158 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



The Wendell Phillips High School 

 Chapter of The Agassiz Asso- 

 ciation, Chicago, Illinois. 

 ROBERT P. \ ANDERP00L, PRESIDENT ELECT. 

 The work of this Chapter of The 

 Agassiz Association has gone on 

 steadily during the past year, the 

 second of our actual membership in the 

 Association. We have gone on many 

 field trips, one very pleasant picnic, 

 and have had many successful meet- 

 ings, social as well as business. In- 

 deed the twenty-six members of this 

 Chapter have become almost like 

 brothers and sisters. We form one 

 happy family. 



Still we have been working under 

 many handicaps which we hope to 

 overcome next year. At our last meet- 

 ing we elected the following officers for 

 next year : President, Robert P. Van- 

 derpool ; Vice-President, Albert Noble; 

 Secretary, Fanny Ludgin ; Treasurer, 

 Sydney Friendo. 



Our faculty sponsor, Mr. Edward 

 E. Hand, Professor in Zoology, has 

 promised to give us a part of his large 

 and beautiful laboratory as a clubroom 

 for us next year. We intend to make 

 for this room large cases containing 

 our collections of insects, shells, etc. 

 Next fall, when all this has been done, 

 we will send you some photographs 

 which I am sure will please you. Our 

 club with your aid hopes to do great 

 things during the next year. 



The Fall and the Rise of It. 



"Every farmer boy wants to be a 

 school teacher, every school teacher 

 hopes to be an editor, every editor 

 would like to be a banker, every banker 

 would like to be a trust magnate, and 

 every trust magnate hopes some day to 

 own a farm and have chickens and 

 cows and pigs and horses to look after. 

 We end where we begin." We all 

 come back to nature when we have 

 proved the folly or emptiness of every- 

 thing else. 



Regarding the Swastika Letter of In- 

 quiries. 



SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, UNITED 



STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM, WASH- 

 INGTON, D. C . 



Memorandum prepared by Mr. 

 Wm. H. Holmes, Head Curator 

 of Anthropology, for reply to let- 

 ter of Mr. Edward F. Bigelow, 

 dated June 6, 191 1. 



"The Swastika is merely one form 

 of the Cross and as a symbol has been 

 in use by many peoples, the symbolism 

 differing with each people. It has 

 fairly been buried in a mass of litera- 

 ture^ chiefly speculative, by persons 

 quite ignorant of the development of 

 the symbolism of primitive peoples. 



"The writer of the article is right in 

 at least one respect, and that is the 

 statement that the 'good luck' associa 

 tion is recent. 



"See article entitled 'Cross' in the 

 Handbook of American Indians, pub- 

 lished as Bulletin 30 of the Bureau of 

 American Ethnology." 



We add to the report of evening 

 grosbeaks seen at Plainfield, New Jer- 

 sey, records of the birds observed at 

 Summit, and along the Orange Moun- 

 tain ; also one record from Connecticut. 



LITERARY NOTICES. 



Germs of Mind in Plants. By R. H. France, 

 Chicago: Charles H. Kerr & Company. 

 The author says that, "Science must, in 

 the future, be made the property of all." He 

 has done well in placing before the general 

 reader a very suggestive and inspiring phase 

 of plant life,— almost plant thought. 



One must greatly commend the un- 

 selfish and determined efforts you have 

 expended and the editorial excellence 

 of the magazine. — S. Frank Aaron, Phil- 

 adelphia, Pennsylvania. 



Domesticated Animals and Plants. By Eu- 

 gene Davenport. Boston : Ginn and Com- 

 pany. 

 The aim of this work is to stimulate a 

 widespread interest in domesticated animals 

 and plants— to account for their origin, de- 

 scribe their life in the wild, explain their 

 appropriation by man, show our dependence 

 upon their services, state clearly the meth- 

 ods and principles of their further improve- 

 ment—and, incidentally, to explain heredity 

 in such a simple way as to bring within the 

 range of the young student and the general 

 reader the main facts of transmission, appli- 

 cable alike to plant and animal improvement, 

 and to human relations as well. 



