ROBisox] BIRD PROJECTS WITH DRAWINGS 215 



It would seem that the bladderwort (utricularia) might offer 

 a means for combating the mosquito. Why should it not attract 

 and devour the larva of the mosquito just as it does the tadpole? 

 If it does, one way of ridding a community of mosquitoes, it 

 appears, would be to propagate the bladderwort in its streams 

 and pools. 



The bladderwort does not withstand the frozen waters of 

 winter. But. through a curious series of events, enough of the 

 plant survives to give rise to new plants the following spring. 

 At the approach of cold weather the leaves on the ends of the 

 stems enlarge to form spherical buds. The other leaves and the 

 stems die. Water then replaces the air that had filled the cavities 

 of the plant and buoyed it up. It sinks in and in doing so draws 

 the "winter buds," as they are called, to the warmer water at the 

 bottom. When spring comes, these buds elongate, break loose 

 from the dead stem, and rise to near the surface. There they 

 quickly put oat two rows of lateral branches, on which the balloons 

 soon develop, and the new plants begin to feed in their turn on 

 the tinv water animals that swarm on the sunnv surface. 



Bird Projects With Outline Drawings 

 C. H. Robisox 



Montclair (X. J.) State Xormal School 



A number of inquiries have been received as to methods of using the 

 separate plates of the Comstock bird note-books. The following article 

 describes the plan used in one normal school with the students fitting them- 

 selves for teaching. — Ed.) 



In our normal school, the "bird book" is one of a list of some 

 25 or 30 projects, from which students in the nature-study depart- 

 ment are expected to choose a number to be completed. This 

 number is variable, the better the work the fewer projects required 

 for the specified total of points. Each project is graded from 

 six up to ten points. An attempt is made to equalize the require- 

 ments so that, on an average, each project will make about the 

 same demands on the student's time. 



Students usually combine the making of the bird book with 

 work in the manual arts department. Sometimes it furnishes 

 the motive for cover designing; again instruction in various kinds 



