SEEING BY AID OF THE LENS. 



175 



i found that the process of bisection 

 occupied two hours' time. 



As the suns multiply in this way, in a 

 geometrical proportion, with a ratio of 

 2, it will be seen that their number may 

 increase very rapidly, and I soon discov- 

 ered that my first colony, consisting of 





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' , . . / '/\/V ' , y, ", rl l liMi ^ \. \ 



SEPARATING INTO THREE. 



perhaps a dozen had become many hun- 

 dred at the end of the week. 



I continued to feed my colony and kept 

 them under frequent observation for 

 four months. 



Having fed a number of them on some 

 of the green protococcus until they were 

 full, I had some specimens of green sun 

 animals, which might have been consid- 

 ered a different species by a person not 

 acquainted with them. 



It is interesting to see a sun put him- 

 self outside of a large desmid, a Closte- 

 rium for example, whose length is great- 

 er than the sun's diameter. In such 

 cases the sun will change the form of its 

 body to suit that of the food. 



The sun is not exclusively a flesh eater, 

 but diatoms, desmids, or any other vege- 

 table organisms are equally acceptable. 



I omitted to mention the names of the 

 two kinds of suns spoken of in the be- 

 ginning, as I know that long' technical 

 names at the commencement of an article 

 have a tendency to discourage the gen- 

 eral reader, but the small sun mentioned 

 first, is known as Actinophrys sol, and 

 the larger one, here described, is called 

 by the familiar name of Actinosphaerium 

 Ichhornii, which I recommend every 

 reader of "The Guide to Nature" who 

 owns a microscope, to study. 



Domesticated 



\ m 



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JSft. % 



THE MOUSE FANCY. 



P.Y H. L. WOOD, M. V)., GR0T0N, CONNECTI- 

 CUT. 

 (In the sudden death of Dr. Wood, Tne 

 Guide to Nature loses one of its best friends, 

 perhaps its very best for this department. 

 He was an enthusiastic coworker and 

 adviser in the establishment of this maga- 

 zine. He made many valuable sugges- 

 tions and was to be a regular staff writer, 

 also an advertiser. Few fanciers had great- 

 er experience and knowledge of pet stock 

 and all nature. He was a naturalist who 

 could see nature study in a pet cat or mouse 

 as well as in a wild animal. He was an in- 

 tense specialist in his own department, but 

 had a kindly cooperating interest in all 

 others. A notification of his death reached 

 our office a few days after the receipt of 

 the manuscript of this article, and a letter 

 telling of others of the series in prepara- 

 tion. — Editor.) 



NATURE 



When one considers the primary ob- 

 jects of a fancy and is obliged to con- 

 sider the factors of economy, time, space 

 and labor, desiring to reach a given ob- 

 jective point in the fancy with the least 

 possible expenditure of the aforemen- 

 tioned quartette of factors, he will find in 

 the mouse fancy the ne plus ultra of his 

 ambition. The primary object of a fancy 

 be it dogs, cats, rabbits or mice, is the 

 production of a strain as near as possible 

 to a recognized ideal for that fancy, 

 known as a standard. The reward for 

 this effort, since little effort is without 

 expectation of reward, is the coveted 

 blue of the specialty show and recogni- 

 tion as an authority among the foremost 

 in the fancy. In reality "it matters lit- 



