EDITORIAL AND GENERAL. 



331 



I have very few of these $ $ $ $ $ 

 $ $; nevertheless I am willing- to de- 

 vote $ $ $ $ $ producing- time to this 

 work, and members of my family and 

 my scientific friends are aiding me in 

 this — from this same spirit. I cordial- 

 ly invite you to come in on the same 

 basis. I am willing to go with ten 

 million, with ten or, if others desert, 



with none. But I shall go — so long as 

 I live. 



Will you go with me? 



In thorough earnestness, yours for 



the love and study of nature 



through the AA, 



Cordially, 



Edward F. Bigelov/. 



(pRRESPONDENCE 



AND 



Information 



!0C 



A QUERY AS TO COLEUS LEAVES. 



Tacoma Park, Washington, D. C. 

 To The Editor: — 



It seemed a pity to lose the beautiful 

 large leaves that I stripped from some 

 coleus cuttings, so I arranged them in 

 two shallow boxes of sand to form a 

 kind of mosaic, with the stems cov- 

 ered, and placed them on a porch 

 where they got the morning sun. Af- 

 ter moistening the sand and sprink- 

 ling the leaves, I inverted over them 

 an old glass fish-tank. I sprinkled 

 the leaves daily, perhaps for two 

 months during which time they kept 

 their beautiful variegated colors, and 

 were evidently "very much alive." but 

 there was no appreciable growth above 

 ground. 



Suddenly, one night, there was a 

 heavy freeze, and all the leaves wilted, 

 with the exception of one silver-spot- 

 ted leaf — I think a begonia. Pulling 

 some of the leaves up, I found them 

 richly supplied with rootlets, as much 

 as four inches long. 



Now the question arises — and I will 

 try to answer it by experimenting with 

 a new "batch," — What would those 

 leaves have done had they not been frost- 

 ed? There seems to be no attempt to 

 start a new stem. Would the leaves 

 have continued indefinitely without 

 growth, the growth all going to root, 

 or would the plants — after having 

 formed a heavv root svstem, have 



forced a new stem and grown a regu- 

 lar plant, or would they have finally 

 lapsed through the "statute of limita- 

 tions?" 



I notice that these leaves continued 

 in service longer than similar leaves 

 on my growing plants. Is it because 

 nature recognized that it was a "Hob- 

 son's choice," and so kept the leaf at 

 work "overtime" because it was the 

 last and only chance? 



Verv sincerely yours, 



G. H. Heald. 



A SHOWER OF CATERPILLARS. 



Soulsbyville, Cal. 

 To The Editor: — 



A short time ago I had the novel 

 experience of being out in a shower of 

 caterpillars. I was walking down a 

 railway cut, on the pursuit of entomo- 

 logical specimens intent, when the re- 

 freshing silence of the morning was 

 broken by the roar and shake of a 

 blast, set by a Japanese section gang, 

 a short distance back. Then, for a 

 few seconds, the air seemed full of fall- 

 ing caterpillars. I was, literally, cov- 

 ered with them, as was the ground 

 around. After alighting, they began 

 to climb up the sides of the cut to the 

 overhanging figwort bushes there, on 

 which, presumably, they had been 

 feeding until frightened by the rever- 

 beration of the blast, when they drop- 

 ped, thus causing the deluge. 



