Images de page
PDF
ePub
[blocks in formation]

the teaching of the catechism in the church on Sundays and holidays after the second lesson at Evening Prayer; and the 59th canon contains a like injunction, imposing penalties on the clergy who neglect this. The custom of catechising in the church had fallen into almost universal disuse, but in many parishes it has been revived with excellent results.

The Larger and Shorter Catechisms, which, with the Westminster Confession of Faith, constitute the standards or symbolical books of the Presbyterian churches throughout the British empire and the United States of America, were compiled by the Assembly of Divines at Westminster (q.v.): the Shorter Catechism to be a directory for catechising such as are of weaker capacity; the Larger, for catechising such as have made some proficiency in the knowledge of the Christian religion.' The Larger Catechism was presented to the English House of Commons on 22d October 1647; the Shorter on the 25th November 1647and both, with proofs added, on or before the 14th April 1648; and in July 1648 both received the sanction of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland - the General Assembly, in the act approving of the Larger Catechism, declaring it to be a rich treasure for increasing knowledge among the people of God,' and that 'they bless the Lord that so excellent a catechism has been prepared.' The Shorter Catechism has, however, been far more generally used for the purpose of instruction than the Larger, which has been generally felt to be too minute in its statements, and too burdensome to the memory to be employed as a catechism. Even the Shorter Catechism is regarded by many, who substantially adhere to its doctrine, as carrying the statement of dogmatic theology beyond what is proper for elementary instruction, whilst it has been long felt to be unsuitable for the very young and the very ignorant, and its use is now almost always preceded by that of catechisms more adapted to their capacity. Its influence, however, has been very great in forming the religious opinions, and in exercising and training the intellectual faculties, wherever Presbyterianism has prevailed; for it has been, and still is, in almost universal use among Presbyterians speaking the English language, and to a considerable extent among Independents or Congregationalists both in Britain and America. In Holland also, a translation of it has been much used. It is very generally regarded, by those whose doctrinal views are in accordance with it, as an admirable compend of Christian doctrine and duty. The older I grow,' said Carlyle and I now stand upon the brink of eternity-the more comes back to me the first sentence in the catechism which I learned when a child, and the fuller and deeper its meaning becomes: "What is the chief end of man?-To glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever."-Catechisms without number had been issued by Puritan divines in England between 1600 and 1645. A large proportion of the members of the Westminster Assembly had previously published catechisms of their own. The authorship of the Assembly's Catechisms has been the subject of much debate, or at least the authorship of the first drafts of them; it being admitted that they were prepared with great care by committees of the Assembly. Probably their authorship is to be ascribed entirely to these committees; and, like the Westminster Confession of Faith, they are thus the result of the joint labours of many.

See Ehrenfeuchter, Geschichte des Katechismus (1857); Niemeyer, Collectio Confessionum (1840); Schaff's History of the Creeds of Christendom (3 vols. New York, 1876; Lond. 1877); and Prof. Mitchell's Catechisms of the Second Reformation (1887),

CATECHUMENS

Ca'techu, a substance employed in tanning and dyeing and medicinally as an astringent. The catechu of commerce is obtained chiefly from two East Indian trees (Acacia Catechu and A. Suma), The former is common in most parts of India, and also in tropical East Africa, and the latter grows in Southern India, Bengal, and Gujerat. Catechu is known in India by the name kát or kut. Cutch is another form of one or other of these names, and is a common commercial name. The trees are cut down when they are about a foot in diameter, and according to some accounts only the heartwood is used, but other reports say that the whole of the woody part of the trunk is utilised. The catechu is obtained by cutting it into small chips, and boiling it in water, straining the liquid from time to time, and adding fresh supplies of chips, till the extract is of sufficient consistence to be poured into clay moulds; or when of the thickness of tar, it is allowed to harden for two days, so that it will not run, and is formed into balls about the size of oranges, which are placed on husks of rice or on leaves, and appear in commerce enveloped in them. Catechu is of a dark-brown colour, hard and brittle, and when broken has a shining surface. It possesses an astringent taste, but no odour. It is a very permanent colour, and is employed in the dyeing of blacks, browns, fawns, drabs, &c. Ordinary commercial catechu or cutch is composed of catechu-tannic acid, which is soluble in cold water, and catechin or catechuic acid, which is nearly insoluble in cold but soluble in boiling water. The latter can be separated in the state of minute, acicular, colourless crystals. It is often adulterated with earthy substances, but its ready solubility in water and alcohol should at once show the presence of such by leaving them behind in an insoluble state. Areca or Palm Catechu, sometimes called Ceylon Catechu, differs wholly from the above. It is got from the ripe nuts of the Betel palm, which yield, by boiling, a black, very astringent extract, resembling true catechu, but of inferior quality. This substance is rarely exported from India (see ARECA, BETEL).—Gambir (q.v.) may be regarded as a kind of catechu. Terra Japonica, or Japan Earth, is an old name for catechu, not quite disused, given in mistake as to its nature and origin. About 6000 tons of catechu or cutch are annually imported into Great Britain from India.

