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NATURE STUDY REVIEW [10:3— Mar., 1914 



make-up prevents the development of spores on the waxy surface 

 of many fruits, bulbs, and buds, and to this is due the good keeping 

 quality of our own winter stores. 



Proteins exist as aleurone in seeds and tubers, gluten in cereal 

 seeds, and globulin. With their contained nitrogen and phos- 

 phorous they form the essential basis of new protoplasm when 

 growth is resumed next year. 



Glucosides, another form of stored material, is exemplified in 

 amygdalin, whose bitterness, as known in peach kernels, may be a 

 protective device to check seed consumption by animals. 



Because these hibernation supplies are so safe from change they 

 would still be unchangeable in the spring ; thus plants would meet 

 the tragic fate of the sabre-toothed tiger, whose teeth grew so 

 long that they came to hinder and prevent his feeding. The re- 

 fractory molecules of wax and carbohydrate would be useless next 

 season and locked away for all time were it not that far-seeing 

 nature always provides at least one ferment which, next spring, 

 activated by subtile changes of light and heat, will break down into 

 usable form the material she has so carefully built up and stored 

 away. 



The story of fermentaton is told in part in the following table, 

 which is an adaption from "General Chemistry of Enzymes'" 

 (Euler) and . from "Introduction to Vegetable Physiology"' 

 (Green) . 



The delicate influences of autumn's changing light, heat and 

 moisture in air and soil work wondrous marvels in plants; their 

 silent operation we know only by their visible effects. The same 

 subtle factors are at work upon animals and all unconsciously 

 they respond. Many mountain dwellers seek lower valleys while 

 northern forms, as the caribou, are seized with a wanderlust and 



