c"()Rri-:sp()NI)p:nce and information 



89 



Curious Growth of Vine. 



Ilnstdl, Conn. 

 To the Eaitor: 



A friend in \\'isccMisin sends me the 

 enelosed photograph of a bittersweet vine 

 whieh, after ereeping- several feet under 

 the house, emerges from a smah crevice 



THIS \IXE GREW THROUGH TJIE SIDE OF 

 THE HOUSE. 



near the window, and has grown about 

 ten feet across the window and under 

 the veranda. It is the cHmbing bitter- 

 sweet, Celastnis scinidciis, which extends 

 westward to the Dakotas. 



MiL() Leox Norton. 



Darwin and Franklin. 



Three letters of Erasmus Darwin to 

 Benjamin Franklin which"Science"prints 

 in its issue for June 2 reveal interesting 

 characteristics of these two great men of 

 science. Darwin thouoh about forty 

 years old had not then become famous, 

 and he seems to be not a little flattered by 

 the attentions of the great American, who 

 was some twenty-five years his senior. 

 He writes of his own observations and 

 exoeriments with electricity, and other 

 matters of natural historv, and he sends 

 his pauers to Franklin to be presented be- 

 fore the Roval Society. Incidentally, in 

 1787, he thanks Franklin for favors 

 shown his son Robert during his visit to 



France — where, of coiu-se, h'ranklin was 

 a very great person indeed. Robert Dar- 

 win, it will be remembered, was the father 

 (if Charles. 



.Among other items, Darwin tells of his 

 labors in printing the first translation into 

 English of four volumes of the works 

 of Linuceus, some ten years after the 

 latter's death. Franklin, it is well known, 

 had a large circle of scientific corres- 

 pondents who kept him informed of the 

 scientific news of two continents. Darwin, 

 apparently, was by no means the least 

 valuable of this group. 



The Opening of the Evening Primrose. 



UV W. I. I;EECR0FT, GKKAT I'.ARKIXGTOX, 

 MASSACHUSETTS. 



In a recent number of TiiE Guide to 

 Nature was an article on the opening 

 of a cultivated flower in which the pet- 

 als can be seen to tmfold. It is not geu- 

 erall}' known that the same phe- 

 nomenon may be observed in a native 

 idant, the common evening primrose 

 ( CEnothcra biennis). One watching 

 these plants at sundown will be re- 

 warded with the sight of the flowers 

 unfolding as he gazes upon them, the 

 movement of sepals and petals being 

 idainly visible. Stems bearing buds 

 about to open may be carried a con- 

 siderable distance and the flowers will 

 open as they are held in the hands. 



Nature fits our ever}- mood. 

 Her influence is aye for good. 



— Emma Peirce. 



The trouble with our attempt to con- 

 serve the supply of fish food, says the 

 Commissioner of Fisheries for Victoria, 

 B. C. is that we spend too much money 

 on doing things and too little on the scien- 

 tific studv of what ought to be done. 



That men and women are becoming 

 more unlike, is one of the by-products of 

 a study of ancient Anglo-Saxon bones 

 made by an English anatomist. The in- 

 vestigator finds that the modern English- 

 man is quite as tall as his ancestor of the 

 middle ages, but somewhat lighter in 

 build. But the modern woman is almost 

 precisely two inches shorter than her fore- 

 bear ten centuries ago. All this is quite 

 in line with over evidence that woman is 

 the evolving sex. while men are remain- 

 ing phvsicallv as they always were. 