Catechu'mens (Gr. katechoumenoi, persons undergoing a course of instruction; see CATECHISM), the appellation given, in the early Christian church, to those converted Jews and heathens who had not yet received baptism, but were undergoing a course of training and instruction preparatory to it. They had a place assigned them in the congregation, but were not permitted to be present at the dispensation of the Lord's Supper, which from the end of the 2d century was regarded as a sacred mystery. The name Catechumens first occurs as the designation of a separate body in the time of Tertullian, and their distribution into different classes or grades according to their proficiency, is first referred to by Origen. The most famous catechetical school of the early church was that of Alexandria, which had Pantanus, Clement, Origen, Dionysius and others among its teachers. The only extant specimens of the ancient catechetical teaching (which was not necessarily by question and answer) are twenty-three lectures by Cyril of Jerusalem (348), and Augustine's De catechizandis Rudibus.-The term Catechumens was afterwards employed to designate young members of the Christian church who were receiving instruction to prepare them for confirmation or for the Lord's Supper, and it is still often used in this sense. See DISCIPLINA ARCANI.

CATEGORIES

CATERPILLAR

5

Cateni'pora, a genus of fossil tabulate corals peculiar to Palæozoic strata, confined in Britain to the Silurian measures. See CORAL.

Cateran (Gaelic, ceatharnach, 'a soldier'), originally an Irish or Highland soldier, a kern; usually, however, a Highland reiver or freebooter. See CLAN, BLACKMAIL, ROB ROY.

Ca'tegories, in philosophy, the highest classes under which objects of knowledge can be systematically arranged, understood as an attempt at a comprehensive classification of all that exists. The name has come down to us from Aristotle, in whose system the categories are ten in number: Substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, situation, possession, action, and suffering. From the point of view of logic, these may be reduced to two: substance and attribute; of metaphysics, to being and accident. The Cartesians had the three categories-substance, attribute, and mode; Leibnitzsubstance, quantity, quality, action or passion, and relation; and Locke-substance, mode, and relation. J. S. Mill classifies all existences or describ-rings, not including the head, is provided with mouth organs of the adult, has three pairs of fivestrong biting jaws, strikingly contrasted with the jointed clawed legs on the region corresponding to the thorax, and usually five rudimentary stumps or

moths (Lepidoptera), and the representative in this Caterpillar, the larval stage of butterflies and special order of the grub, maggot, or larva phase in the life-history of many insects.

General Structure.-The caterpillar, so familiar in its external appearance, has usually 12 body

ages are borne on the sixth to the ninth, and on the twelfth segments of the body; some of them may be absent; in the majority of cases they are adapted with hairs, bristles, and spines, which, in caterpillars for clambering. The body may be naked or covered

able things as follows: (1) Feelings, or states of consciousness, the most comprehensive experience that the human mind can attain to, since even the external world is only known as conceived by our minds; (2) the minds which experience those feel-pro-legs on the abdomen. These unjointed appendings; (3) the bodies, or external objects, which are supposed to excite all that class of feelings that we denominate sensations; (4) the successions and coexistences, the likenesses and unlikenesses, between feelings or states of consciousness. Although those relations are considered by us to subsist between the bodies, or things, external to our minds, we are driven in the last resort to consider them as really subsisting between the states of each one's own individual mind.

