The Kingdom of ManLankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
History
The Kingdom of Man
Lankester, E. Ray (Edwin Ray), Sir
African trypanosomiasis; Human beings; Science -- History
known to us are still far from the beginning of life. They contain
a highly developed and varied animal fauna--and something like the
whole of the older moiety of rocks of aqueous origin have failed as
yet to present us with any remains of the animals or plants which
must have inhabited the seas which deposited them. The boring of a
coral reef initiated by Professor Sollas at the Nottingham meeting
of the British Association in 1893 was successfully carried out,
and a depth of 1,114½ feet reached. Information of great value to
geologists was thus obtained.
[Illustration: FIG. 13.
The Freshwater Jelly-fish of Regent’s Park (_Limnocodium
Sowerbii_) magnified five times linear.
It was discovered in the tropical lily tank of the Botanical
Gardens in June, 1880, and swarmed in great numbers year after
year--then suddenly disappeared. It has since been found in
similar tanks in Sheffield, Lyons, and Munich. Only male
specimens were discovered, and the native home of the wonderful
visitor is still unknown.]
[Illustration: FIG. 14.
The minute polyp attached to the rootlets of water-plants--from
which the Jelly-fish _Limnocodium_ was found to be ‘budded off.’]
[Illustration: FIG. 15.
One of the peculiar sense-organs from the edge of the swimming
disc of _Limnocodium_. C, cavity of capsule; EC, ectoderm; EN,
endoderm. Sense-organs of identical structure are found in
the Freshwater Jelly-fish of Lake Tanganyika and in no other
jelly-fish.]
_Animal and Vegetable Morphography._--Were I to attempt to give an
account of the new kinds of animals and plants discovered since 1881,
I should have to offer a bare catalogue, for space would not allow
me to explain the interest attaching to each. Explorers have been
busy in all parts of the world--in Central Africa, in the Antarctic,
in remote parts of China, in Patagonia and Australia, and on the
floor of the ocean as well as in caverns, on mountain tops, and
in great lakes and rivers. We have learnt much that is new as to
distribution; countless new forms have been discovered, and careful
anatomical and microscopical study conducted on specimens sent home
to our laboratories. I cannot refrain from calling to mind the
discovery of the eggs of the Australian duck-mole and hedgehog; the
freshwater jelly-fish (figs. 13, 14, and 15) of Regent’s Park, the
African lakes (fig. 16) and the Delaware River; the marsupial mole of
Central Australia; the okapi (figs. 17, 18, and 19); the breeding and
transformations of the common eel (fig. 20); the young and adult of
the mud-fishes of Australia, Africa, and South America; the fishes of
the Nile and Congo; the gill-bearing earth-worms and mud-worms; the
various forms of the caterpillar-like _Peripatus_; strange deep-sea
fishes, polyps and sponges.
[Illustration: FIG. 16.
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