344 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



the old school. The best books are the 

 French, next the English, next the 

 American, and the German last. 



So far I have been dealing with de- 

 structive criticism, and if my argu- 

 ments so far have proved to you sound, 

 I have shown that there lias been a 

 great and woeful lacuna in the manner 

 in which microscopy is presented to the 

 people. I do not want to bring only a 

 torch to destroy and no hammer to 

 build. On the contrary, I am hopeful 

 of being able to start a movement along 

 the right track. I can conceive of no 

 better work than the preparation of 

 microscopic slides selected for their 

 beauty. 



It had been my hope, before this lec- 

 ture, to get in touch with many of your 

 members, secure their consultation and 

 advice, discuss with them this angle of 

 beauty, and make a series of lantern 

 slides to illustrate my meaning. Lack 

 of time, however, has prevented this, 

 and, in consequence, I have drawn up 

 a rough list. 



I have divided a rough list of one 

 hundred slides into twenty-five groups, 

 with four pictorial types in each, avoid- 

 ing section-making in each and every 

 case. Every specialist in each of these 

 lines would be able to give better ex- 

 amples, without doubt. As a practical 

 result of this talk, I should esteem it a 

 great favor if members interested in 

 any of these fields would write to me 

 what they consider the lovliest micro- 

 scopic objects in their particular do- 

 main, especially those which are easily 

 secured and may be permanently 

 mounted. 



Four years of study of the yellow 

 clothes (Tincola biccllieUa) shows that 

 no known method of moth-proofing 

 cloth is of any practical use. Even 

 fabrics that had been soaked in corro- 

 sive sublimate proved a perfectly 

 wholesome food for the young insects. 

 Cedar, tobacco and gasoline are equally 

 ineffective. Camphor and napthalene, 

 however, are promptly fatal in closed 

 places. 



Somewhere in the Country Side. 



All about are the graceful elms, 



And on almost every one 

 Is the pendant nest of an oriole, 



A swing in the morning sun. 



—Emma Peirce. 



The Simplest and Smallest of Flower- 

 ing Plants. 



BY EDWARD E. BIGELOW, ARCADIA, SOUND 

 BEACH, CONNECTICUT. 



Here is a photograph of the simplest 

 and smallest flowering plant in the 

 known world. Complete it is repre- 

 sented by one of the small egg-shaped 

 green bits that in the photograph, ow- 

 ing to the special lighting used, appear 





FLOATING PLANTS. 

 The largest branching colonies are Axolla; the small- 

 est plants are Wolffia; those of the intermediate size are 

 Lemna minor.. 



Photograph by Dr. Emmeline Moore. 



Cut from "The Life of Inland Waters" (Needham and 

 Lloyd) by courtesy of The Comstock Publishing Com- 

 pany, Ithaca, New York. 



to be white. They are photographed in 

 comparison with two pinheads maked 

 "x," to show relative size. It will be 

 seen that each plant, even the largest, 

 is not one-quarter the size of the pin- 

 head, and some are not even one-tenth 

 of that size. Yet astonishing as it may 

 seem, this tiny plant that requires a 

 microscope to reveal its details, is a 

 phaenogamous or flowering plant, pro- 

 ducing flowers and seeds. The flower 

 is the simplest possible, consisting of 

 only a single stamen with a one-celled, 

 two-valved anther and producing a 

 single seed or, as the botanist would 