The categories of Kant are conceived under a totally different point of view. The Root-notions of the understanding (Stammbegriffe des Verstandes), they are the specific forms of the a priori or formal element in rational cognition-forms inherent in the understanding, under which the mind embraces the objects of actual experience. The Kantian philosophy supposes that human knowledge is partly made up of the sensations of outward thingscolour, sound, touch-and partly of mental elements or functions existing prior to all experience of the actual world. (This is the point of difference between the school of Locke, who rejected all innate ideas, conceptions, or forms, and the school of Kant. No such question was raised under the Aristotelian categories.) Kant's categories are as follows: (1) Quantity, including unity, multitude, totality; (2) Quality, including reality, negation, limitation; (3) Relation, including substance and accident, cause and effect, action and reaction; (4) Modality, which includes possibility, existence, necessity. These indicate the elements of our knowledge a priori; and though they are the necessary conditions under which alone experiences can be realised to the mind, are merely subjective forms of its own activity, distinct from and inapplicable to the world of noumena-the thing in itself—that lies outside and beyond. Fichte based the whole system of the categories of reality on the affirmation of itself by the Ego-the primitive function of self-consciousness. Hegel carried this further, and showed that this primitive function supplied the principle needed to harmonise and unify the objective and subjective elements in thought. Thought and being are ultimately identical, and the categories are thus merely definite aspects or determinations (Bestimmungen) of the universal of thought, which is identical with reality or actual existence.

Ca'tenary. The catenary is the curve formed by a flexible homogeneous cord hanging freely between two points of support, and acted on by no other force than gravity, the name being suggested by Lat. catena, a chain.' The catenary possesses several remarkable properties, one of which is, that its centre of Gravity (q.v.) is lower than that of any curve of equal perimeter, and with the same fixed points for its extremities. It is of importance for the theory of suspension bridges. See BRIDGE.

b Fig. 1.

a, Chocrocampa tersa, showing eye-like spots; b, young caterpillar of Deilephila Euphorbide (after Weismann). Cf. fig. 5.

living an exposed life, are usually brightly coloured. The large head is divided by a median line, and bears six eye-spots on each side, a pair of short threejointed feelers, strong upper jaws or mandibles, besides jointed palps on the two successive pairs of mouth appendages. Two well-developed spinning organs open on the second pair of maxillæ forming the lower lip or labium. On each side, on the first ring, and on the fourth to the eleventh, there are nine pairs of stigmata or openings into the respiratory air-tubes. Hatschek has observed the appear. ance of three pairs of stigmata on the jaw-segments of the head. The colours are familiarly bright in many instances, and may have their seat in the cuticle or in the skin below, or very frequently in deeper regions of the body. A metallic sheen is sometimes superadded. The surface is often beautifully marked longitudinally, or transversely, or with ring-spots and eye-spots. Odoriferous and other glands frequently occur on the skin, and are in some cases (Dicranura, Orgyia) eversible. The internal anatomy of the caterpillar, though essentially resembling that of the adult, differs in some striking features. Thus while the larva has 11 to 12 separate nerve ganglia in the ventral chain, the adult insect has usually only two separate ganglia in the thorax, and five in the abdomen. The digestive system is comparatively short and simple; the circulatory and respiratory systems much like those of the adult; a few aquatic caterpillars have gill-like appendages.

History. The caterpillar develops like any other larva from the segmented egg and differen tiating embryo; its life is usually more or less active and voracious; it undergoes several mouit

