64 POPULAR ERRORS. 



spring up in a cellar entirely shut up from the 

 light, both of the sun and moon; and the little 

 plants were very white. Some of them were ex- 

 posed for several nights to the action of the moon's 

 rays, while others, also in full growth, were kept in 

 complete darkness. The former acquired a green 

 color, like that of the same plants exposed in the 

 open air, and even to the sunlight; those, on the 

 contrary, kept constantly protected from the light 

 of the sun and moon were not at all colored and 

 ultimately rotted." 



The Abbe" Tessier " made a great number of ex- 

 periments upon etiolated plants which had become 

 white or yellow from being kept in the dark, and 

 observed that those exposed to the light of the 

 moon, and kept in the dark during the day, were 

 evidently less yellow or white than those kept in 

 the dark day and night." 



Prof. Zantedeschi repeated the experiments of 

 these two observers, and found that after six nights' 

 exposure to the rays of the full moon the color of 

 etiolated plants had assumed a yellowish tint which 

 appeared to be changing to the green color, while 

 plants of the same kind which had been kept con- 

 tinually in the dark remained white. The same 

 writer found that the light of the moon had the 

 effect of reviving some drooping seedlings of 

 mimosa. 



