194 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



Strange Growth of an Elm Tree. 



Sidney, Ohio. 

 To the Editor: 



In this letter I enclose the picture of an 

 elm tree that is growing about a mile west 

 of Sidney. The height of the arch in the 

 highest place is about six feet. The tree 



plant louse known as Pemphigus vagd- 

 bundus Walsh. Your man was correct 

 in his explanation. 



THE ELM TREK OF CURIOUS GROWTH. 



is about two feet in diameter. Several at- 

 tempts have been made to explain the pecu- 

 liar shape. The one that seems most satis- 

 factory is that at one time the tree was 

 growing in a swamp, and as the water was 

 drained away the ground subsided, exposing 

 the roots, which then took on the life of the 

 trunk. 



Under a separate cover I am sending you 

 the peculiar work of an insect. The leaf 

 and twig are from the cottonwood. If not 

 asking too much will you identify the in- 

 sect which does the work. The man that 

 brought it to me insisted that the large 

 spongy growth is an enlargement of the 

 spherical formation on the leaf stem. 



Lee A. Dollinger. 



This is an interesting' growth. It 

 may be that your explanation is right, 

 but photographs of similar forms have 

 reached me from other places where 

 there has been no drainage of a swamp, 

 because the tree has grown on a hill. 



The other objects are the galls of a 



Snake's Eggs. 



BY H. E. RANSIER, MANLIUS., NEW YORK. 



No matter how "queer" you may 

 have once been considered, nor how 

 much your sanity may have been ques- 

 tioned, nor how foolish you may have 

 been rated, when the rest of the com- 

 munity is in doubt, isn't it funny that 

 they will turn to you for information 

 and a helping hand ? 



I have long been known to be in- 

 terested in Nature's ways, so it happens 

 that much of my material is brought to 

 me. 



In the later part of June, 191 1, a man 

 brought me a curiosity which he said 

 he had noticed while working around a 

 compost heap, about a hundred feet 

 from a small pond. The "find" con- 

 sisted of nine or ten cream white, ob- 

 long, leathery objects, finely wrinkled 

 lengthwise, from one-half to five-eights 

 inch wide, and one and one-quarter to 

 one and one-half inches long, each at- 

 tached to its neighbors, the whole form- 

 ing a cluster of what at first sight I 

 thought was a fungus. It was sug- 

 gested that they were eggs of some 

 kind, so we opened one. It had de- 

 veloped a spiral, nearly transparent 

 form of some length which was unques- 

 tionably an embryo snake! 



As I thought it would be worth 

 while to watch them hatch, I placed 

 them in a tray of sand, and left it in a 

 warm, dry, second-story storeroom, 

 where the sun could stream in on them. 

 The eggs shrunk rapidly and soon 

 dried up. From this experience, I think 

 the snake knew what she was about 

 when she selected a compost heap in 

 which to leave them, for there they 

 would have both warmth and moisture, 

 and doubtless one is as essential as the 

 other. 



The size of the eggs and their loca- 

 tion would indicate that they were 

 either those of the common black 

 snake, or the water snake. A boy from 

 the country told me that he frequently 

 found them in manure piles around the 

 barns at home, so I invited him to 

 bring me some, and while more than a 

 year has elapsed, he has not done so 

 yet, so perhaps he was mistaken as to 