[blocks in formation]

ings or ecdyses; begins to develop some of the adult structures, and falls into a quiescent pupa, chrysalis, or aurelia stage. The pupa is usually (except in butterflies) insheathed in a silken cocoon, may be fixed or free, suspended by one thread or more to leaf or branch, or hidden away underground. Among butterflies, the uninsheathed pupa may be fastened head downwards by a single silken rope fastened to the tail end (pupa suspense), or head upwards with an extra suspensor round the body (suscincta). The intimate structural changes associated with the remarkable alteration in habit of life have not yet been fully followed. One of the most important features is the appearance on the caterpillar of what are known as 'imaginal discs,' which appear to arise from the skin, and give origin to the limbs and wings of the adult insect. In the quiescent pupa stage very important changes go on, amounting to more or less of a remaking of the entire body; but it is not possible within the present limits to describe the changes undergone by the digestive, nervous, and other systems, or the very marked transformation of the mouth appendages. The cocoon in which the pupa becomes the perfect insect may be altogether absent, or very slight, or strikingly compact and protective. Some firm cocoons open very neatly from the inside by valvular lips, and in other cases the moth is known to soften the walls of its prison by means of some secretion. The gilded colour of some pupae (chrysalids indeed), so minerallike in appearance, not improbably arose, it has been suggested, in hot dry countries, and had a protective value among dry rocks. It has been shown experimentally to arise as a direct consequence of bright surroundings. The cocoon occasionally consists solely, or almost solely, of the hairs of the larva; in some cases leaves, wood, earth, &c. are used in construction; in most moths it is spun. The work of spinning the usual cocoon is carried on almost ceaselessly, sometimes for four or five days, and Trouvelot calculates that the larva of Polyphemus in distributing its silk must have moved its head to and fro about 254,000 times.

A very primitive insect type is represented by a widely distributed genus Peripatus (q.v.), which remains permanently at a sort of caterpillar level, and serves to connect jointed-footed animals or arthropods with worm-like forms. The caterpillar may be interpreted as in part a recapitulation of this historical stage in the evolution of insects.

[blocks in formation]

The caterpillar thus represents the prolongation of an ancestral and embryonic stage, while many of its characters have arisen as secondary adaptations to its peculiar mode of life. Between each moult there is a period of quiescence, and this becomes greatly prolonged in that all-important moult in which the mouth organs of the larva are modified into those of the adult. Free life at a period so momentous would evidently be disadvantageous even if it were possible. The pupa, furthermore, may come to have a secondary importance other than that of simply being an exhausted quiescence at the final moulting; it may come to be of vital moment as a protective phase, by means of which the insect survives the cold of winter or the drought of the dry season. In one case (Cossus) the preparatory stages may be prolonged for three years. From

another point of view the life-history may become more intelligible-viz. from the side of its physiology. In the embryonic development the young form is built up at the expense of its endowment of food-capital. The first chapter is one of passivity and living on past gains. When these are exhausted, and the embryonic processes completed, the larva emerges, hungry, voracious, active. In its ravages and moultings it exhibits alternate minor rhythms of activity and passivity. Finally having laid up a store of food-capital in the recesses of its 'fatty body,' it falls asleep into the more emphasised quiescence of the pupa stage. During this phase of fasting and passivity, and of life sustained by past gains, momentous changes, associated with gradual loss of weight, take place, and the final debut is made by the appearance of the active, frugal, sexually-mature, comparatively short-lived adult. It is not yet possible to rationalise the details of the life-history, but in the alternations of activity and passivity common to all living organisms, and here more marked than in any other case, the solution must be sought.

Protection and Colour.-Caterpillars are evidently enough tempting juicy morsels to birds and other insect-eating animals; their slow movements render them liable to ready capture, and, as Wallace has pointed out, their soft-walled tense structure is extremely dangerous, for a slight wound entails great loss of blood, while a moderate injury must prove fatal.' It is therefore not surprising to find that caterpillars, in common with the larvæ of other insects, have found out, or have become the subjects of, various devices for evading their enemies. The more conspicuous forms almost always possess some unpleasant attribute in taste or smell, either in the tissues generally or in special glands. Weismann notes how a curious lashing about of the tail may preserve one form, and how the juices of another attract a protective bodyguard of ants. Others are so uncanny in the disposition of their hair-tufts and colour, or in the 'terrifying attitudes' which they assume, that their cautious though hungry foes leave them alone. But distaste and repulsion may on stress of hunger be overcome, and only a relatively small number of larvæ trust to this mode of defence. Thus others are in their colour and markings so like the plants on which they feed, or the ground on which they crawl, that they avoid detection, and this protective resemblance is often not merely general and superficial, but detailed and exact. Thus some when fixed as pup to the stems of plants, are almost indistinguishable from knobs or stunted twigs. In the twig-like attitude the supporting thread is sometimes dispensed with. Others are like little splinters of wood, or the curled margins of withered leaves. The hairs and fleshy tubercles may prevent the casting of a sharp shadow. Nor is the 'mimicry' confined to resembling the parts of plants, but a palatable insect may probably save itself by approximating in colour to one that is distasteful. Bates observed a large caterpillar deceptively like a small venomous snake. Protective resemblance may be further abetted by unpalatable taste or unpleasant smell. Some forms hide during the

