the fre-
quency, extent, and duration of the overflows. This is, in fact, the character-
istic and peculiar feature of life in these waters. There is perhaps no better
illustration of the methods by which the flexible system of organic life adapts
itself, without injury, to widely and rapidly fluctuating conditions. When-
ever the waters of the river remain for a long time far beyond their banks,
the breeding grounds of fishes and other animals are immensely extended,
and their food supplies increased to a corresponding degree.
The slow or stagnant backwaters of such an overflow afford the best situa-
tions possible for the development of myriads of Entomostraca, which fur-
nish, in turn, abundant food for young fishes of all descriptions. There thus
results a sudden outpouring of life,— an extraordinary multiplication of near-
ly every species,— most prompt and rapid, generally speaking, in such as have
the highest reproductive rate, -- that is to say, in those which produce the lar-
gest average number of eggs and young for each adult.
The first to feel this tremendous impulse are the Protophytes and {Protozoa,
upon which most of the Entomostraca and certain minute insect larve depend
for food. This sudden development of their food resources causes, of course,
a corresponding increase in the numbers of the latter classes, and, through
them, of all sorts of fishes. The first fishes to feel the force of this tidal wave.
of life, are the rapidly-breeding, non-predaceous kinds; and the last, the game
fishes, which derive from the others their principal food supplies. Evidently
each of these classes must act as a check upon the one preceding it. The
development of animalcules is arrested, and soon sent back below its highest
point by the consequent development of Entomostraca; the latter, again, are
met, checked, and reduced in number by the innumerable shoals of fishes with
which the water speedily swarms; and the lower fishes, springing up at first in
excessive ratio, are soon driven back to a lower limit by the following exces-
sive increase of the higher carnivorous kinds. In this way a general adjust-
ment of numbers to the new conditions would finally be reached spontaneous-
ly; but long before any such settled balance can be established, often of course
before the full effect of this upward influence has been exhibited, a new cause
of disturbance intervenes in the disappearance of the overflow. As the waters
retire the lakes are again defined. The teeming life which they contain is
restricted within daily narrower bounds, and a fearful slaughter follows. The
lower and more defenceless animals are penned up more and more closely with
their predaceous enemies, and these thrive for a time to 4n extraordinary de-
gree. To trace the further consequences of this oscillation would take me too
far. Enough has been said to illustrate the general idea that the life of waters
subject to periodical expansions of considerable duration, is peculiarly unsta-
ble and fluctuating,— that each species swings, pendulum-like, but irregularly,
between a highest and a lowest point, and that this fluctuation affects the dif-
The Lake as a Microcosm. 79
ferent on successively, in the order of their dependence upon each other
for food.
Where a water-shed is a nearly level plateau with slight irregularities of the
surface, many of these will probably be imperfectly drained, and the accumulat-
ing waters will form either marshes or lakes, according to the depth of the
depressions. Highland marshes of this character are seen in Ford, Livingston,
and adjacent counties, between the headwaters of the Illinois and Wabash
systems; and an area of water-shed lakes occurs in Lake and McHenry coun-
ties, in northeastern Illinois.
The latter region is everywhere broken by low, irregular ridges of glacial
drift, with no rock but boulders anywhere in sight. The intervening hollows
are of every variety, from mere sink-holes, either dry or occupied by ponds, to
expanses of several square miles, forming marshes or lakes.
This is, in fact, the southern end of a broad lake belt which borders Lakes
Michigan and Superior on the west and south, extending through eastern and
northern Wisconsin and northeastern Minnesota, and occupying the plateau
which separates the headwaters of the St. Lawrence from those of the Missis-
sippi. These lakes are of glacial origin, some filling beds excavated in the
solid rock, and others collecting the surface waters in hollows of the drift.
The latter class, to which all the Illinois lakes belong, may lie either parallel
to the line of glacial action, occupying valleys between adjacent lateral
moraines, or transverse to that line, and bounded by terminal moraines.
Those of our own State all drain at present into the Illinois, through the Des
Plaines and Fox; but, as the terraces around their borders indicate a former
water level considerably higher than the present one, it is likely that some of
them once emptied eastward into Lake Michigan. Several of these lakes are
clear and beautiful sheets of water, with sandy or gravelly beaches, and shores
bold and broken enough to relieve them from monotony. Sportsmen long ago
discovered their advantages; and club-houses and places of summer resort are
rapidly springing up on the borders of the most attractive and easily accessi-
ble. They offer also an unusually rich field to the naturalist; and their zoélo-
gy and botany should be better known.
The conditions of aquatic life are here in marked contrast to those afforded
by the fluviatile lakes already mentioned. Connected with each other or with
adjacent streams only by slender rivulets; varying but little in level with the
change of the season, and scarcely at all from year to year; they are character-
ized by an isolation, independence, and uniformity which can be found no-
where else within our limits.
Among these Illinois lakes I did considerable work during October of two
successive years, using the sounding line, deep sea thermometer, towing net,
dredge, and trawl in six lakes of northern I[\linois, and in Geneva Lake, Wis-
consin, just across the line. Upon one of these Illinois lakes I spent a week
in October, and an assistant, Prof. Garman, now of the University, spent two
more, making as thorough a physical and zodlogical survey of this lake as was
possible at that season of the year.
I now propose to give you in this paper a brief general account of the phy-
sical characters and the fauna of these lakes, and of the relations of the one
to the other; to compare, in a general way, the animal assemblages which they
contain with those of Lake Michigan — where also I did some weeks of active
aquatic work in 1881— and with those of the fluviatile lakes of central Illi-
nois; to make some similar comparisons with the lakes of Europe; and, final-
ly, to reach the subject which has given the title to this paper,— to study the
system of natural interactions by which this mere collocation of plants and
animals has been organized as a settled and prosperous community.— First let
us endeavor to form the mental picture. To make this more graphic and true
to the facts, I will describe to you some typical lakes among those in which-
80 The Lake as a Microcosm.
we worked, and will then do what I can (with much difficulty and perplexity
no doubt, and I fear with no very brilliant success), to furnish you the ma-
terials for a picture of the life that swims, and creeps, and crawls and bur-
rows and climbs through the water, in and on the bottom and among the
feathery water plants with which large areas of these lakes are filled.
