100 YEARS AGO

A remarkably fine specimen of the gigantic centipede (Scolopendra gigas) may now be seen in the Zoological Society's Insect House. It is not, perhaps, quite full grown, but measures about eight inches in length. It is fed principally on small mice, which it devours with alacrity. This specimen was captured in Trinidad, and forwarded to the society by Mr. R. R. Mole, Port-o-Spain.

*****

The expedition sent out to the Galapagos Islands, at the suggestion of the Hon. Walter Rothschild, last year brought home a fine series of living tortoises, which have been recently deposited in the Zoological Society's Gardens. There are in all fifty-two specimens belging to the group of large land tortoises, namely thirty-three of Testudo vicina from the south part of Albermarle Island, and nineteen of Testudo ephippium from Duncan Island. These have been placed in the old Tortoise House in the North Garden, and feed greedily on cabbages. From Nature 4 August 1898.

50 YEARS AGO

There is a legend that [Gustav] Fechner was a physicist who was afflicted in middle life by an illness which affected his sight and probably his reason, and he thereafter gave up science and took to religious mysticism. Dr. Lowrie's narrative explodes the legend. Fechner's best-known religious work, “Life after Death”, was published four years before his illness, and work on Fechner's law was done several years after. All his life he found the mechanistic view of physical science intellectually stifling, and fought against it; first with parodies and jokes, afterwards more seriously and constructively. He took a pan-physic or pan-theistic view of the natural world rather characteristic of the Romantics of his period. Unlike most of them, however, he did not turn his back on science; instead he tried to enlarge the scientific insight. Fechner was rash in speculation and perhaps entirely mistaken in thinking that scientific thought could transcend its traditional limits. The mistake was not that of a man who is just stupid ⃛ Physiologists should note the strange diet of raw lean ham soaked in wine and lemon juice which initiated Fechner's recovery from his digestive troubles. From Nature 7 August 1948.