Fig. 3.-Terrifying attitude of larva of Dicranura vinula (after Poulton).

[graphic]

Mr

CATERPILLAR

day; others feign death when caught. In more than one species (Dicranura) the larva spurts out formic acid.

Darwin had been impressed with the colours of caterpillars, which, occurring as they do on larvæ, could not be referred to the action of sexual selection. Though, as an exception, a male caterpillar may be much brighter than the female, a the two sexes are all but invariably the same, and no sexuality or sexual choice is yet developed. Wallace attacked the problem, and maintained that the conspicuous forms were distasteful to birds and reptiles, and that the conspicuous colours were advantageous reminders of unpalatableness. To this Poulton has added the necessary caution, that animals forced by hunger will eat the distasteful beauties, and come to like them.

Fig. 4. Hawthorn twig with attached twig-like larva (a) of Rumia Crade gata (after Foulton).

For a most interesting series of studies on the colour and markings of caterpillars, the reader should consult Professor Weismann's Studies in the Theory of Descent, and the valuable editorial notes of the translator, Professor Meldola. The whole burden of Weismann's work is to show that in the marking and colouring (of the Sphingidae in particular) no action of an impelling vital force can be recognised, but that the origination and perfection of these characters depend entirely on the known factors of natural selection and correla tion,' though of course natural selection can only operate on the variations possible to the physical constitution and conditions of the organism. In tracing the presumed historical evolution of the Sphingidae, which is more or less fully recapitulated in the individual development, he starts (1) from concealed or subterranean, white or yellow, forms, with a horn on the tail and with bristles, but without markings; (2) in adaptation to life on linear plants like grasses, longitudinal markings are evolved and confirmed by natural selection;

Fig. 5.

b

a, Caterpillar of Sphinx Convolvuli; b, larva of Macroglossa Stellatarum, showing lines and spots (after Weismann).

(3) these are succeeded by oblique stripes, spread. ing from one segment to another, evolved by natural selection and correlation, and followed by the disappearance of the longitudinal lines which spoil the effect; (4) on the second last segment ring-spots then appear, and tend to spread to other rings; these are deceptively like the berries of the food-plant at one time, or have a terrifying eye

like appearance afterwards, and are often signals of distastefulness.

