THE AMERICAN BOTANIST 63 



cal exercises which must prove of great value in directing the 

 efforts of the student. Though intended primarily as a text 

 book for schools, the volume will be found to be exceedingly 

 helpful to any who wish to become informed regarding 

 modern methods along the lines indicated. The book is 

 published by Ginn & Co., at $1.25. 



Prof. Fred L. Charles, editor of the Nature Study Re- 

 view and well and favorably known to lovers of outdoors 

 recently committed suicide at the University of Illinois where 

 he was teaching. As no cause for the rash act is known it 

 is supposed to be due to a sudden fit of insanity due to over- 

 work. 



Two small worms, inhabiting the waters off the coast of 

 Brittany and neither of them large enough to be seen well 

 without a lens have provided Prof. Frederick Keeble with 

 the materials for an entire book. These worms are known 

 as Convoluta roscoffcnsis and C. paradoxa the former being 

 dark green and the other yellow-brown. One of the first 

 things that make these worms of interest is the fact that their 

 living is absolutely synchronized with time and tide which, 

 we are told, "wait for no man" and for no worm either for 

 that matter. When the sun is up and the tide out, these 

 worms come to the surface of the sand in countless millions 

 seeming to enjoy the light, but at the first impact of the 

 waters of the incoming tide they immediately disappear be- 

 neath the sand only to appear again when the tide has re- 

 ceded. Prof. Keeble's studies after many years have shown 

 him that the reason for the peculiar behavior of these worms 

 is to be found in the fact that they possess chlorophyll and 

 that they are, in truth, plant-animals, in which there is a 

 true symbiosis between the worms and certain alga cells that 

 inhabit their bodies. During the early part of their exist- 

 ence the worms feed upon the usual microflora of the sea- 



