were as well as at first, and specimens were
exhibited to the members of the Chemical Discussion
Association of the Pharmaceutical Society.
Some have lived on for two months, and are
apparently still healthy, and increased in size.

"Moreover, the acari from the extracts of
taraxacum and colocynth have lived on strychnine
equally well with those from nux vomica;
and, to show their indifference to the quality of
food presented to them, will partake of strychnine,
morphine, or cheese, with equal avidity.

"Poison–mites having a relish for cheese, I
thought that cheese–mites ought not to object
to poison, and so, having obtained some from a
cheesemonger, treated them to powdered strychnine.
But they all died; the change in diet
was too sudden. Obviously they should have
been placed on a mixed diet first, for in another
experiment a number greedily ate up some
cheese, with which twenty per cent of strychnine
had been thoroughly incorporated.

"The fact, then, that substances which are
intensely poisonous to the higher animals do
not affect acari is thus substantiated. This is
more especially astonishing in reference to
strychnine, which is of all poisons one of the
most energetic, its frightful effects on the
nervous and muscular systems being but too well
known. Again, strychnine is a very stable body,
standing almost alone among organic principles
in its power of resisting the carbonising action
of concentrated and hot sulphuric acid. And
yet, setting aside its tetanic influence, its assimilation
as food is not altogether inconceivable,
for, as is well known, it is very susceptible of
oxidation, and if eaten by an animal whose
nervous system differs from that of most other
animals, it would, after solution and circulation,
be readily oxidised in the blood, and its chief
elements removed by the lungs.

"With regard to the action of poisons generally,
the above facts would seem to be but one
extreme of a chain of evidence, many links of
which, it is true, are still wanting, but which
appears to indicate that a so–called poison is
only a poison when the animal taking it is
unaccustomed to it, or when the amount swallowed
is far larger than that usually taken in the system.
Thus in all parts of the world men are to
be found who gradually habituate themselves to
eat arsenic, opium, tobacco, &c., until their daily
dose is sufficient to kill from two to ten persons
of their own species. Sheep have been known
to gradually consume unwholesome plants to
such an extent as to render their flesh capable
of producing serious effects upon those
partaking of it. Hedgehogs will, I am told by a
high authority, eat almost anything; and the
common toad cares little for hydrocyanic acid or
the ordinary mineral poisons. In these and
many other instances that might be mentioned,
a very large amount of the particular poison
would have to be taken before the usual effect
ascribed to it could be produced. Ultimately
we come down to acari, a class that may be
brought to subsist entirely upon a so–called
poison: for here strychnine is only a poison in
the same sense that starch would be a poison
to man, namely, in that it does not contain
every element necessary for the reproduction of
tissue.

"But the physiologist can better generalise
on this subject, and will, I am sure, find it a
field of research yielding rich fruit; for, in the
words of Professor Busk, F.R.S., 'The facts
concerning these acari would seem to point out
the interest that would attend experiments in
the same direction on other articulate animals,
and suggest that they might all be found
equally proof against poisons which act powerfully
on the nervous system of higher animals.' "

NOTES OF INTERROGATION.

I HAVE many reasons for growling at every,
thing. I am rheumatic; I am a comfortless old
bachelor; I am a disappointed barrister; I am
a writer of epics that I cannot get published;
I once stood for the Cheshire Hundreds, and
lost the election—also two thousand pounds; I
hate London, and yet am obliged to live in it;
I detest government offices, and yet am in the
Docket–office—an expensive establishment kept
up to study how best, some years hence, to reduce
the expense of government offices. I live with
three cross old–maid sisters, and am generally
called "Diogenes" by my friends. When I
growl at existing nuisances, I could spit at them
all, and turn yellow with suppressed bile at daily
seeing those Docket–office striplings who sneer
over the newspaper at my spencer, my big
umbrella, my gold spectacles, and my low–brimmed,
good substantial beaver hat.

I am become an incarnate mark of interrogation,
from constantly asking who is it that
prevents the removal of existing annoyances?
It is of no use railing at the general public, for
that is only kicking a feather–bed; it is of no use
going round to all the boards of guardians, and
pulling their collective noses, for then I should
get into prison, and there I should have to
complain of felons' luxuries and spurious
philanthropy. Nor can I go and preach in the street,
for then I shall be sure to be taken up as a
vagrant zealous Christian. So, in default of
all these different methods, I have determined,
before this chronic liver complaint of mine
becomes fatal, as I know it will one day,
to draw up a sort of code of great and small
grievances, taking them just as they rise in my
mind.

To begin:

Why is it, when the Parisians and Americans
have for years had lofty and comfortable
omnibuses, that we, their notorious superiors (no
one, I think, will deny this), have not loftier
omnibuses, with two brass rods running along
either side of the roof, to aid the passenger who
has to enter and take his seat while the vehicle
is still in motion, and who now treads on every
one's toes, and eventually wedges himself down
into his place by sheer brute force? Why
should I have to poke at the conductor's ribs,
and to make vain signals of my desire to be put