A PROBABLE CAUSATIVE FACTOR IN 

 THE AWAKENING OF POND LIFE 



IN THE SPRING 



By AUBREY II. DREW 



The discovery of Auxetics by H. C. Ross has raised some 

 important points in biology, but perhaps one of the most im- 

 portant is that all living matter does not possess any inherent 

 capacity to reproduce itself until it has absorbed an auxetic. 

 Auxetics are substances which cause the multiplication of cells. 

 Some time ago I was able to show that the full development 

 of the spores of Polytoma granulosa (i) could be induced by 

 solutions containing auxetics, and I suggested the probability 

 that these organisms, as well as others existing in water, 

 required the presence of auxetics in order to develop. Pond 

 water always contains decomposing organic matter, and from 

 this fact one would suspect that auxetics must be present in 

 solution. Alkaloids have been shown by H. C. Ross to augment 

 the power of auxetics as much as five-fold, and to cause amoeboid 

 or kinetic action in leucocytes, and as pond water contains 

 organic matter in course of decomposition the presence of 

 kinetics might reasonably be expected. There is a further 

 question also raised, and that is that it is well known that the 

 organisms present in any given pond vary from time to time. 

 Thus one may find comparatively few organisms in a sample 

 collected from a pond, say, in January or February. A sample 

 collected, say, in March may show Vorticella as the chief yield, 

 while at another time perhaps Coleps or Paramcecia may be the 

 most plentiful. The same thing is seen still better in an 

 artificially prepared infusion, say, of grass. If such an infusion 

 be examined from day to day, it will be found that the first 

 organisms to appear are bacteria, then, somewhat later, 

 flagellates ; these are succeeded by ciliates, and it will be 

 noticed that at any given time one particular species of flagellate 

 or ciliate is usually more pronounced than others, and that these 

 often die out, to be replaced by different forms. Finally a 

 period is reached when all life tends to die out in the infusion, 



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