Fox Lake in the western border of Lake county, lies in the form of a broad
irregular crescent, truncate at the ends, and with the concavity of the crescent
to the northwest. The northern end is broadest and communicates with Petite
Lake. Two points projecting inward from the southern shore form three
broad bays. The western end opens into Nippisink lake, Crab Island separat-
ing the two. Fox river enters the lake from the north just eastward of this
island, and flows directly through the Nippisink. The length of a curved
line extending through the central part of this lake, from end to end, is very
nearly three miles, and the width of the widest part is about a mile and a
quarter. The shores are bold, broken and wooded, except to the north, where
they are marshy and flat. All the northern and eastern part of the lake was
visibly shallow,— covered with weeds and feeding water-fowl—and I made no
soundings there. The water was probably nowhere more than two fathoms in
depth, and over most of that area was doubtless under one and a half.» In the
western part, five lines of soundings were run, four of them radiating from
Lippincott’s Point, and the fifth crossing three of these nearly at right angles.
The deepest water was found in the middle of the mouth of the western bay,
where a small area of five fathoms occurs. On the line running northeast from
the point, not more than one and three-fourths fathoms was found. The bot-
tom at a short distance from the shores was everywhere a soft, deep mud.
Four hauls of the dredge were made in the western bay, and the towing net
was dragged about a mile.
Long Lake differs from this especially in its isolation, and its smaller size.
It is about a mile and a half in length by half.a mile in breadth. Its banks
are all bold except at the western end, where a marshy valley traversed by a
small creek, connects it with Fox Lake, at a distance of about two miles. The
deepest sounding made was six and a half fathoms, while the average depth
of the deepest part of the bed was about five fathoms.
Cedar Lake, upon which we spent a fortnight, is a pretty sheet of water, the.
head of a chain of six which open finally into the Fox. It is about a mile in
greatest diameter in each direction, with a small but charming island bank
near the center, covered with bushes and vines—a favorite home of birds and
wild flowers. The shores vary from rolling to bluffy, except for a narrow strip
of marsh through which the outlet passes, and the bottoms and margins are
gravel, sand and mud in different parts of its area. Much of the lake is shallow
and full of water plants; but the northern part reaches a depth of fifty feet, a
short distance from the eastern bluff.
Deep Lake the second of this chain, is of similar character, with a greatest
depth of fifty-seven feet,—the deepest sounding we made in these smaller lakes
of Illinois. In these two lakes several temperatures were taken with a differen-
tial thermometer. In Deep Lake, for example, at fifty-seven feet I found the
bottom temperature 5383°—about that of ordinary well water—when the air
was 63°; and in Cedar Lake, at forty-eight feet, the bottom was 58° when the
air was 61°.
Geneva Lake, Wisconsin, isa clear and beautiful body of water, about eight
miles long by one and a quarter in greatest width. The banks are all high,
rolling, and wooded, except at the eastern end, where its outlet rises. Its
deepest water is found in its western third, where it reaches a depth of twenty-
three fathoms. I made here early in November, twelve hauls of the dredge
and three of the trawl, aggregating about three miles in length, so distributed
in distance and depth as to give a good idea of the invertebrate life of the lake
at that season.
_
The Lake as a Microcosm. 81
And now if you will kindly let this suffice for the background or setting of
the picture of lacustrine life which I have undertaken to give you, I will next
endeavor —not to paint in the picture—for that I have not the artistic skill—
but I will confine myself to the humbler and safer task of supplying you the
pigments, leaving it to your own constructive imaginations to put them on
the canvas.
When one sees acres of the shallower water black with water-fowl, and so
clogged with weeds that a boat can scarcely be pushed through the mass;
when, lifting a handful of the latter he finds them covered with shells and alive
with small crustaceans; and then, dragging a towing net for a few minutes,
finds it lined with myriads of diatoms and other microscopic Algae, and with
multitudes of Entomostraca, he is likely to infer that these waters are every-
where swarming with life, from top to bottom, and from shore to shore. If,
however, he will haul a dredge for an hour or so in the deepest water he can
find, he will invariably discover an area singularly barren of both plant and
animal life, yielding scarcely anything but a small bivalve mollusk, a few low
worms, and red larve of gnats. These inhabit a black, deep, and almost
impalpable mud or ooze, too soft and unstable to afford foot hold to plants,
even if the lake is shallow enough to admit a sufficient quantity of light to
its bottom to support vegetation. It is doubtless to this character of the
bottom that the barrenness of the interior parts of these lakes is due; and this
again is caused by the selective influence of gravity upon the mud and detritus
washed down by rains. The heaviest and coarsest of this material necessarily
settles nearest the margin, and only the finest silt reaches the remotest parts of
the lake, which, filling most slowly, remain, of course, the deepest. The
largest lakes, are not, therefore, as a rule by any means the most prolific of life,
but this shades inward rapidly from the shore, and becomes at no great distance
almost as simple and scanty as that of a desert.
Among the weeds and lily-pads upon the shallows and around the margin,
the Potamogeton, Myriophyllum Ceratophyllum, Anacharis and Chara, and
the common Nelumbium—amoug these the fishes chiefly swim or lurk, by far
the commonest being the barbaric bream or “pumpkin seed” of northern
Illinois, splendid with its greens and scarlet and purple and orange. Little
less abundant is the common perch (Perca lutea), in the larger lakes,—in the
largest outnumbering the bream, itself. The whole sunfish family, to which
the latter belongs, is, in fact, the dominant group in these lakes. Of the one
hundred and thirty-two fishes of Illinois only thirty-seven are found in these
waters—about twenty-eight per cent.—while eight out of our seventeen sun-
fishes have been taken there. Next, perhaps, one searching the pebbly beach-
es, or scanning the weedy tracts, will be struck by the small number of min-
nows or cyprinoids which catch the eye, or come out, in the net. Of our
thirty-three Illinois cyprinoids, only six occur there — about eighteen per cent.
