270 



Notes on Diatomaceje. 

 By Professor Arthur Mead Edwards. 



I AM one of those who have always strongly advocated the 

 keeping of written and drawn notes by observers of nature. 

 However crude and imperfect the drawings may be, however 

 incomplete the written descriptions, yet, if made conscien- 

 tiously and with due regard to facts, stating what the 

 observer thinks he sees, they always possess the value of 

 truth, and at the same time serve to place upon record and 

 impress upon the mind many things that would otherwise 

 pass unheeded, and those often of great value. So by fol- 

 lowing out such a plan, the mind of the student is drilled in 

 system, the great secret of success in all scientific observa- 

 tions, as well as in other matters. For a long time I have 

 kept a book in which, from day to day, and immediately as 

 observations are made, memoranda are jotted down, often 

 accompanied by sketches, coloured or not, as the subject 

 requires. And on looking back, 1 frequently find in my 

 older notes the key to some puzzling phenomenon under- 

 going investigation at a later time. Let not the observer 

 plead the excuse that he cannot draw ; I believe that every- 

 body can learn to draw sufficiently well to give a truthful, if 

 not artistic representation of what appears before his eyes. 

 Every one can write well enough to say what he sees Avhen 

 required, and drawing is but a short-hand system of writing. 



1 believe, also, that when a student of nature has recorded 

 anything that he thinks will be of value or interest to others, 

 he is in duty bound to make such observations public. To 

 ilbistrate my belief thus expressed, I thus communicate some 

 brief extracts from my note-book, and if they prove accept- 

 able, will from time to time do the same again. 



My notes are of observations made by means of the micro- 

 scope, and the first is relative to one of those curious atomies 

 of the vegetable kingdom, the Diatomacese. A few days since 

 (Sept., 1869) I made a gathering in a ditch communicating 

 with the salt water of the Hudson River, opposite the city of 

 New York, at WeehaAvken, N. J. Of course the water in 

 the ditch was salt, and, in fact, in it last spring I had caught 

 specimens of Stickleback (Gasterosteus) which had come up 

 there from the river to spawn, as is their wont to do. The 

 Ten-spined Stickleback (G. pungitius) I had fuund very plen- 

 tiful, and mixed with it a few individuals of the Three-spined 

 (G. aculeatus) ; in fact these fish occurred in such numbers 



