Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 7, 2025
Its sharp mandibles must therefore become hollowed into a spoon that they may scoop up the honey; its legs, its cirri, its balancing-appliances must disappear as useless and even harmful, since all these organs can only involve the larva in serious danger, by causing it to stick in the honey; its slender shape, its horny integuments, its ocelli, being no longer necessary in a dark cell where movement is impossible, where there are no rough encounters to be feared, may likewise give place to complete blindness, to soft integuments, to a heavy, slothful form.
With many gallinaceous species the sexes differ to an extreme degree, as with the peacock, pheasant, and fowl, whilst with other species there has been a partial or even complete transference of character from the male to the female. The females of the several species of Polyplectron exhibit in a dim condition, and chiefly on the tail, the splendid ocelli of their males.
Every step can be followed in the process of confluence and modification; and the black ring which surrounds the ball of the ocellus is unquestionably formed by the union and modification of the three black marks, b, c, d, of the elliptic ornament. The successive steps in the shading of the ball-and-socket ocelli can be followed out with equal clearness.
Such villas were the fairest ornaments of Italy, "ocelli Italiae," as Cicero calls them, and their splendour may be inferred from the descriptions of Varro and Pliny.
In this remarkable little book we have the first attempt to represent the telescopic aspect of the moon's visible surface in the five rude woodcuts representing the curious features he perceived thereon, whose form and arrangement, he tells us, reminded him of the "ocelli" on the feathers of a peacock's tail, a quaint but not altogether inappropriate simile to describe the appearance of groups of the larger ring-mountains partially illuminated by the sun, when seen in a small telescope.
When I looked at the specimen in the British Museum, which is mounted with the wings expanded and trailing downwards, I was however greatly disappointed, for the ocelli appeared flat, or even concave. But Mr.
It ought also to be observed that these sitters are among the brightest species in their respective families; for instance, Hygrogonus is bright green, with large black ocelli, encircled with the most brilliant red." Whether with all the species of Chromids it is the male alone which sits on the eggs is not known.
But this spot is not in any way more remarkable than those on the plumage of many birds, and might easily be overlooked. The next higher spot does not differ at all from the upper ones in the same row. The larger basal spots occupy exactly the same relative position on these feathers as do the perfect ocelli on the longer wing-feathers.
Ward, of a specimen mounted as in the act of display, it may be seen that on the feathers which are held perpendicularly, the white marks on the ocelli, representing light reflected from a convex surface, are at the upper or further end, that is, are directed upwards; and the bird whilst displaying himself on the ground would naturally be illuminated from above.
As no ornaments are more beautiful than the ocelli on the feathers of various birds, on the hairy coats of some mammals, on the scales of reptiles and fishes, on the skin of amphibians, on the wings of many Lepidoptera and other insects, they deserve to be especially noticed.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking