WHY A BIG MASS OF EGGS 



295 



Some leaves and branches were pure 

 tomato. Some were pure nightshade. 

 But some divided between the two, so 

 that even the two halves of one leaf 

 were unlike. 



Dr. Winkler's next step was to get 

 one sort of tissue inside the other. In 

 the end, he succeeded in making a 

 nightshade that had a thin film of to- 

 mato spread over it, a somewhat 

 thicker walled tomato that was night- 

 shade inside, and two corresponding 

 tomatoes skinned over with night- 

 shade. In each case, of course, the 

 general habit of the plant, the shape of 

 the leaves, and the main structural fea- 

 tures, tend to follow the quality of the 

 inside partner. But the outside sur- 

 face, smoothness or hairiness of the sur- 

 face, and the like, are fixed by the 

 other. 



Now that the old puzzle of "graft hy- 

 brids" is cleared up, various different 

 persons, gardeners and others have 

 gone on to make other curious and in- 

 teresting combinations. The field is 

 new and open to any amateur. The 

 results of successful experiment are 

 not only interesting or amusing, they 

 may have both commercial and scien- 

 tific importance. 



The award of the Nobel prizes in 

 literature, medicine, chemistry and 

 physics will not be made this vear. 



One of the latest and best works 

 on prehistoric mammals, theory, writ- 

 ten by a German professor, composed 

 in German, and printed at Jena, never- 

 theless draws the great bulk of its ma- 

 terial from American authorities and 

 New World fossils. 



Outdoors. 



Oh. there's much in life that's pleasant- 

 Books and friendship, of course, 

 Rut there's one thing far exceeds them- 

 To be just outdoors. 



Sometime much of fame or money, 

 Tn our lap Dame Fortune pours, 

 But the strength to roam denies us, 

 And to be outdoors. 



Pome in foreign land^ can travel, 

 Fow the mind such treasure stores! 

 But let me, in my own country, 

 Simply be outdoors. 



Whether bright the sun is shining, 

 Or a dark cloud threatening lowers, 

 All the same I love kind Nature 

 And the dear outdoors. 



—Edith P. Hathawav. 



Why a Big Mass of Eggs. 



Few persons who have seen the 

 great mass of jelly which surrounds 

 a clutch of amphibian eggs can have 

 failed to wonder how so large a mass 

 can be contained in the body of one 

 small animal. A recent chemical an- 

 alysis, however, reveals the fact that 

 the jelly mass is less than the half of 

 one per cent solid, the rest being sim- 

 ply water. The eggs of frog, toad, or 

 newt are, then, when first laid, cov- 

 ered with only a thin film of nearly 

 dry mucus. This immediately begins 

 to soak in water ; until in the course 



EGG MASS OF WOOD FROG. 



of some minutes it expands to about 

 two hundred times its original size. 

 Oddly enough, the egg jelly, if care- 

 fully dried without over-heating, can 

 be reduced to its first dimension, and 

 then on moistening, be made to swell 

 once more to its full size. 



A man has not seen a thing who has 

 not felt it. — Thoreau. 