Poulton made a long series of experiments of a most interesting nature on the subtle relations between Lepidopterous larvæ and their surroundings. The colours and markings have a double source: (1) pigments derived from the food-plants; (2) pigments proper to the larvæ. A larva may be coloured from either or both of these sources; all greens seem due to the chlorophyll, and most yellows to the xanthophyll of plants; other colours to the proper pigments of the larvæ. The derived pigments are more frequently the basis of general resemblances to surroundings, the true pigments of special and detailed likeness. Poulton arranges the causes of colour in larvæ, in the presumed historic order of their employment, thus: (1) Ready-made colour in the internal tissues and organs, in the digestive tract, fat, and dorsal blood-vessel; (2) derived pigments which have passed through the walls of the digestive tract into the blood or the tissue under the cuticle; (3) true pigment in the cuticle and in the layer immediately below (the hypodermis). But the point of most general interest is the relation between the colour of the larvæ and that of their food-plants. Within the same species the colours may vary to suit the colour of the feeding. ground. Abundant instances of this are recorded in Meldola's notes to Weismann's Studies. McLachlan noted for instance that the larvæ of Eupithecia absynthiata were yellowish on the yellow ragweed (Senecio jacobaa), reddish on the purplish centaury (Centaurea nigra), and white on the mayweed (Matricaria). Poulton has the credit of analysing this interesting relation. He has shown that the influence of the food-plant must act throughout a long period of larval life, that the effects probably accumulate during successive generations, and that the result cannot be referred to the direct influence of the material eaten. The interpretation is rendered particularly difficult by the gradual working of the process, ofter incomplete in a single life, by the excessively complex and diverse result, and by the special character of the stimulus, for it is only part of the environment which produces any effect.' In the case of the larva of Smerinthus ocellatus, Poulton has shown that the colour relation is adjustable within the limits of a single life, and that the predominant colour of the plant is the inciting stimulus. The colour adaptation is not in this case at anyrate due to the gradual working of natural selection, but to relatively immediate power enabling the larva to suit itself to its conditions. But the influence, though in one sense direct, is a very subtle one. Poulton's investigations show (1) that larvæ have certain hereditarily transmitted tendencies towards certain colours; (2) that the colour of the leaf, and not the substance eaten, is the agent which influences the larval colours; (3) that the influence is an intricate nervous one, making itself felt by affecting the absorption and production of pigments rather than their modification when formed; and (4) that individual variations are comparatively unimportant, though it is quite possible that variation began somewhat uselessly in the pigments in the blood, &c., and were afterwards rendered efficacious by co-ordination with the environment.' Some of Mr Poulton's most beautiful recent experiments (1887) are those which show how the golden surroundings of a gilt-lined box favour the production of golden pupa. The above naturalist, to whose observations this article is so much indebted, has done more than any one else to penetrate into the physiological conditions of caterpillar colour, but much still remains to bo

[graphic]
[blocks in formation]

done in elucidating the rôle of colour in the constitution of these and other animals.

General Life.-As already noted, most caterpillars lead an active life, some roving only at night, others also in the daytime. Young larvæ have been observed to seek the light. Their movements are guided by an appreciation of the force of gravitation; they usually crawl upwards; and they always know their food-plant when they come to it. Their frequent falls from, for them, considerable heights, are broken, it has been suggested, by the springy hairs with which they are so often covered. Many of them seem to have an insatiable hunger, and eat straight on. Their ravages among vegetables and other plants are only too well known. Some forms are carnivorous, and Mr Poulton has suggested that this might arise from cannibalism induced by scarcity of food, as his observations vividly indicate. While older larvæ will apparently rather starve than take to a new food-plant, it has been conclusively shown that the newly hatched larva is not so fastidious, but is free to form special relations with occasional or rare food: plants. Trouvelot's experiments on the larvae of Polyphemus showed that a caterpillar, fifty-six days old, had consumed not less than one hundred and twenty oak leaves, weighing in all threefourths of a pound, and had drunk not less than half an ounce of water. The food would weigh 86,000 times the original weight of the larva. Of this, about one-fourth of a pound becomes excrementitious matter; 207 grains are assimilated, and over five ounces evaporated.' A few larvæ (Nymphula, &c.) are aquatic, many bore in wood,

leaves, and soft vegetable substances, others are largely subterranean.

The caterpillars of some of the silkworm suborder (Bombycina) live together within a common pouch-like cradle, and others move in file-like processions (see ARMY-WORM). Migrating caterpillars (Noctua) have been described, which move in search of food in vast armies, marching straight on over everything, until a fit pasturage is found. In one case (quoted by Kirby and Spence from the Charleston Courier, May 1842) the passage of such a host is said to have made the ground black for days; in another instance reported from America, they stopped a heavy train going at the rate of 10 or 12 miles an hour.

Comparatively few caterpillars reach maturity (happily for the sake of the plants in the next season); many are destroyed by the weather, many by hungry birds, reptiles, and other animals, and many by insect pests of the families Ichneumonida (see Art. ICHNEUMON) and Tachinariæ. The ichneumon flies pierce the caterpillars, and make them the receptacles of their eggs and the edible cradles of their larvæ.