—and only three of these are common. ‘These are in part replaced by shoals
of the beautiful little silversides (Labidesthes sicculus) a spiny-finned fish,
bright, slender, active, and voracious —as well supplied with teeth as a perch,
and far better equipped for self-defense than the soft-bodied, and toothless
cyprinoids. Next, we note that of our twelve catfishes only two have been
taken in these lakes,—one the common bullhead (Jetalurus nebulosus) which
occurs everywhere, and the other an insignificant stone cat, not as long as
one’s thumb. The suckers, also, are much less abundant in this region, the
buffalo fishes not appearing at all in our collections. Their family is repre-
sented by the worthless carp, by two redhorse, by the carp sucker and the
common sucker (Catostomus commersonii), and one other species. Even the
hickory shad — an ichthyological weed in the Illinois— we have not found in
these lakes at all. The sheepshead, so common here, is also conspicuous there
by its absence. The yellow bass, not rare in this river, we should not expect
82 The Lake as a Microcosm.
in these lakes, because it is rather a southern species; but why the white bass,
abundant here, in Lake Michigan, and in the Wisconsin lakes, should be
wholly absent from the lakes of the Illinois plateau, Iam unable to imagine.
If it occurs there at all, it must be rare, as I could neither find nor hear of it.
A characteristic, abundant, and attractive little fish is the log perch (Per-
cina caprodes),— the largest of the darters—slender, active, barred like a
zebra — spending much of its time in chase of Entomostraca among the water
plants, or prying curiously about among the stones for minute insect larve.
Six darters in all, out of the eighteen from the state, are on our list from these -
lakes. The two black bass are the popular game fishes — the large-mouthed
species being much the most abundant. The pickerels, gars, and dog-fish are
there about as here, but the shovel fish does not occur. :
Of the peculiar fish fauna of Lake Michigan — the burbot, white fish, trout,
lake herring or cisco, etc., not one species occurs in these smaller lakes and all
attempts to transfer any of them have failed completely. The cisco is a nota-
ble fish of Geneva Lake, Wisconsin, but does not reach Illinois except in
Lake Michigan. It is useless to attempt to introduce it, because the deeper ©
areas of the interior lakes are too limited to give it sufficient range of cool
water in midsummer.
In short, the fishes of these lakes are substantially those of their region,—
excluding the Lake Michigan series (for which the lakes are too small and
warm) and those peculiar to creeks and rivers. Possibly the relative scarcity
of catfishes is due to the comparative clearness and cleanness of the waters. I
see no good reason why minnows should be so few, unless it be the abundance
of pike and Chicago sportsmen. .
Concerning the molluscan fauna, I will only say that it is poor in bivalves
—as far as our observations go—and rich in univalves. Our collections have
been but partly determined, but they give us three species of Valvata, seven
of Planorbis, four Amnicolas, a Melantho, two Physas, six Limneas and an
Ancylus among the Gasteropoda, and two Unios, an Anodonta, a Spherium
and a Pisidium among the Lamelli branchiates. Pisidiwm variabile is by far
the most abundant mollusk in the oozy bottom in the deeper parts of the
lakes; and crawling over the weeds are multitudes of small Amnicolas and
Valvatas. |
The entomology of these waters I can merely touch upon, mentioning only
the most important and abundant insect larve. Hiding under stones and
driftwood, well aware, no doubt, what enticing morsels they are to a great
variety of fishes, we find a number of species of Ephemerid larvee whose speci-
fic determination we have not yet attempted. Among the weeds are the
usual larvee of dragon flies—Agrionina and Libellulide, familiar to every one;
swimming in open water the predaceous larve of Corethra; wriggling through
the water or buried in the mud the larve of Chironomus— the shallow water
species white, and those from the deeper ooze of the central parts of the lakes,
blood red and larger. Among Chara on the sandy bottoms are a great number
and variety of interesting case worms — larvee of Phryganeidz — most of them
inhabiting tubes of a slender conical form made of a viscid secretion exuded
from the mouth and strengthened and thickened by grains of sand — fine or
coarse. One of these cases, nearly naked, but usually thinly covered with
diatoms, is especially worthy of note, as it has been reported nowhere in this
country except in our collections, and, was, indeed, recently described from
Brazil as new. Its generic name is Lageno-psyche, but its species undeter-
mined. ‘These larvee are also much eaten by fishes.
Among the worms we have of course a number of species of leeches and of
planarians,— in the mud minute Anguillulide, like vinegar eels, and a slender
Lumbriculus, which makes a tubulur mud burrow for itself in the deepest
water, and also the curious Nais probiscidia — notable for its capacity of mul- —
tiplication by transverse division. |
The Lake as a Microcosm. 88
The crustacean fauna of these lakes is more varied than that of any other
group. About forty species were noted in all. Crawfishes were not especially
abundant, and all captured belonged to a single species —Cambarus virilis.
Two amphipods occurred frequently in our collections; one, less common here
but very abundant farther south—Crangonyxz gracilis—and one, Allorchestes
dentata, probably the commonest animal in these waters, crawling everywhere
in myriads over the submerged water plants. An accasional Gammarus fascia-
tus was also taken in the dredge. A few isopod Crustacea occur, belonging to
Mancasellus tenax, Harger,—a species not previously found in the state.
I have reserved for the last the Entomostraca,— minute crustaceans of a sur-
rising number and variety, and of a beauty often truly exquisite. They be-
ong wholly, in our waters, to the three orders, Copepoda, Cladocera, and Os-
tracoda,— the first predaceous upon still smaller organisms and upon each
other, and the two others chiefly vegetarian. Twenty-one species of Clado-
cera have been recognized in our collections, these representing sixteen genera.
It is an interesting fact that twelve of these species are found also in the fresh
waters of Europe. Five cyprids have been recognized, two of them common
to Europe, and also an abundant Diaptomus, a variety of a European species.
Several Cyclops were collected which have not yet been determined.
