The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 6: August 1906Various
History
The Scrap Book, Volume 1, No. 6: August 1906
Various
Periodicals
The labors in the field of chemistry which enabled MacIntosh to perfect
and patent a new sort of clothing--and that in a time when traveling by
stage coaches rendered it particularly welcome--were almost as prolonged
as those which qualified his fellow countryman in a long life to solve the
problem of constructing a durable roadway for wheeled traffic.
A third notable specimen of the conversion of a name into a vernacular
word may be taken from France, where Dr. Guillotin found himself
effectually, though not perhaps very agreeably, immortalized in connection
with the lethal implement which still bears his name. The popular belief
that he perished by the machine which he had introduced appears to be
erroneous. This rather left-handed compliment was not paid him by the
authorities, but by the voice of public opinion, which insisted that the
association of the doctor with his invention should be thus commemorated.
This list might be extended by many names which have become descriptive of
their original owner's acts or theories. There is, for example, the case
of Captain Boycott. And more recently, of course, people have begun to use
the verb "to Oslerize."
HOW INSECTS CONDUCT THEIR CONVERSATIONS.
THE MUSIC OF THE GRASSHOPPER.
Some Insects Talk by Vibrating Their
Wings, Others Stridulate, and Others
Emit Sounds from the Thorax.
Insects, like birds and animals, have their calls. But the sounds they
produce include the rubbing together of their limbs or wing covers and the
vibration of their wings, so they cannot always be spoken of as voices.
For that matter, when man knocks at a door, or rings a bell, or snaps his
fingers to attract the attention of a waiter, he is communicating by other
than spoken sounds--as is also the case when he uses the telegraph. Says
an old exchange:
Flies and bees undoubtedly mean something when they hum
louder or lower. Landoise has calculated that to produce the
sound of F by vibrating its wings, they vibrate 352 times a
second, and the bee to create A vibrates 440 times a second.
A tired bee hums on E sharp. This change is perhaps
involuntary, but undoubtedly at the command of the will, and
is similar to the voice.
When seeking honey a bee hums to A sharp.
Landoise noticed three different tones emitted by insects--a
low one during flight, a higher one when the wings are held
so that they cannot vibrate, and a higher one yet when the
insect is held so that none of his limbs can be moved. This
last is of course the voice proper of insects and is
produced by the stigmata of the thorax.
No music is as familiar as that produced by the locusts,
grasshoppers, and crickets, and, although they are not
produced by the mouth, they answer as calls, and are
undoubtedly a language to a certain extent, and indeed their
calls have been reduced to written music.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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