Science from an Easy Chair

PREFACE

This volume is a collection of some of the papers which I havecontributed to the Daily Telegraph during the years 1908-1909, underthe title “Science from an Easy Chair.” I have revised and corrected theletterpress, and have added some illustrations. A smaller volumecontaining earlier papers was published by Messrs. Constable in 1908,with the title From an Easy Chair. It is my intention now to produceadditional volumes (under the title “Easy Chair Series”) as theirconstituent articles accumulate, and I hope to be able to publish asecond and a third instalment at no distant date.

I should like to draw the special attention of the reader to theFrontispiece (Plate I.), which is very beautifully executed, and is, Ibelieve, the first coloured drawing yet published showing the differencebetween the adult “silver” eel and the more abundant immature “yellow”eel—sometimes called the “frogmouthed eel.” The original drawings wereprepared for me through the kindness of Dr. Petersen, of Copenhagen, whois the discoverer of many interesting facts about the{vi} common eel, andis director of the Danish Biological Laboratory.

I also wish to draw the attention of any one who is kind enough to lookat this preface to one or two more of my illustrations, because theyare, I think, of exceptional interest, and should be looked at, at once,before a decision not to read the book is made. These are theprehistoric engraving of a horse’s head, with rope-bridle in place, onpage 81; the drawings of the leaves of the American Poison-vine and ofthe Virginian Creeper on page 95; of the nettle-sting on page 113; ofthe Dragon of the Hesperides on page 122; of the big tadpoles on page217; of the jumping bean on page 298, and its moth on page 301; of theant milking a green-fly for its honey-dew on page 324; and lastly, theaccurate drawing on page 370 of the most ancient human skull yetdiscovered, and the other drawings of skulls (all to the scale ofone-third the actual length), and those of prehistoric weapons andcarvings which follow it. These drawings have been made from originalscientific memoirs, or in some cases from actual specimens, for thepresent volume.

E. RAY LANKESTER

February 1910