These Entomostraca swarm in microscopic myriads among the weeds along
the shore, some swimming freely, and others creeping in the mud or climbing
over the leaves of plants. Some prefer the open water, in which they throng
locally like flocks of birds, coming to the surface preferably by night, or on
dark days, and sinking to the bottom usually to avoid the sunshine. These
pelagic forms, as they are called, are often exquisitely transparent, and hence
almost invisible in their native element,—a charming device of Nature to
protect them against their enemies in the open lake, where there is no chance
of shelter or escape. Then with an ingenuity in which one may almost detect
the flavor of a sarcastic humor, Nature has turned upon these favored children
and endowed their most deadly enemies with a like transparency, so that
wherever the towing net brings to light a host of these crystalline Cladocera,
there it discovers, also, swimming, invisible, among them, a lovely pair of
robbers and beasts of prey — the delicate Leptodora and the OCorethra larva.
These slight, transparent, pelagic forms are much more numerous in Lake
Michigan than in any of the smaller lakes, and peculiar forms occur there com-
monly, which are rare in the larger lakes of Illinois and entirely wanting in
the smallest.
The vertical range of the animals of Geneva Lake showed clearly that the
barrenness of the interiors of these small bodies of water was not due.to the
greater depth,—or at least not to that alone.
While there were a few species of crustaceans and caseworms which occurred
there abundantly near shore, but rarely, or not at all, at depths greater than
four fathoms, and may hence be called littoral species, there was, on the whole,
little diminution either in quantity or variety of animal life, until about fif-
teen fathoms had been reached. Dredgings at four and five fathoms were
nearly or quite as fruitful as any made. On the other hand, the barrenness of
the bottom at twenty to twenty-three fathoms was very remarkable. The
total products of four hauls of the dredge and one of the trawl at that depth,
aggregating fully a mile and a half of continuous dragging, would easily go
into a two-dram vial, and represented only nine species of animals— not
counting dead shells and fragments which had probably floated in from shal-
lower waters. The greater part of this little collection was composed of speci-
mens of Lumbriculus and larve of Chironomus. There were a few Corethra
larvee, a single Gammarus, three small leeches, and some sixteen mollusks, all
but four of which belonged to Pisidium. The others were two Spheriums, a
Valvata 3—- carinata, and a V. sincera. None of the species taken here were
84 The Lake as a Microcosm.
peculiar, but all were of the kinds found in the smaller lakes, and all occurred
also in shallower water. It is evident that these interior regions of the lakes
must be as destitute of fishes as they are of plants and lower animals.
While none of the deep-water animals of the Great Lakes were found in
Geneva Lake, other evidences of zoélogical affinity were detected. The tow-
ing net yielded almost precisely the assemblage of species of Entomostraca
found in Lake Michigan, including many specimens of Limnocolonus macru-
rus, Sars.; and peculiar long, smooth leeches, common in Lake Michigan, but
not occurring in the small Illinois lakes, were also found in Geneva. Many
Valvata 3-carinata lacked the middle carina, as in Long Lake and other isolated
lakes of this region.
Comparing the Daphnias of Lake Michigan with those of Geneva Lake,
Wis. (nine miles long and twenty-three fathoms in depth), those of Long Lake,
Ill. (one and a half miles long and six fathoms deep), and those of other still
smaller lakes of that region, and the swamps and smaller ponds as well, we
shall be struck by the inferior development of the Entomostraca of the larger
bodies of water, in numbers, in size and robustness, and in reproductive pow-
er. Their smaller numbers and size are doubtless due to the relative scarcity
of food. The system of aquatic animal life rests essentially upon the vegeta-
ble world, although perhaps less strictly than does the terrestrial system; and
in a large and deep lake vegetation is much less abundant than in a narrower
and shallower one, not only relatively to the amount of water but also to the
area of the bottom. From this deficiency of plant life results a deficiency of
food for Entomostraca, whether of Algze; of Protozoa or of higher forms, and
hence, of course, a smaller number of the Entomostraca themselves, with more
slender bodies suitable for more rapid locomotion and wider range.
The difference of reproductive energy, as shown by the much smaller egg-
masses borne by the species of the larger lakes depends upon the vastly greater
destruction to which the paludinal crustacea are subjected. Many of the lat-
ter occupy wateos liable to be exhansted by drought, with a consequent enor-
mous waste of Entomostracan life. The opportunity for reproduction is here
greatly limited —in some situations to early spring alone — and the chances for
destruction of the summer eggs in the dry and often dusty soil are so numerous ~
that only the most prolific species can maintain themselves under such condi-
tions.
Further, the marshes and shallower lakes are the favorite breeding grounds
of fishes, which migrate to them in spawning time, if possible, and it is from
the Entomostraca found here that most young fishes get their earliest food
supplies —a danger from which power the deep-water species are measurably
free. Notonly isa high reproductive therefore rendered unnecessary among the
latter by their freedom from many dangers to which the shallow-water species
are exposed, but in view of the relatively small amount: of food available for
them, a high rate of multiplication would be a positive injury, and could
result only in wholesale starvation.
All these lakes of Illinois and Wisconsin, together with the much larger
Lake Mendota at Madison (in which also I have done much work with dredge,
trawl, and seine), differ in one notable particular both from Lake Michigan
and from the larger lakes of Europe. In the latter, the bottoms in the deeper
parts yield a peculiar assemblage of animal forms, which range but rarely into
the littoral region, while in our inland lakes no such deep water fauna occurs,
with the exception of the cisco and the large red Chironomus larva. At Grand
Traverse Bay, in Lake Michigan, I found at a depth of one hundred fathoms
a very odd fish of the sculpin family ( 7’riglopsis thompsoni, Gir.), which, until
I collected it, had been known only from the stomachs of fishes; and there
also was an abundant crustacean, Mysis,—the ‘opossum shrimp”’, as it is
sometimes called — the principal food of these deep lake sculpins. Two re-—
The Lake as a Microcosm. 85
markable amphipod crustaceans also belong in a peculiar way to this deep
water. In the European lakes the same Mysis occurs in the deepest part, with
several other forms not represented in our collections,— two of these being
blind crustaceans related to those which in this conntry occur in caves and
wells.
