282 The Microscope. 



certain to come in contact with the sticky dished pollina, and 

 withdraw them from the anthers, and in their visits to other flowers 

 of the same species, bring them in contact with the stigmas, and so 

 effect cross-fertilization. These mimic pollen grains are produced 

 by the dissociation of the cells composing the numerous moniliform 

 hairs borne on the labellum. This is the first recorded instance 

 where plant hairs have been adapted to such an end. — The Western 

 Druggist. 



Tomato "Black Spot." — The tomato disease called "black 

 spot," caused by Cladosporium Lycopersici Plowright, seems to have 

 become very virulent in England. The Gardeners' Chronicle for 

 Oct. 1, figures and describes it. The fungus seems first to attack the 

 decayed remains of the style, while the fruits are small and green, 

 and thus gains access. The remarkable flattening of the apex of the 

 fruit is one of the peculiarities of the disease. — Botanical Gazette. 



Ice Lenses. — The London correspondent of Le Moniteur de la 

 Photographie writes to that journal, that in the middle of the winter 

 which has just elapsed, a student made a lens of ice, with which he 

 lit the pipes of some of the skaters on the Serpentine, by means of 

 the solar rays — an experiment, he says, which was first performed 

 in the polar regions, by Dr. Scoresby, to the great astonishment of 

 the sailors, for they could not understand why the ice did not freeze 

 the beams of the sun. We may remark that Prof. Tyndall at times 

 would set fire, at the Royal Institution, to a little heap of gunpowder, 

 with rays from the electric arc, concentrated upon the powder by 

 means of a lens of ice. His explanation was that, although ice 

 absorbs rays of certain wave lengths, and is gradually melted 

 thereby, other waves it does not absorb, and these latter produce the 

 heating eflPects at the focus of the lens. It is wholly a question of 

 the relative motions of the molecules of frozen water and the 

 motions of the waves of light. When there is discord between the 

 two, the discordant waves pass through the ice without absorption. 

 — Scientific American. 



Alg^ in the Stomach of Fishes. — An Italian naturalist has 

 been studying the contents of the stomachs of various fishes, with 

 the result of finding numerous fruits and spores of algse of various 

 kinds, and he believes these animals are important agents in dissem- 

 ination of these plants. — Western Druggist. 