As typical injurious caterpillars may be noticed, (1) on vegetables, those of the cabbage-moths (e.g. Mamestra brassica, and several species of Pieris or Pontia), the turnip-moths (Noctua segetum, Cerostoma xylostella), the silver Y-moth (Plusia gamma), the carrot-moths (Depressaria), the hopmoths (Dasychira, Hepialus, Pyralis), the pea moth (Grapholitha pisana), the death's head (Sphinxatropos); (2) on trees, those of the goatmoth (Cossus ligniperda), the wood leopard-moth (Zeuzera asculi), the buff-tip moth (Pygara bucephala), the lackey-moth (Bombyx (clisiocampa) neustria), &c. See Miss Ormerod's Injuri ous Insects.

The devastations of caterpillars are to some extent compensated for by the fertilising work of the adults, and by the silk of the silkworms. But apart from their destructiveness and utility, they are full of interest and of scientific puzzles. Old Swammerdam saw in their metamorphosis

CATGUT

'the resurrection painted before our eyes,' w ile moralists and poets have often delighted in pointing out the analogies suggested by the crawl. ing immature caterpillar, with faint promise of its future, by the seeming death and coffin-like cocoon of the chrysalids, by the new birth, glory, and heavenward flight of the perfected forms.

LITERATURE.—Balfour, Embryology, vol. i.; Kirby and Spence, Introduction to Entomology; Lubbock, Metamorphoses of Insects (Nature' series); Packard, Guide to the Study of Insects; Poulton, Transactions of Entomological Society (1885-6-7), British Association Report (1887), Proceedings of Zoological Society (1887); Wallace, Proceedings of Entomological Society (1867); Weismann (translated by Meldola), Studies in the Theory of Descent (1880-82); Wilson, Larve of British Lepidoptera and their Food Plants (London, 1880).

Catesby, MARK, naturalist, born about 1679, probably in London, travelled in North America in 1710-19 and 1722-26, and published Natural History of Carolina, Florida, and the Bahama Islands (2 vols. 1731-43), Hortus Britanno-Americanus, and Isle of Providence. a work on the fishes, reptiles, and insects of the German translations of the first and last appeared at Nuremberg. He died in London, 23d December 1749.

was

[ocr errors]

Catesby, ROBERT, born in 1573, Northamptonshire Catholic of good fortune and lineage, being sixth in descent from Richard III.'s Catesby, who was hanged three days after Bosworth. Robert, however, had suffered much as a recusant both by fines and imprisonment, when in 1604 he engaged in the Gunpowder Plot (q.v.). House, 8th November 1605. He was shot dead in the defence of Holbeache

Cat-fish, in Britain, is usually a name for the Wolf-fish (q.v.).-In America the name is commonly applied to a very different fish, one of the genus Pimelodus and family Silurida. Sixteen species occur in the lakes and rivers of North America. The skin is naked, and the head has eight fleshy barbules. The Common Cat-fish (P. atrarius), or Horned Pout, is one of the commonest river fishes of the United States, especially in the east and north. It is from 7 to 9 inches in length, and is a very important food fish, though its flesh, like that of all the cat-fishes, is insipid. Like all its congeners it prefers muddy bottoms, and is sluggish in its movements. The Great Lake Catfish (P. nigricans) is from 2 to 4 feet long, weighs from 6 to 30 pounds, and is found in lakes Erie and Ontario.

Catgut is employed in the fabrication of the strings of violins, harps, guitars, and other musical instruments; as also in the cords used by clockmakers, in the bows of archers, and in whipcord. It is generally prepared from the intestines of the sheep, rarely from those of the horse, ass, or mule, and not those of the cat. The first stage in the operation is the thorough cleansing of the intestines from adherent feculent and fatty matters; after which they are steeped in water for several days, so as to loosen the external membrane, which can then be removed by scraping with a blunt knife. The material which is thus scraped off is employed for the cords of battledoors and rackets, and also as thread in sewing the ends of intestines together. The scraped intestines are then steeped in water, and scraped again, when the large intestines are cut off and placed in tubs with salt, to preserve them for the sausage-maker; and the smaller intestines are steeped in water, thereafter treated with a dilute solution of alkali (4 oz. potash, 4 oz. carbonate of potash, and 3 to 4 gallons of water, with occasionally a little alum), and are lastly drawn through a perforated brass thimble, and assorted into their respective sizes. In order to destroy any adherent matter which would lead

« PrécédentContinuer »