Comparing the other features of our lake fauna with that of Europe, we
find a surprising number of Entomostraca identical; but this is a general phe-
nomenon, as many of the more abundant Cladocera and Copepoda of our
small wayside pools are either European species, or differ from them so slight-
ly that it is doubtful if they ought to be called distinct.
It would be quite impossible within reasonable limits to go into details
respecting the organic relations of the animals of these waters, and I will con-
tent myself with two or three illustrations. As one example of the varied
and far-reaching relations into which the animals of a lake are brought in the
general struggle for life, I take the common black bass. In the dietary of this
fish I find, at different ages of the individual, fishes of great variety, represent-
ing all the important orders of that class; insects in considerable number,
especially the various water bugs and larve of day-flies; crawfishes, fresh-
water shrimps, and a great multitude of Entomostraca, of many species and
genera. The fish is therefore directly dependent upon all these classes for its
existence. Next looking to the food of the species which the bass has eaten,
and upon which it is therefore indirectly dependent, I find that one kind of
the fishes taken feeds upon mud, Algze, and Entomostraca, and another upon
nearly every animal substance in the water, including mollusks and decompos-~
ing organic matter. The insects taken by the bass, themselves take other
insects and small Crustacea. The crawfishes are nearly omnivorous, and the
other crustaceans, some of them eat Entomostraca and some Alge and Proto-
zoa. At only the second step therefore, we find our bass brought intodepend-
ence upon nearly every class of animals in the water.
And now, if we search for its competitors we shall find these also extremely
numerous. In the first place, I have found that all young fishes of every
description feeds at first almost wholly on Entomostraca, so that the little bass
finds himself at the very beginning of his life engaged in a scramble for food
with all the other little fishes in the lake. In fact, not only all young fishes, but
a multitude of other animals as well, especially insects and the larger Crustacea,
feed upon these Entomostraca, so that the competitors of the bass are not con-
fined to members of its own class. Even mollusks, while they do not directly
compete with it, do so indirectly, for they appropriate myriads of the micro-
scopic forms upon which the Entomostraca largely depend for food. But the
enemies of the bass do not all attack it by appropriating its food supplies, for
many devour the little fish itself. A great variety of predaceous fishes, tur-
tles, water-snakes, wading and diving birds, and even bugs of gigantic dimen-
sions destroy it on the slightest opportunity. It is, in fact, hardly too much
to say that fishes which reach full maturity are relatively as rare as centen-
arians among human kind.
As an illustration of the remote and unsuspected rivalries which reveal
themselves on a careful study of such a situation, we may take the relations
of fishes to the bladder-wort,—a flowering plant which fills many acres of the
water in the shallow lakes of northern Illinois. Upon the leaves of this
species, are found little bladders—several hundred to each plant— which
when closely examined, are seen to be tiny traps for the capture of Entomos-
traca and other minute animals. The plant usually has no roots, but lives
entirely upon the animal food obtained through these little bladders. Ten of
these sacs which I took at random from a mature plant contained no less than
ninety-three animals (more than nine to a bladder), belonging to twenty-eight
different species. Seventy-six of these were Entomostraca, and eight others
86 The Lake as a Microcosm.
were minute insect larve. When we estimate the myriads of small insects
and Crustacea which these plants must appropriate during a year, to their
own support, and consider the fact that these are of the kinds most useful as
food for young fishes of nearly all descriptions, we must conclude that these
plants compete with fishes for food and tend to keep down their number by
diminishing the food resources of the young. The plants even have a certain
advantage in this competition, since they are not strictly dependent on Ento-
mostraca, as the fishes are, but sometimes take root, developing then but very
few leaves and bladders. This probably happens under conditions unfavora-
ble to their support by the other method.
These simple instances will suffice to illustrate the intimate way in which
the living forms of a lake are united.
Perhaps no phenomenon of life in such a situation is more remarkable than
the steady balance of organic nature, which holds each species within the
limits of a uniform average number, year after year, although every one is
always doing its best to break across its boundaries, on every side. The repro-
ductive rate is usually enormous and the struggle for existence is corresponding-
ly severe. Every animal within these bounds has its enemies, and Nature seems
to have taxed her skill and ingenuity to the utmost to furnish these enemies
with contrivances for the destruction of their prey in myriads. For every
defensive device with which she has armed an animal, she has invented a still
more effective apparatus of destruction, and bestowed it upon some foe, thus
striving with unending pertinacity, to outwit herself, and yet life does not
perish in the lake, nor even oscillate to any considerable degree; but on the
contrary the little community secluded here is as prosperous as if its state
were one of profound and perpetual peace. Although every species has to
fight its way, inch by inch, from the egg to maturity, yet no species is exter-
minated, but each is maintained at a regular average number which we shall
find good reason to believe is the greatest for which there is, year after year, a
sufficient supply of food. |
I will bring this paper to a close, already too long postponed, by endeavoring
to show how this beneficent order is maintained in the midst of a conflict
seemingly so lawless.
It is a self-evident proposition that a species cannot maintain itself contin-
uously, year after year, unless its birth-rate at least equals its death-rate. If
it is preyed upon by another species, it must produce regularly an excess of
individuals for destruction, or else it must certainly dwindle and disappear.
On the other hand, the dependent species evidently must not appropriate, on
an average, any more than the surplus and excess of individuals upon which
it preys, for if it does so, it will regularly diminish its own food supply, and
thus indirectly, but surely, exterminate itself. The interests of both parties
will therefore be best served by an adjustment of their respective rates of mul-
tiplication, such that the species devoured shall furnish an excess of numbers
to supply the wants of the devourer, and that the latter shall confine its ap-
propriations to the excess thus furnished.
We thus see that there is really a close community of interest between these
two seemingly deadly foes.
And next we note that this common interest is promoted by the process of
natural selection; for it is the great office of this process to eliminate the unfit.
If two species standing to each other in the relation of hunter and prey are
or become badly adjusted in respect to their rates of increase, so that the one
preyed upon is kept very far below the normal number which might find food,
even if they do not presently obliterate each other, the pair are placed at a
disadvantage in the battle for life, and must suffer accordingly. Just as cer-
tainly as the thrifty business man who lives within his income will finally
dispossess his shiftless competitor who can never pay his debts, the well-
The Lake as a Microcosm. 87
adjusted aquatic animal will, in time crowd out his poorly-adjusted competi-
tors for food and for the various goods of life. Consequently we may believe
that in the long run and as a general rule, those species which have survived,
are those which have reached a fairly close adjustment in this particular.
