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Manawatu Herald, 26 March 1898, Page 4

-TjUL'rri.Tr ■i.-v" ii i i 1 1 i ii,»,u tMiy an "^> FLYING CRUSTACEANS. Tiny and Grotesque Marine Creatures That Possess tlio Power ot Flight. Asido from birds and insects, we aro already acquainted with several animals which, owing to a special aclaptnoss in ono or another of their parts, are ahle to fly or at least to maintain themselves in the air for a longer or shorter timo. Such creatures aro bats and the flying equirrol among mammalia, the flying lizard among reptiles, and the flying flsh. All theee belong to tho vertcbrata. Quite recently, however, analogous examples have 1 been brought to light among inverta- ; FIG. I.— FLT ING CBEATUKE OF THE SEA. brates. Insects are no longer the only known arthropods which have tho power of cleaving spaco and transporting themsolves through tho atmosphoro. Tho same ability is found to bo actually enjoyed by a crustacean, a very small ono at thafc, and reminding us neither in sizo nor shape of the familiar lobster or crawfish. Tho facts in connection with this surprising discovery havo been translated from the French by Popular Scienco News and are as follows: Dr. Ostrooumoff, director of tho biological station at Sevastopol,' was on a boating excursion last summer along the shores of the Crimea, One morning, tho sea being quito calm and the sky of that deep bluo only seen in southern latitudes, ho perceived vast numbors of diminutive objects flying in clouds, like gnats, abovo tho surface of the water. Drawing nearer to the phenomenon, the naturalist was ablo to observe it at his leisure, and this is what ho saw: Each one of the tiny beings first poised itself for a moment on the surface, as if to gather strength, then leaped up, described a long and gentle curve in tho air and ended tho movement by falling back into the liquid element. Some of the animals being quickly caught and placed under a micro* scope, M. Ostrooumoff was astonished at finding that they wero simply crustaceans, such- as are quito common in the Blaok sea, belonging to the speoies Fontellina xnediterranea. ! Some of the small crustaceans, when microscopically examined, present a decidedly grotesque appearance. Calacolanus pavo, for example, which abounds in tho Mediterranean, has a transparent body, with eight feathers of a gold yellow color placed symmetrically at the extremity of the abdomen (Fig. 1). Another copepod crustacean possesses similar appendages, bufc much more developed. This ls Copilia vitrea (Fig. 8), a \ FIG. H.— FLYING CREATURE 07 THB SEA. queer looking little being, also with a transparent body and displaying on eaoh limb a feather fan of a briok red color. The discovery of this power of flight as possessed by crustaceans furnishes . an additional proof that nature sometimes attains a given end through an infinite variety of processes. Who can cay that man, by imitating natural processes, may not ono day flnd a method of overcoming certain kinds of obstructions, such as water courses, ditches and wells, by raising himBelf in the air and remaining thore for a sufficient length of time? The Newly Discovered Element. , "Argon, ' ' the hitherto unknown element which Lord Rayleigh and Professor Ramsay have discovered in the air, is a harmless sort of commodity, and lt constitutes only about one ono hundred and twontieth of the atmosphere. But thafc we should have so nearly arrived afc the olose of the nineteenth century without oven suspecting that the mixturo of nitrogen and oxygen which wo have been inhaling was adulterated with anything besides new mown hay, spring flowers, salt sea breezes and odors from oil refineries, as the New [York Tribune puts it, is an astonishing faot. The principal constituents of air exist therein in the proportion of about 77 parts of nitrogen to 21 of oxygen, by weight, 'and argon is believed to form about 1 per 'cent of "atmospheric nitrogen." Hence eight one'thousandths of the weight of jthe atmosphere, or about two ounces of the 16 pounds pressure to tho squaro inch, Is due to tho newly discovered element. Lord Rayleigh was engaged for years in experiments before he foit sure that he was dealing with a hitherto unknown substance. Ono circumstance which to him seemed highly significant was that nitrogen isolated from tho air, which is thought to be merely a mechanical mixture, always seemed heavier than that obtained irom chemical combinations.