28o 



THE GUIDE TO NATURE 



A PHOTOMICROGRAPH OF A SMALL PORTION OF THE UPPER SURFACE OF A CAT'S TONGUE. 

 By Edward F. Bigelow from a section prepared and mounted by H. C. Wheeler, Montreal, Canada. 



The Roughness of the Cat's Tongue. 



BY H. C. WHEELER, MONTREAL, CANADA. 



A few days ago I received a letter from 

 the editor in which he says, "I often won- 

 der why microscopy has been so sparingly 

 popularized in comparison with other 

 sciences." I often wonder at this myself, 

 when I think of the many pleasant hours 

 that the microscope has afiforded me. It 

 cannot be from the lack of things of in- 

 terest to look at, because there are thous- 

 ands of such things around every dwel- 

 ling, no matter how humble or confined 

 it be. Nor yet can it be from the cost of 

 a microscope, as there are many excellent 

 ones to be had for a few dollars and that 

 would afford any one real pleasure in the 

 examination of the common things that 

 surround us. 



Take, for instance, the common house 

 cat. Her tongue is rough, but I doubt if 

 one person in a hundred has given the 

 matter any thought as to the cause of 

 this roughness. The illustration shows a 

 piece of pussy's tongue. The reason for 

 the roughness is at once apparent. Note 

 the little pockets that the hooks' form. 

 These enable her to get the meat from the 

 bones that she has for dinner, the hooks 

 acting much the same as a rasp. She can 

 get the bones cleaner than can we with 

 our knives and forks. All members of 

 the feline tribe have this rough tongue. 

 In lions and tigers it is so pronounced 

 that to have one of them lick vour hand 



or face would very likely be painful and 

 draw blood. 



This is only one instance out of the 

 many thousands that are accessible to all. 

 The tiny flowers on the grass are things 

 quite as pretty as some of the flowers in 

 the florist's window. All they require is 

 to be magnified so that our senses can 

 become acquainted with their beauty. Get 

 a microscope and look about you and you 

 will see that the world is not such a bad 

 place after all. 



The Box Elder a Maple? 



'Ts the Box Elder a Maple?" is the 

 subject of long discussion by Amon B. 

 Plowman in the Botanical Gazette for 

 September. After examining every 

 minutest point of leaf, wood, root, 

 blossoms, and bark of the two trees, 

 and also the fossil forms of both, the 

 author reaches this conclusion. 



The box elder was an early offshoot 

 of the maple group, which took on its 

 present day characters as a result of 

 the storm and stress of the Glacial 

 Period. In other words, it is a modi- 

 fied maple, especially designed to with- 

 stand the rigors of the Great Ice Age. 

 But the buffetings of this trying time 

 have so far altered the pre-glacial char- 

 acter of the box elder that in its modern 

 form, it is no longer to be counted 

 among the maples. Nevertheless, 

 amongst other marked differences cer- 

 tain striking similarities still survive. 