Two ideas are thus seen to be sufficient to explain the order evolved from
this seeming chaos; the first that of a general community of interests among °
‘all classes of organic beings, and the second that of the beneficent power of
natural selection which compels such adjustments of the rates of destruction
and of multiplication of the various species as shall best promote this common
interest.
Have these facts and ideas derived from a study of our aquatic microcosm
any general application on a higher plane. We have here an example of the
triumphant beneficence of the laws of life applied to conditions seemingly the
most unfavorable possible for any mutually helpful adjustment. In this lake,
where competitions are fierce and continuous beyond any parallel in the worst
periods of human history; where they take hold not on the goods of life,
merely, but always upon life itself; where mercy and charity and sympathy
and magnanimity and all the virtues are utterly unknown; where robbery and
murder and the deadly tyranny of strength over weakness are the unvarying
rule; where what we call wrong-doing is always triumphant, and what we call
goodness would be immediately fatal to its possessor,—even here, out of these
hard conditions, an order has been evolved which is the best conceivable with-
out a total change in the conditions themselves; an equilibrium has been
reached and is steadily maintained that actually accomplishes for all the par-
ties involved the greatest good which the circumstances will at all permit. In
a system where life is the universal good, but the destruction of life the well
nigh universal occupation, an order has spontaneously risen which constantly
tends to maintain life at the highest limit,— a limit far higher, in fact, with
respect to both quality and quantity, than would be possible in the absence of
this destructive conflict. Is there not, in this reflection, solid ground for a
belief in the final beneficence of the laws of organic nature? If the system
of life is such that a harmonious balance of conflicting interests has been
reached where every element is either hostile or indifferent to every other,
may we not trust much to the outcome where, as in human affairs, the spon-
taneous adjustments of nature are aided by intelligent effort, by sympathy, and
by self-sacrifice?
IMMIGRATION OF ANIMALS AND PLANTS.
ReaD BEFORE THE SCIENTIFIC ASSOCIATION, SEPTEMBER, 1886,
BY FRED BRENDEL, M.D.
There is no stability in nature, all thingschange. Individuals change during
life, species change in time, associations of species change by suppression and
supplantation, climate changes, and with it the appearance of landscape. Such
changes are not obvious when we compare only short periods, as single years,
for they take place slowly step by step; they are conspicuous only when we
compare longer periods, either from what we know by personal experience or
what we learn from history. We read in the works of old Greek authors de-
scriptions of their country, of shady groves full of lively springs, when now
Greece is an arid country; the woods are gone and the abundance of springs.
Many plants are mentioned that now-a-days are not found there, and conspicu-
ous plants are not mentioned that grow there at present, and would not have
escaped notice had they been there contemporary with those writers. At the
same time Germany was covered by an uninterrupted forest, and it is quite im-
probable that the many weeds now found in fields and sunny places, around
houses and in gardens, have grown there at that time; they must have immi-
grated after cultivation of the country.
As already said, changes in the aspect of a country are effected by sup-.
pression and supplantation, with other words, extinction of constituent parts of
the whole and substitution of others by immigration, the latter ones being the
more powerful.in the struggle for existence.
Before this country was settled by our race, the red man hunted the buffalo
on the prairie and the bear in the forests. The red man is gone, the but-
falo is gone, and the black bear; the elk is gone and the beaver; civilization
pushed them westward with the red man since more than half a century.
Changes in the animal habitation did not stop since. Forty years ago the bot-
tom woods swarmed with paroquets, now not a single one is found in Illinois.
Many birds once abundant are scarce now, when on every tree of this city
scores of noisy house-sparrows fill the air with their chirping, unknown there
15 years ago, This impudent intruder chased the blue birds away and somany
lovely birds. Until now he is only the unwelcome inhabitant of the city, but
as he is prolific in a high degree, soon there will not be room enough in town,
and he will spread over the whole country, as the rats did and the mice.
When a foreign animal or plant becomes perfectly at home in a country we
call it naturalized, when naturalization is not perfect the new comer is called
adventive; then it is uncertain whether the settlement will be permanent or
not. Sometimes, by chance, single individuals appear, but do not settle at all.
I recollect such stragglers that were captured in our vicinity, —one bird from
the northwest, the evening grosbeak (Hesperiphona vespertina), and one but- |
terfly from the southwest (Terias Mexicana). I have never seen a second one.
Some insects appear in single years in immense numbers, doing much dam-
age in certain districts. This is not by migration, for the same kind exist in
the same locality before and after, only in a smaller number. A beetle of the
Immigration of Animals and Plants. 89
Longhorn tribe (Clytus pictus) destroyed, about 25 years ago, all the locust
trees in town; after business was done he was seldom seen. The late State
Entomologist, Mr. Walsh, of Rock Island, said in the Practical Entomologist,
Vol. I, No. 4: About a hundred years ago this insect was well known to Forster
to inhabit the locust in the State of New York. Twenty years ago, although
the best Illinois botanists agree that the locust grows wild in the southern part
of Illinois, it was still unknown in that State. Shortly afterwards it commenced
attacking the locusts in the neighborhood of Chicago, and thence spread grad-
ually in a south, southwest and west direction through the State, sweeping the
locusts before it wherever it came. In 1860 it had pretty well destroyed all
these trees in Central Illinois. This locust-borer Walsh claimed to be distinct
from the Clytus pictus, and he names it Clytus Robiniz. The legs and horns
of the latter be stouter in the male and the body tapering behind, but the fe-
males be undistinguishable in both the species. The larva of the one inhabits
the locust, the other the hickory. If Waish is right, then, indeed, there is a
true migration; but our entomologists do not agree with Walsh, and take the
two borers for identic; then we have only an example of a periodical increase
in number. Many insects feed on different plants, and a change of appetite is
not unimaginable. The potato beetle, for instance, after tasting the potato
plant preferred that to his original food plant, the Solanum rostratum.
