1887.] NEW- YORK MICROSCOPICAL SOCIETY. 65 



he found that his insidious, feverish foe had plied him so hard, 

 that his eyes were useless, and the discharge from his nose so 

 copious, and the accompanying cough so continuous that his 

 fellow officers considered him to be in the last stages of con- 

 sumption. But a few days rest at Knoxville, some fifty miles 

 distant, restored him to duty. Great excitement, in his case at 

 least, seemed to arrest the symptoms of the disease. For he also 

 reports, that, on another occasion, he went into battle while suf- 

 fering severely from Hay Fever, and during the intense excite- 

 ment of action the symptoms passed away, only, however, to re- 

 turn with redoubled violence when the fighting ceased. 



In the former days of " low necks and short sleeves " we have 

 known of little girls, who could not be tempted twice, even by 

 the abundant and luscious fruit of a New Jersey peach-orchard, 

 to venture under the trees and secure the coveted prize, without 

 the protection of some large outer garment thrown over the 

 shoulders. They had been warned by an almost unendurable, 

 burning irritation of the exposed, delicate cuticle, occasioned 

 by the soft, but deceptive down from the beautiful fruit. 



This down is formed by an abundant growth of vegetable 

 hairs, springing from every portion of the skin of the Peach. A 

 usual number, apparently, is about 7,000 hairs to the square 

 inch. If a Peach of fair size has about twelve square inches of 

 surface, then there may be found upon the one specimen no less 

 than 84,000 hairs. And the abundance of these minute instru- 

 ments of torture upon even one tree in full fruit is almost 

 inconceivable. 



These hairs are slender, cylindrical, unbranched, smooth, 

 glassy, quite sharply pointed at the distal end, and suddenly 

 tapered at the base. They are from .01 to .06 of an inch in 

 length, and about .001 of an inch in average diameter. They 

 are provided with a tubular cavity running through the entire 

 length nearly to the pointed extremity. In the plump, vigorous 

 and apparently growing hairs this cavity is extremely small in 

 diameter, and is often interrupted, or at least invisible, in nu- 

 merous portions of its length. In the hairs which appear to be 

 older, the cavity is larger in diameter, and is frequently filled in 

 detached portions with granular matter, and also frequently, and 

 especially near the base, shows bubbles of air. And finally there 

 are some of the longest hairs which are evidently exhausted ; 



