RECREATIONS WITH THE MICROSCOPE 



41/ 



THE CELLS WITHIN WHICH IS THE MYSTERIOUS FLOW OF PROTOPLASM. 



stroys Nitella. Here is a case where 

 neglect or "watchful waiting" is best. 

 Sometimes I have my doubts as to the 

 value of the "watching." It is a shy 

 plant, and one of the most marvelous 

 ever shown under a microscope. 



I wonder why the books do not say 

 more about it. And when they do tell 

 of "cyclosis of protoplasm," how inad- 

 equate are those words, as one watches 

 and watches that mysterious, almost 

 uncanny around and around, and a- 

 round — and the pointer of the clock 

 says half-past eleven. How reluctant- 

 ly the bell glass goes over that micro- 

 scope! 



Interesting But Not True. 



No matter how hard the scientist 

 tries to disseminate accurate informa- 

 tion, he finds some irresponsible just 

 ahead of him with a story of plants or 

 animals so wonderful that a public, 

 educated via the moving picture route, 

 much prefer it to any sober statement 

 of fact. It is easy for the reporter on 

 the hunt for a "human interest" story 

 to contort the facts until they have 

 little semblance to the truth in his ef- 

 forts to entertain the public. The ad- 

 vertiser of a set of natural history 



books that are at present being intro- 

 duced to the pubiic asks in one of his 

 circulars, "Do you know that the dew 

 plant kills and eats every fly that 

 alights on its petals by ensnaring with 

 a sticky substance?" We confess that 

 this is news to us. We have seen the 

 sun-dew but never one that caught 

 flies with its petals. In another place 

 this same individual informs us that 

 his books will tell us why an ant's head 

 may often be seen walking by itself 

 without a body. Since the ant's legs 

 are attached to its thorax and not to. 

 its head we hope we may never en- 

 counter this remarkable sight. We 

 know of several people who would 

 never seek for the explanation of such 

 a phenomenon in a book. It would be 

 the Keeley Cure for theirs. Much as 

 we value knowledge, we incline to 

 agree with Josh Billings that "It is a 

 good deal better to know less, than to 

 know so much that ain't so." — "The 

 American Botanist." 



One gets an idea of the enormous 

 number of different sorts of rust fungi 

 from the fact that of the twenty-two 

 genera found in the British Isles, the 

 genus Puccinia alone contains 1300 

 known species. 



