The claspers seem to be the tergal portions of the ninth segment. On the sides of the seventh and eighth segments may be clearly seen leaflike appendages, which are possibly branchial in their nature ([Figs. 5] and [6]). They are extremely tenuous, and appear like clusters of filaments, slightly adhering together and forming lamellate appendages similar to the gill-like appendages seen in the early stages of Potamanthus, a neuropterous insect, not, however, having the definiteness of these structures. While in Potamanthus one may easily trace the ramifications of the tracheal system, I have not been able to detect a similar connection with these appendages in Aphrophora. Certainly the insect does not depend upon these structures for respiration, as when the creature is perfectly dry it seems to suffer no immediate inconvenience, but will crawl about the table or even on the dusty floor and live for an hour or two in this condition. The usually glabrous surface of the body, however, becomes shriveled after a while. On the other hand, it immediately sinks in water, and will live for some time immersed in this way, and this leads me to believe that the appendages above described may perform a slight respiratory function. The fact that the insect immediately sinks may be cited as an additional evidence that it does not emit air.
It is interesting to observe that regarding this stage of Aphrophora as an aquatic stage, since it lives immersed in fluid, we have the same behavior that we observe in the aquatic stages of other Hemiptera, as well as in insects of other orders. The great water beetle Hydrophilus has an aquatic larva. Myall, quoting Lyonet, says: “They never remain long at the bottom of the water; air is necessary for them, and this they take in by the tail, which they raise from time to time to the surface of the water.” In the larva of Dysticus, another water beetle, the only functional spiracles are the last pair, opening at the tail. The little oval beetles, known as whirligigs, from their rapid whirling motion, when swimming on the surface of the water carry down a bubble of air on the end of the abdomen, and when this has been exhausted in the process of respiration rise to the surface for a fresh bubble. The larvæ of some forms are furnished on each side with long respiratory filaments.
A number of neuropterous insects whose early stages are passed in the water are furnished with branchial tracheæ or false gills. These consist of filaments springing from the sides of the abdominal segments. In the early stages of certain dragon flies the rectum supports epithelial folds which are filled with fine tubes from the tracheal system. Among certain aquatic insects belonging to the order of Hemiptera the creatures reach out the hinder portion of the body to secure air. Dr. Myall, in his very interesting book on the Natural History of Aquatic Insects, says: “A Nepa or a Ranatra may sometimes be seen to creep backward along a submerged weed until the tip of its breathing tube breaks the surface of the water.”
The Aphrophora while immersed in the watery fluid, whether secreted by itself or consisting of clear water which has been supplied to it, reaches out for air in a precisely similar manner. Primarily the froth made by this insect not only keeps the body moist, but acts as a protection against its enemies.
A number of individuals may often be found in one fleck of froth, and they are entirely hidden from sight while immersed in this way. The viscid character of the fluid secreted insures the retention of the air the insect collects in the form of little bubbles. This peculiar feature must have been a secondary acquisition. The bubbles not only surround the insect and the stem upon which it rests, but flows in a continuous sheet between the ventral plates of the abdomen, and the insect probably utilizes this air in the manner of other air-breathing aquatic larvæ—namely, through its spiracles. As many aquatic larvæ respire in two ways, either inhaling air through the spiracles or by means of branchial leaflets, so Aphrophora may likewise utilize its branchial tufts for the same purpose. For this reason we can understand how each fresh bubble added to the mass may aërate the fluid, so to speak, and thus insure at intervals a fresh supply of oxygen.
THE NEGRO SINCE THE CIVIL WAR.
By N. S. Shaler,
DEAN OF THE SCIENTIFIC SCHOOL OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
The admirable conduct of the negro during the civil war made it seem possible to have the readjustment of his relations on the basis of freedom brought about with a minimum of friction. As a whole, the former slaves had stayed on the land where they belonged. Many of those who had wandered, moved by the homing instinct so strong in their race, found their way back to their accustomed places. The bonds of mutual interest and old affections were enough, had the situation been left without outside disturbance, to have made the transition natural and easy. It is true that the negro, with his scant wage paid in supplies, would not have advanced very far in the ways of freedom. He would have been hardly better than the middle-age serf bound to his field. It would, however, have been better to begin with a minimum of liberty, with provision for schooling and a franchise based on education. But this was not to be. Political ends and the popular misconception of the negroes as beings who differ from ourselves only in the color of their skin and in the kink of their hair led to their immediate enfranchisement and to the disenfranchisement of their masters. This was attended by an invasion into the South of the worst political rabble that has ever cursed the land. There were good and true men among the carpet-baggers, but as a lot they were of a badness such as the world has not known since captured provinces were dealt out to the political gamblers of Rome.
The effect of the carpet-bag period on the negroes was to raise their expectations of fortune to the highest point, and then to cast them down. Those of the poorest imaginations looked for forty acres of land and a mule. In the resulting political corruption the native whites and blacks endured even greater losses than the war had inflicted, the most grievous being a great unsettling of the relations between the races. The way in which the white men of the better sort met this trial is fit to be compared with the best political achievements of their folk. Gradually, on the whole without violence, for they had to abstain from that, working within the limits of the Constitution to which they had been forced to trust for their remedies, they rewon control of their wasted communities, and brought them back to civilized order. There was a share of terrorism and shame from such devices as tissue ballots to lessen the dignity of this remarkable work, yet it remains a great achievement—one that goes far to redeem the folly of the secession movement. The full significance of this action is yet to be comprehended.
The overthrow of the carpet-bag governments, quietly yet effectively accomplished, removed the only danger of war between the blacks and whites. We can not well imagine another crisis so likely to bring about a conflict of that kind. The blacks were driven from power. Their desperate leaders would willingly have led them to fight, but the allegiance to the ancient masters was too strong, their trust in the carpet-bagger, for all his affectation of love, too slight to set them on that way. The negro fell back as near as might be to the place he held at the close of the war. His position was thereafter worse than it was at that station in his history, for the confidence and affection which the behavior of their servants during the rebellion had inspired was replaced in the mind of the dominant race by an abiding sense of the iniquities in which the ex-slaves had shared. Thereafter, and to this day, the black man is looked upon as a political enemy, who has to be watched lest he will again win a chance to control the state. In the greater part of the South this fear is passing away. In several States new laws concerning the franchise have made it practically impossible for the negro vote to be a source of danger for some time to come—until, indeed, the negro is better educated and has property. There is a share of iniquity in these laws, as there is apt to be in all actions relating to a situation that rests on ancient evils, but their effect is better than that of terrorism and tissue ballots which it replaces. They will afford time for the new adjustments to be effected.