The potato beetle (Doryphora decem-lineata of Say) is quite similar to Dory-
phora juncta of Germar.' Both. species some entomologists took for identie,
and as the latter was known in Illinois before the ravages of the other, the mi-
gratory character of the species was doubted. The differences are so little
that they can be perceived only by a very close inspection. In D. juncta the
edges of the black stripes are punctured in a single straight line, and the sec-
ond and third stripes, counted from the outside, are united behind; when in
D. decem-lineata the punctures are irregular, and the third and fourth stripes
are united. Of what value the latter difference is show the exceptions;
in single individuals the second, third and fourth stripes are united, and in
others only on one wing-case the junction takes place. Say, himself, suspected
that the two are only one variable species, but now the entomologists agree on
the diversity of both. So we have to be contented with the asserted fact, that
before the year 1864 only the Doryphora juncta, and not D. decemlineata, was
known in Illinois, and that the latter, since 1861, traveled from Colorado and
Nebraska eastward. But this example illustrates how species are made, by
nature or by scientists. There is a variable species, different climate and dii-
ferent nourishment facilitate differences to become hereditary, and hair-split-
ting naturalists take the advantage of the slightest diversity to store our books
with new names.
The Clytus, as well as the Doryphora, are American species; they migrate,
but did not immigrate.
There is a number of injurious insects, of foreign origin, that immigrated in
North America. There is no doubt that two species of cockroaches, Blatta
orientalis and Germanica, the bed-bugs, the carpet beetle, and four little
beetles that infest botanical and zodlogical collections — Dermestes lardarius,
Anthrenus muszeorum, Ptinus fur and Anobium paniceum — came from the
eastern continent. These four beetles were probably introduced with stuffed
animals, with collections of insects and dried plants, the carpet beetle (Atta-
genus pellio) with woolen fabric. The bed-bug (Acanthia lectularia), which
immigrated at an unknown time, may be of East Indian origin, but already
the Greek and Roman authors mention it. In the 11th century it appeared in
Germany; in the beginning of the 16th century it was known in England, and
probably the first settlers brought it to this continent. There are two immi-
grated cockroaches — Periplaneta orientalis, originally from Western Asia, and
the smaller Blatta germanica, from Europe. The latter is not so frequent as
the former, and does infest mostly the bakeries. There is a third one (Peri-
planeta Americana) that spread from South America, and was imported by
ships into the seaports of Europe.
90 Immigration of Animals and Plants.
A white butterfly (Pieris Rapz), the caterpillar of which is feeding on the
cabbage, doing considerable damage, immigrated from Europe thirty years
ago. Traveling westward he reached Illinois in about 1877, and spread the
following years over the whole State.
Now there is left one insect that was generally believed to be of foreign
origin, the so-called Hessian fly (Cecidomyia destructor). But Prof. Hagen,
of Cambridge, Mass., in a paper published in the Third Report of? U. 8. Ento-
mological Commission, 1883, demonstrated that it is impossible that the fly
could have been imported by the Hessian troops; that it is very probable that
the fly was here before the war, and that the fly was not known to exist in
Germany before 1857. . .
Much greater is the immigration of foreign plants and is increasing every
year. When I came to Peoria, in 1852, the following foreigners were perfectly
naturalized and common around town: The Hedge Mustard (Sisymbrium of-
ficinale), Black Mustard (Brassica nigra), Shepherd’s Purse (Capsella bursa
pastoris) ,St. John’s Wort (Hypericum perforatum), Purslane (Portulaca ole-
racca), Common Mallow (Malva rotundifolia), the Spiny Sida (Sida Spinosa), —
Velvet Leaf (Abutilon Avicenne), Red Clover (Trifolium pratense), Common
Mayweed (Maruta cotula), Burdock (Lappa officinalis), Common Mullein ( Ver-
bascum Tapsus), Horehound (Marrubium vulgare), Goosefoot (Chenopodium
urbicum), the Jerusalem Oak (Chenopodium Botrys), the Mexican Tea (Cheno-
podium ambrosioides), Lady’s Thumb (Polygonum persicaria), Black Bind-
weed (Polygonum convolvulus), Curled Dock (Rumex crispus), Hemp (Canna-
bis sativa); and of grasses, Timothy (Phleum pratense), two species of Era-
grostis (E. poaeoides var megastachya and E. pilosa), Chess ( Bromus seca-
linus), Finger Grass (Panicum sanguinale), and the Foxtail (Setaria glauca).
Of the following species I have seen at that time only single specimens, they
are now very common and fully naturalized: The Sow Thistle (Sonchus asper),
Toad-Flax (Linaria vulgaris), the Common Motherwort (Leonurus cardiaca),
Hounds’ Tongue (Cynoglossum officinale), Stickseed (Echinospermum Lap-
pula), Sheep Sorrel (Rumex acetosella), Catnip (Nepeta Cataria.
Before 1860 were first observed Soapwort (Saponaria officinalis), Parsnip
(Pastinaca sativa), Ground Ivy (Nepeta Glechoma), Corn Speedwell ( Veronica
arvensis), the Orchard Grass (Dactylis glomerata), now all common. Then a
number not common, but occasionally found yet: The Rabbit-foot Clover (Tri-
folium arvense), the High Mallow (Malva sylvestris), the Cow Herb (Sapon-
aria vaccaria), the False Flax (Camelina sativa), the Moth Mullein ( Verbascum
Blattaria), the Thorny Amarant (Amarantus spinosus), Panicum glabrum.
At that same early time were collected in single specimens, but not seen
since: Rhaphanus Raphanistrum, Inula Helenium, Nicandra Physaloides and
Rumex obtusifolius. The Ox-eye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgaris) I collected
in a single specimen, 1852, at the fence of the Ballance field, and did not see it
again until last year, 1885, when it reappeared along the railroad track beyond
the bridge.
