NATURE STUDY. 



PUBLISHED unde;r the auspices of the 



Manchester Institute of Arts and Sciences. 



Voi<. IV. * April, 1904. No. ir. 



"A Freak of Nature." 



BY EDWARD J. BURNHAM. 



Nearly forty years ago, a boy who lived in a country 

 town not far from the city of Manchester, N. H., observed 

 a strange growth at the very top of a pitch-pine tree. Ev- 

 ery time he passed that way his curiosity increased, until 

 one day he climbed the tree, cut off the queer object and 

 carried it home. In course of time he went away to 

 school, fitted himself for his life work and made another 

 home for himself in the city, but he still treasured the ob- 

 ject which had excited his boyish curiosity. He pre- 

 served it carefully for many years, and then placed it in 

 the museum of the Manchester Institute of Arts and Sci- 

 ences. 



This queer object, for which the boy risked breaking 

 his bones, is a huge cluster of cones. There are nearly a 

 hundred of them, all perfect, arranged in eleven spiral 

 rows winding around the stem on which they grew. This 