After 1860, but before 1880, arrived, and became since quite common, the
Water Cress (Narsturtium officinale), the White Sweet Clover (Melilotus alba),
the Common Chickweed (Stellaria media), the Oak-leaved Goosefoot ( Blitum
glaucum), and Amarantus blitoides. This plant I took at first for a prostrate
variety of Amarantus albus, and so did Prof. Watson, in Botany of King’s Re-
port, published in 1871, but afterwards made it a new species, first published,
1877, in Proc. Am, Acad., xii, 273, with the note: “ Frequent in the valleys
and plains of the interior, from Mexico to North Nevada and Iowa, and becom-
ing introduced in some of the northern states eastward.” There we have an
eastward migration of an American species. I suspect that another of our com-
mon plants, the fetid Marygold (Dysodia chrysanthemoides), perhaps at a re-
mote time, came from the southwest. All the other species of the genus and
all the genera of the whole tribe Tagetinz are Mexican, partly extending to
the states and territories west of the Mississippi.
Less common, but noticed since about twenty years, are the Cow Herb (Sa-
Immigration of Animals and Plants. 91
ponaria Vaccaria), the Corn Cockle (Lychnis Githago), the Canada Thistle (Cir-
sium arvense), bristly fox-tail grass (Setaria verticillata), and the Orab
Grass (Eleusine indica), a native of India, now spread all over the tropic and
the warmer temperate zone.
Since 1880 a number of adventive plants were observed, which may partly
naturalize, partly again disappear: The Field Pennygrass (Thlaspi arvense),
the small flowered Cransbill (Geranium pusillum), the Yellow Sweet Clover
(Melilotus officinalis), the Alfalfa or Lucerne (Medicago sativa), the common
Carrot (Daucus carota), the Thoroughwax (Bupleurum rotundifolium), the
Ripple Grass (Plantago lanceolata), the Dead Nettle (Lamium purpureum), the
Corn Gromwell (Lithospermum arvense), the Thorn Apple (Datura Stramoni-
um L), the poison Hemlock (Conium maculatum), the Prickly Lettuce (Lac-
tuca scariola), the two last are observed only this year, 1886.
The white-flowered Thorn Apple, now common in the east, came no doubt
from the old continent; but whether the purple-flowered, our troublesome
Jamestown weed, is indigenous or came from South America, that is, so I
think, an undecided question; certainly the immigration must be very remote.
I learned from farmers that the plant springs up in newly-broken land, far
from any other settlement. The seeds are heavy and not easy disseminated
very far, but they are known to keep their germinating power a long time,
and it is very probable that they, a long time ago, were buried in the ground
before they had a chance to germinate,
There are some other plants, the immigration of which is doubtful: Ceras-
tium, triviale of Link, which is the Cerastium viscosum L. in Gray’s Manual
and in Linnzus’ Herbarium, but C. vulgatum in his Species Plantarum.
[Linnzeus, by a regretful mistake, interchanged the names of the two plants,
and I think it is only right to discard ambiguous or inadequate names with-
out regard of priority. The Cerastium Vulgatum L. herb in Gray’s Manual
should be changed into Cerastium Glomeratum of Thuillier.] When I first
found this plant, it was on a place where not likely imported plants grew at that
time. Nota few plants common to Europe and North America are considered
to have immigrated by a double way to the United States, either directly from
Europe or from the north in remote times. The plant is indicated by Hooker
in Iceland; by Martens, in Spitzbergen, Greenland, Iceland and Labrador; by
Meyer, in Labrador; by Ledebour, in Siberia and Kamtschatka; by Watson
(King’s Report), in the Uintah Mountains, in an altitude of 10,000 feet; by
Parry, in the Rocky Mountains, and by Lapham, in Wisconsin. That shows
that we can have the plant just as well from the north as from the east, where
it probably came directly from Europe By the same double way we got,
probably, five of our grasses, all acknowledged by Gray as indigenous: The Red
Top (Agrostis vulgaris), the White Bent Grass (Agrostis alba), the Low Spear
Grass (Poa annua), the Wire Grass (Poa compressa), and the Kentucky Blue
Grass (Poa pratensis). The Barn-yard Grass (Panicum crista Galli) is a cos-
mopolite, and occurs even in the deserts of Utah and Nevada.
The Pigweed (Chenopodium album) and the Maple-leaved Goosefoot (Cheno-
podium hybridum) are believed to be introduced species, but Watson (King’s
Report) does concede them both to be indigenous. The first one is found from
the Great Bear Lake to Nevada, and the other from Saskatchawan to the Wah-
satch Mountains, both together in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, in 10,000
feet altitude. So the eastern states may have them just as well from the west
as from Europe, or both ways. The same is good for two species of Amarantus,
A. albus and A. retroflexus, which Watson declared as indigenous in the deserts
beyond the Rocky Mountains.
Lastly ought to be mentioned a number of plants that escape sometimes
from gardens and other cultivated places, and of which some may be natural-
ized in the course of time, such are: Silene Armeria, Hibiscus Trionum, Rosa
rubiginosa, Centaurea Cyanus, Tanacetum vulgare, Lysimachia nummularia,
Mentha viridis, Satureja hortensis, Ipomoea purpurea, Ipomoea nil, Lycium
vulgare, Polygonum orientale, Fagopyrum esculentum, Euphorbia cyparissias,
92 Immigration of Animals and Plants.
eee marginatum, Asparagus officinalis, Hemerocallis fulva, and Setaria
italica.
Now all the really naturalized plants form, indisputably, part of our flora,
just as well as the immigrated white people, as soon as they acquire their paper
of naturalization, form a part of the nation. The difference is onlyintime. All
the white people have immigrated within three centuries, and all our Illinois
plants have immigrated after the drift period to this day. All things change,
but the change of our immigrated plants is not so retrograde as Lyell means,
when, in his second visit to the United States, speaking of introduced plants,
he remarks: “It is a curious fact, which I afterwards learned from Dr. Dale
Owen, that when such foreigners are first naturalized they overrun the country
with amazing rapidity and are quite a nuisance; but they soon grow scarce,
and after eight or ten years can hardly be met with.
We wish only that might be so in regard to the rats and mice, the cock-
roaches and bed-bugs. -
THE LIBRARY GF THE
FEB 18 1937
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS